As part of my international business whirlwind, I found myself in Dubai last weekend on a compressed schedule. Although I had intended to give myself a day to acclimate to the time difference, my travel agent miscounted and I ended up with only 30 hours on the ground. It seemed that I wouldn’t have a chance to explore this amazing city so far on the other side of the world that I had the option of flying through Europe or Asia to get there.

As it turned out though, I was given a little bit of luck, and the Radisson SAS I was staying in happened to be literally next door to a huge outdoor concert venue in the Bumbershoot style. Playing at the venue was a two day festival billeted as the largest concert to ever hit U.A.E.: Desert Rhythms 2007.

I wish I had known about this immediately the night I landed, because the headliner on the first night was Kanye West. But I realized the error of my ways in time for the second night, which featured Joss Stone. I had missed Joss Stone at Bumbershoot last September since I was in Seoul, but everyone that went told me that she was amazing (and hot), so I wasn’t going to pass up my chance. Joss Stone was amazing, but it turns out she wasn’t the headliner. It was someone I hadn’t heard of before–Mika.

When the MC announced that Mika was up next, tremendous cheering and even a fair amount of "Mika, Mika, Mika" chanting erupted. I was alone, so it was easy for me to get pretty close to the front of the stage. Where I picked my spot, I noticed something quite interesting…though there was a variety of ages at the venue, everyone ahead me looked like young teenagers, and mostly girls. At this point, I’m figuring that Mika is one of two types–Britany Spears or James Blunt.

Before I continue, let me dispell any notions about Dubai–it’s a very progressive place and pretty western. Everyone speaks English. Most people are dressed in jeans just like you and I. Burquahs are present, but not super-common. But for the modern city it is, there are some things I didn’t expect.

For starters, as soon as he (it turns out Mika is a guy) got on stage, it was clear that Mika was gay. Now this isn’t a big deal  for anyone who reads my blog, but then again, I’m in Dubai, and the Wikitravel page for Dubai says that the official penalty for homosexuality is death, though it’s questionably enforced.

It gets more interesting from here…I notice a guy a little bit ahead of me that’s got this rainbow striped belt that he’s holding up and waving around. Okay…again, not a big deal at home, but really suprising to me here.

And now, everyone is singing the lyrics word for word. And it’s happy-fun music, which is cool. But one of the lyrics I heard was, "making love to a man." Whoa. Then I hear two songs which are undoubtedly Christian themed, one around Jesus and one around the disciples. And everyone is singing along.

Now this was a cultural experience. Even now I have no idea what exactly was going on. But I love how my expectations have been totally blown out of the water. I haven’t had an experience like this for awhile now, but it reminds me of what it is I travel for.

It may be a whirlwind, but I’m loving this.

More photos of Dubai

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 4:37 am and is filed under The World, United Arab Emirates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.