I stopped striking away at the calendar sometime in mid May. The first half of it was painfully slow, but I have no idea how the rest of it managed to come to an end. But it did… and here we are at June. May changed everything.

Life is finally back on track.

Related:
On April
On March

I first heard of Macadi Nahhas in a comment that was posted on this blog, and I’ve been wanting to hear her live ever since. Today, I finally got the chance, and I must say, I was totally blown away (and I am not particularly sensitive to music so that really is saying something). Her voice rings with music even when it is unaccompanied by any sort of musical instrument to the extent that she is even comparable to Fayrouz.

She unfortunately didn’t sing much, but she did sing some of my favorite songs ever, including “Sahar il Layali”, “Methel il Nejmah Wil Gamar“, and “Ahwak”. She sang “Ahwak”, a song I absolutely love, without any instruments and it was absolutely breathtaking.

Great show. I can’t wait to get the chance to hear her live again.

Here’s a video that I can’t stop listening to of her singing Ahwak:

أهواك بلا أمل و عيونك تبسم لي
و ورودك تغريني بشهيات القبل
أهواك و لي قلب بغرامك يلتهب
تدنيه فيقترب تقصيه فيغترب
في الظلمة يكتئب و يهدهده التعب
فيذوب و ينسكب كالدمع في المقل
في السهرة أنتظر و يطول بي السهر
فيسائلني القمر يا حلوة ما الخبر
فأجيبه و القلب قد تيمه الحب
يا بدر أنا السبب أحببت بلا أمل

Here’s a video with a little “collage” of the show:

It didn’t really sink in yet though, but well, I actually have nothing to think about for the next couple of days, and that feels really good. Will not check my email yet… may fill you in later I guess :)
Now is the time to read a few books… catch up with friends… asee3 for a few days… Yay.

As I have had a rather hermit-ish year, I didn’t really go to many (to be more honest, any) concerts during the past several (many) months. But because we live so near by The Courtyard and thanks to their booming sound system and plethora of events, I get to feel like I’m almost in every musical event they hold.

A couple of days ago though we went to one of the events of the Spanish Cultural Week, where Jordanian bands Jadal and Vengo opened up for “legendary” Spanish band Canteca De Macao. I have heard Jadal play several times (once live at Battle of the Bands a couple of years ago), but I’ve never even heard of the other two bands, although the Spanish one is being marketed in town as “legendary” (would be glad to be enlightened as to whether they’re really legendary or not by anyone who is more aware of Spanish music as I know nothing about it).

The concert started with Jadal with their Arabic rock, and they seem to have a huge following amongst Jordanian youth. I must admit that they were the main reason I went to the concert as I have heard so much about them, but honestly, I was disappointed. Although their music is quite excellent, there is too much distortion and the lead singer needs to do a lot of work on how his vocals relate to the music being played by the band. What really impressed me about Jadal though is their creativity, their music is certainly quite innovative, and has huge potential. My favorite Jadal song was “Salma”. That was really good.

Vengo played next, and like I mentioned previously, I’ve never heard of them before, yet they were a pleasant surprise and the part I enjoyed most in the concert. Their music is pretty good, the singing is not bad at all, and they had some really enjoyable songs.

Finally, the “legendary” Canteca Da Macao got on stage, complete with fire-eating magician, crystal balls, and greenery-infused microphones- they were nothing like any band I’ve ever seen in my life. I wonder what they smoked/drank/ate before they got on stage- the energy was crazy.

I’ll leave you with a little video from the event:

For more, check out Khobbeizeh’s video of the event.k

A lot of things happening these days… I’m sorry for not replying to emails, I haven’t been checking my mail because I need the peace of mind until I’m done with my graduation project. Ok, that’s all for now I guess.

An initiative at this year’s Cannes Festival through Reel Ideas Studio is a “focus on global networking and the evolution of shared ideas”, and so what they did was create international 4-person teams to shoot documentaries at Cannes.
My soon-to-be-ex-adviser and friend Tarik is one of the people involved in the teams, and it’s pretty cool. They have their experience in a blog-like setting with videos and all. It’s worth checking out, although it’s in Flash, and , ehhh, I hate Flash, its very un-user friendly! I can’t even link directly to their blog… but what you can do to check it out is go to Reel Ideas Studio, click “On the Ground”, and find the blog for “Team Cre8iv”. After the 23rd, you can even see the documentary they created. You can also leave them your feedback.
Looks like fun!