Earlier this month I posted a music video called “Flowers Will Rot” by local artist Tamara Qaddoumi. The track was off her EP “Dust Bathing” which is now available to listen to on different music platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon. So if you’re interested in hearing more of her music, search for her in your favorite music app or listen to her music directly on her website [Here]

Tyga, the American rapper is coming to perform in Kuwait next month. No idea how they managed to make this happen, but the same guys who brought Russ to Kuwait are now bringing Tyga. Too bad the concert is taking place at the uninspiring Mishref International Fairgrounds, kinda feels like it needs a nicer venue than that.

If you’re a fan and want to find out more, click [Here]

The George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing over three nights in Kuwait at the end of the month from March 29th to March 31st. Founded in 1868, the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra of Bucharest is one of the oldest musical institutions in Eastern Europe and they’ll be holding their performance at the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre.

I’m collaborating with JACC to giveaway two platinum tickets valued at KD110 for the March 31st performance which will also feature the popular Kuwaiti opera singer Amani Al-Hajji, as well as 15 minutes of Kuwaiti songs performed by the philharmonic orchestra.

If you haven’t been to an orchestra before this is a great opportunity to experience it. All you need to do to enter the draw is leave a comment below mentioning where the event will be taking place. That’s it. I will stop accepting entries in the comments section tomorrow (Wednesday) at noon and then randomly choose one winner and notify them via email.

For more information on the event, click [Here]

Rules: Only one entry per person and please make sure you use a working email since the winner will be contacted by email. If the winner doesn’t respond, another winner will be randomly chosen.

Update: I closed the post for comments. Using random.org I drew a number which turned out to be 226, and that comment belongs to adribanko. Thank you everyone for participating, I didn’t expect so many people to be interested in this.

Tamara is a really good friend of mine and I have no idea why I never posted about her before. She’s a super talented musician and she just released her first music video for her upcoming EP, Dust Bathing. The animated music video has been shortlisted and won awards at different film festivals and was directed and animated by the talented Pablo Lozano. [YouTube]

You can stay in touch with Tamara by following her on instagram @tamaraqaddoumi

Kuwaiti musical artist Fatima Al Qadiri was recently featured on the Delta x VICE project ‘Launchpad’. It’s a 3-minute long profile on Fatima where she shares how she uses her global influences to create the music she makes today. Check it out above and then check out the rest of the films on the VICE website [Here]

For those of you interested, the Russ concert is back on next month. Originally Russ had backed out of the concert after seeing how much the promoter was charging for the tickets, but now it looks like he backed down from his stance and the concert is back on.

The ticket prices were reduced slightly but not by that much:

VIP – KD250 KD225
Gold – KD200 KD180
Silver – KD150 KD135
Bronze – KD100 KD90
Normal – KD50 KD45

For more information and a link to the tickets, click [Here]

Thanks Mubarak

I honestly have no clue who Russ is, but a friend told me he’s pretty popular so figured this was newsworthy. Based on some tweets he posted a while ago, Russ was supposed to come and perform in Kuwait but then found out the promoter was planning on selling the tickets for a ridiculous price, so he backed out.

The prices for the tickets were going to be as follows:

VIP – KD250
Gold – KD200
Silver – KD150
Bronze – KD100
Normal – KD50

The prices seem similar to Sting but looking at the seating chart of this event, it didn’t look like it was going to be held at a proper theater. In fact, I think it was going to be held in a large tent or hall with no elevated seating which means anything behind silver would have been terrible seating. According to Russ, he’s still willing to come to Kuwait, but only if the promoter decides to reduce the ticket prices. We’ll see how this plays out.

Over the weekend I watched Sting live at the cultural center, it was my first time watching an event at JACC so I wanted to share my experience.

Firstly, I think its pretty cool that we’re finally getting proper concerts here in Kuwait. Although I’m not a huge Sting fan, I do like concerts and being able to watch an artist perform locally instead of me having to be on vacation in some other country is such a great feeling. I really hope this Sting concert turned out to be successful and profitable so that they’ll continue to bring more artists in.

But, I’m not so sure how good a venue JACC is for concerts like Sting. Although it’s a beautiful space, it just felt very formal and stiff for a concert, at least for one like Sting. A concert like Sting should have taken place outdoors, on the beach (like Dubai’s Sandance) or in a large park, like Al Shaheed. The only concert I’ve ever been to which had a similar formal mood to it was Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall, but that was Bob Dylan.. at the Royal Albert Hall!

The second issue I had was with the fact that photos were not allowed to be taken during the event. From 50+ concerts I’ve been to in my life, not once were photos not allowed to be taken. Only one time, and one time only when watching The Lumineers perform, the lead singer requested the audience to politely put their phones away during one song so they could enjoy it. And that’s it. So it was super odd that JACC didn’t allow photos to be taken at this event. The bigger issue is actually how they tried to prevent people from taking photos. If you happened to take your phone out, maybe to take a photo, maybe to just check your WhatsApp messages or maybe you got bored and wanted to check Reddit, the ushers would automatically shine a red laser beam all over you and your phone. So while sitting there trying to watch the concert, I was distracted the whole time by red lasers being pointed all over the concert hall at anybody who happened to be looking at their phone. It was super annoying and it completely distracted the audience who were just trying to watch Sting. JACC, you can’t prevent people from taking photos, it’s just not physically possible to stop 2000 people from using their phones, so why ruin the experience for everyone with these distracting red lasers?

Finally the last and biggest issue I have with JACC is the disconnection between the restaurants and the theaters. Even though they’re located right next to each other, the gate that connects the two spaces is permanently kept closed. So after the concert when we wanted to go eat we were told the only way to do so would be to take our cars, drive out of the parking lot and then drive back into the restaurants parking lot and park there. If you didn’t want to take your car then your only other option was to take a 15 min walk through a maze in the parking lot to get to the other side. When I asked an usher why the gate was closed, I was told for security purposes. Very frustrating.

Overall though, I’m just glad we’re finally getting concerts here and I’m sure things will just keep getting better from this point forward. Can’t wait to see what concerts we’re getting next year.

This is a pretty cool track and video by Altersal, the lead singer of my favorite local band Galaxy Juice. It’s his first single from his solo debut album “Wifi Dreams” which comes out early next year. [YouTube]

Last week I passed by the vintage radios shop Moqtanayaty and ended up picking up a 1960’s Dynatron Mazurka record player for myself. I didn’t have any music records, nor did the store so I needed to buy some and didn’t want to resort to ordering them online since they would have taken at least two weeks to arrive. Instead, I decided I’d over to the antique shops basement in Salmiya to check and see if they had any for sale there.

The first shop I went into had a large pile of records piled up in the corner of the shop. So I sat down on the floor and started going through them one by one. Anything that was remotely interesting I put on the side. By the time I was done I had found around 14 potential records which I ended up reducing down to 10. The 10 records I decided to go with were actually pretty great and included the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Cat Stevens, Marvin Gaye, Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, Fats Domino and more. The buying process though wasn’t so easy. The shop was originally closed (it’s always closed whenever I visit) but the basement janitor has the key. So I had him open up the shop for me and after I chose the records I wanted, he had to take pictures of each one and send them to the owner. Originally I was quoted KD30 for the 10 records but managed to haggle the price down to KD25 which is pretty reasonable considering the stuff I got.

There are a couple of other shops that had records for sale as well but I wasn’t in the mood to go through their piles so there could be more treasures waiting to be found. So if you’re looking for records, I’d head over to the basement as soon as possible before anybody else does (including me). For directions and more information on the basement, check out my previous post [Here]