On Thursday night, Yanni’s long awaited concert in Abu Dhabi was simply magnificient.
The 61-year-old, who was performing here for the first time, put on a nonstop — two and half hours without a break — energetic show, to a nearly sold out crowd at du Forum on Yas Island. The show was added due to high demands, after his Friday night date was sold out.
The Greek music legend started with the classic, One Man’s Dream, before upping the tempo to play For All Seasons, a heavy bass track accompanied by the trumpet and the violin.
The violinist garnered loud cheers by making sounds with his instrument that one did not know was possible to make.
20 minutes into the show he greeted a screaming crowd with a “Salam alaikom” (hello).
“Ever since I [got] off the plane, I feel like I am at home,” he said. “I can speak so much more but I have so much music to play for you tonight that I would rather the music did the talking.”
And the music certainly did do the talking. Only Yanni can make two instruments talk to each other or bring out a sense of humour through music.
While there were several jokes throughout the evening — none that can be described in words — that got the venue bursting into laughter, the drummer, Charlie Adams, probably got the most laughs. His solo performance which lasted about 10 minutes, was truly spectacular.
The show was a mix of some old favourites such as the Key to Imagination, Human Condition and Nostalgia but Nightingale was probably the most powerful performance of the evening. A beautiful Chinese-inspired song, that showed off Yanni’s genius in replicating the sound of the bird using an extremely talented vocalist and a violinist.
He told the audience he decided to write the song after he heard a nightingale sing. “First time I wrote this song I wrote it for a Chinese flute, because the Chinese flute sounds exactly like a nightingale.”
He said the updated version with the vocalist and a violin was the closest sound he could find to the bird and the Chinese flute.
Each member of his 15-piece orchestra were cleverly shown off, one by one, through the evening.
Yanni spent the evening jumping up and down, running across stage, switching between the keyboard and the piano, and even getting the comfortably seated crowd to stand on a number of occasions.
Known for trying to promote peace through his music, he also had a few deep messages.
Quoting his father he said, “You should never take life for granted. You should try and live every last moment of it. The past is the past, you can’t live in it. The future, when it gets here, it is going to be today. Tomorrow, when it gets here, is going to be today. If you don’t know how to live today, you can’t live.”
Going on to speak about the wars around the world he said, “Stop the violence. It is not the way, it has never been the way, it will never be the way.”
His statements made the audience erupt.
Perhaps what makes Yanni so popular globally is because his music can connect to anyone — regardless of their age or nationality — which was reflected in the diversity of the audience. Be it Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Japanese, Greek, Spanish, or pop and rock and roll music, you name it, he did it.
