1 post tagged “ziryab”

On Monday night I had an experience that had me wondering if I was still in fact in Dubai.

Ziryab

My soon to be neighbour took me to  new live music venue, The Fridge, that supports up and coming local talent.

I went along thinking I would be heading to another stuck up Dubai night, filled with ex-pats swanning about telling each other how fabulous they were whilst guzzling the free booze.

And I was wrong.

Very wrong and very pleasantly surprised.

After missioning out to Dubai's industrial area.... walking past a row of warehouses we came to The Fridge.  Very easily to be mist

aken as another tyre warehouse, The Fridge is a free live music venue that puts on shows showcasing and supporting local talent. It is, to be quite frank, an amazing

Ziryab1

idea and for a city where good local talent have very few places to ply their trade, let alone showcase their talent, it's so very fresh.

Every Monday they put on a free show, with support from local lighting and sound professionals, showcasing local talent. I was lucky enough to head along to see Ziryab (Cassiano De Sa), a versatile and talented muscian from Brazil who n

ot only took us through some of his own music, but through music that had influenced him growing up in Brazil, both traditional (including Hermeto Pascoal, an Albino muso who once used a gun to shoot out the beats to a song) to the more modern, Stevie Wonder.

The set up of The Fridge is one of support and awe. Getting to sit so up close and personal while an artist plays and talks you through their life influences is something I have been dearly missing from home. The venue had such a fringe fest feel to it, from the artist sitting in the front row sketching the band to the bean bags piled on the floor, I couldn't help but to feel like I had walked into a tiny piece of home.

For anyone who doesn't live in Dubai, the local music scene is almost non existant and hardly supported. Any given night you can find plenty of places to be packed in against a bar whilst a DJ bashes out hard house music, but trying to find a small wine bar with a live bit o

f jazz music is near impossible.

But it is changing, with more live venues like The Fridge opening up and a few big venues catering to other music tastes... other than house. Which makes me pretty happy and unable to stop telling almost everyone who will

 listen to me about how fantastic The Fridge. I would spend all my money on live music if I could... I'd spend my last

 $10 on a cheap glass of wine and ticket to a jazz club.

Check out a clip of Ziryab (Cassiano) here... and next Monday you can see Abri at The Fridge for free.