Know your artist: five acts playing the UAE in August and September, from Usha Uthup to Christina Aguilera
From South Indian music legends to nineties pop icons, here is who is coming
Dubai: A regular look at the artists, comedians and performers heading to UAE stages. Who they are, what made them, and why it is worth booking before someone tells you afterwards that you missed it.
The next six weeks are going to be busy, with a bunch of concerts lined up and they start this Saturday.
1. Thaalam Beats: Usha Uthup, Benny Dayal and Thaikkudam Bridge
Where: Coca-Cola Arena, City Walk When: Saturday 15 August Tickets: From Dh125
Three generations of South Indian music on one bill, which the arena circuit here does not do often.
Usha Uthup is the reason to go even if you know nothing else on the list. Five decades of work spanning jazz, pop, disco and film music, and a voice that sat completely outside the playback tradition dominating Indian music when she started. Hari Om Hari, Ramba Ho and Darling are what people will be waiting for.
Benny Dayal is the modern counterpart, a playback singer who came up through A.R. Rahman's studio and is now among the busiest voices in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi film music. Thaikkudam Bridge are the loudest thing on the bill, a large Kerala band mixing classical Indian forms with rock and metal.
It runs as part of Dubai Summer Surprises, which is why the price is lower than the lineup would normally command.
2. Lucky Ali
Where: Coca-Cola Arena, City Walk When: Sunday 16 August, 8pm Tickets: From Dh175
He arrived in 1996 with the album Sunoh and a voice that sounded like nobody else working in Hindi music at the time, unpolished in a way that was clearly deliberate.
Songs that you can expect are O Sanam, Ek Pal Ka Jeena, Na Tum Jaano Na Hum and Safarnama, and a room singing all of them.
3. Atul Khatri
Where: Emirates Theatre, Dubai When: Saturday 29 August Tickets: From Dh125
Khatri came to comedy late, in his forties, after years running a family business, and built a following on material about middle age, family and being conspicuously the oldest person in a room full of twenty-something comics.
A theatre show rather than an arena one, which for stand-up is the better format anyway.
4. Christina Aguilera
Where: Etihad Arena, Yas Island When: Friday 25 September Tickets: From Dh295
Nearly 100 million records sold and a catalogue that includes Genie in a Bottle, Beautiful and Fighter.
She sold out a Saadiyat Nights show earlier this year and is returning quickly, which tells you the demand was there. Likely to be among the most sought-after tickets of the autumn.
5. The Corrs
Where: Etihad Arena, Yas Island When: Sunday 27 September Tickets: From Dh325
Andrea, Sharon, Caroline and Jim Corr return for one night only, bringing the Celtic-inflected pop that soundtracked a good portion of the late nineties.
Breathless, Runaway, What Can I Do and Dreams. A family band with genuine musicianship underneath the nostalgia, which not every act of this vintage can claim.
Also worth knowing
Arabic hip-hop heavyweights Marwan Moussa and Hleem play Dubai World Trade Centre on 15 August, the same night as Thaalam Beats, from Dh105.
A Michael Jackson tribute production, This Is Michael, lands at Etihad Arena on 22 August from Dh435. And comedian Sumukhi Suresh follows Khatri into Emirates Theatre on 26 September for Dh100.
