Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Guns N Roses & Bryan Adams - in one weekend


When asked how my weekend has been and what I have been up to my answers rarely vary. It's usually "Cleaned up the house...entertained some friends...watched a movie...read a bit ..." and so on... But last weekend was truly different. I attended the Guns N Roses concert on Thursday evening and the Bryan Adams concert on Friday and both were spectacular.




Not much of a rock fan myself I was at GnR on work since I was producing our evening show which was broadcast from the venue. The concert started at 10 pm on the dot and was followed by two hours of great music and brilliant production. I loved their rock rendition of the theme tunes of Bond and The Pink Panther. It was a high energy performance by Axl Rose, with him and the guitarists constantly running across the stage, good lighting and pyrotechnics - keeping the 21000 people strong audience enthralled. Abu Dhabi sure does know how to pull off an event!


The Bryan Adams concert on the other hand lacked the production value that GnR had but that became irrelevant once he started singing. My first reaction on seeing him was that he looked so much older than I had expected him to but obviously that has not affected his music.


The highlights of the concert for me, other than his singing Summer of '69, was when he sang 'When you're gone' with a girl from the audience. She was from Goa and was very impressive. He also performed with an Oud player from Lebanon, whom he had met backstage for just five minutes before the concert began. They were good together.
I will remember this concert as the first concert I attended alone and loved every minute of it.


Dubai has been good for me music wise. Since moving here I have attended concerts of George Micheal, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Sir Elton John, Bryan Adams, Santana, GnR, Nelly Furtado, Jonas Brothers, Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and more. My dream would be to watch Madonna and Abba live and I wish I had had the chance to watch Micheal Jackson in action.

Anyway...here's to many more concerts in 2011!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

How long does it take to write a letter?

I had made a resolution way back in July this year to write a letter to my sister's in-laws who reside in Germany. Having met them when in Germany I thought it would be nice to stay in touch with them after my return to Dubai. Letters would be the best way to do it since they are not internet savvy. For somebody who used to write letters very regularly about twenty years ago this tiny task took on mammoth proportions. My letter writing got pushed to every 'next weekend' and here I am five months down the line without a written word. With Christmas round the corner I have decided to make amends by sending them a Christmas card. I have finally managed to type and print the letter and hope to make it to the post-office early tomorrow morning to post them.
How long does it take to write a letter and when did I get so lazy?
While on the subject of letters I caught Aparna Sen's new movie 'Iti Mrinalini' (The unfinished letter) It was part of the Dubai International Film Festival which is on these days. I liked it, though there are some disappointing errors in the use of props and costumes which are meant to be of the eighties. Konkona Sen Sharma is such a brilliant performer. I hope the movie wins the People's choice award.