This is a call to all music aficionados in the UAE. Come Wednesday, The Theatre in Mall of the Emirates has a treat for you.
UAE-based musicians are collaborating for a night of classical and acoustic rock.
Nikhil Uzgare, the first independent artist to be singed on to Universal ME, explains: “The songs that we are performing are mainly anthems which people know, because this is a concert we don’t want to perform songs that are obscure. Songs from bands like AHA, Simple Minds, Police. Mainstream rock from the 80s-90s.”
This he hopes will also mean introducing classics to a whole to generation. These are numbers after all that everyone can groove to. His song list includes AHA’s Take on Me, Billy Jean (Michael Jackson) and Whitesnakes’ Is this Love?’. Oh, and a Hindi original so people “can sample what Hindi music is all about”.
Singer Wim Hoste calls the evening one of relaxed entertainment. His set list includes ‘What a wonderful World’, ‘Fly me to the moon’, ‘All I ask of you’ ( ‘Phantom of the Opera’ ), TIme to say Goodbye. He will be joined by Clarrisa Zaruk (piano), Annekatrien Van Wassenhove, and pianist Ivan Kovalenko.
The global pandemic has taken a terrible toll on entertainment venues and artists alike, but it is during this time that Hoste has evolved his mode of delivery. The future of performance, he said in an earlier interview with Gulf News, is “The combination of having a social distancing audience which is live. [For example] those [venues that] have 2,000 seats will maybe have 50 [people on site]. But the 50 seats will be paid [for] of course, but [at a] higher price and then at a very low price people can livestream it.”
This upcoming concert however is heading back to the days of head banging and moving to the beat of a live drum. It’s a return to a time of the golden oldies - when nothing else mattered except the song.
Long live music.
Don't miss it!
Tickets to 'A Night of Classical and Acoustic Rock', which runs at The Theatre at Mall of the Emirates, start at Dh60. The 90-minute show starts at 8pm.
