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No kissing at shows in Kuwait. And you’re thinking “why????” Because you’ll get the band shut down. A girl hopped on stage and kissed a popular unnamed Egyptian singer.
Qanas al-Adwani, who heads the government department that monitors public entertainment, says the girl’s behavior at Friday’s concert “defied the conservative traditions” of Kuwait.
The article also says no one can dance and concerts have to be registered with the government. This explains the thriving indie scene there.
Photo by R_O_B_O.
Hey man, don’t knock the q8 scene.
We had shitty bands but they were all we had…cause who tours kuwait?
The metal/hardcore scene was alright (all 6 of us bands) turn of the millenium, and there were some good house parties with somewhat solid rock bands.
some of the best music recently has come out of ‘the spark’, an annual concert held at the church compound in kuwait city. most of the attemts at rap are horrific, I don’t recommend digging into it at all.
You should edit that Wikipedia entry with some of that info.
Well, I hardly know enough for a complete history, but a couple of anecdotes:
Willie, the Filipino in the guitar shop in Salimiya near the giant Hershey’s kiss, is by far one of the best guitarists ever.
The NECK compound in Kuwait city is a hub for music; as a church compound, you can hear tribal chanting and Nigerian dance next to orthodox hymns and alt-worship. And the 3 or 5 bands that the youth currently have going playing anything else.
Speaking of which, I helped out with one of the youth groups there, and it was surreal. A good 60% of the guys were a) in school orchestras, b) good at classical and/or jazz and c) listened to death/black metal such as Slechtvalk, Kekal, Opeth and Children Of Bodom.
They were all killer musicians. But the thing with Kuwait is that nobody’s there for more than 2 years generally. So the bad bands are gone soon, but so are the good ones. My band sort of broke up by default with each member moving to a different country for college.
But the church services and school orchestras are really the hubs that musicians gather, since clubs are non-existent. Shows occur primarily in house parties, with annual battle of the bands hosted by some of the schools, and the NECK Compound doing several musical festivals a year as well.
Probably the best band there right now is:
http://www.myspace.com/TheWhiteRoseKuwait
And that’s about the sum of my knowledge. Except one last thing. On the subject of rap……
Kuwaitis are RICH. So when a Kuwaiti kid comes to a studio wanting to record his gangsta rap debut, the studios typically quote him a price 3x the studio average. Kid doesn’t even blink, forks it over in cash. Engineers sets the knobs and snoozes until recording’s over. Kid gets mix, engineer thanks God for deliverance.
I can’t believe it. Nobody remembers the Good Clean Fun Kuwait Tour? It was 98 or 99. They released a 7″ (10 on white, 14 on purple marble and 9 pictures discs of the Sultan of Jordan in a purple jump suit a la Prince’s Purple Reign cover).
Your collective scene knowledge dissapoints me.
PJ, he might not have been involved at all when they came around.
Yeah, I was there 98-99 but I must have missed out on that. First I’ve heard of it.
They’re not a huge band, so their shows may have been poorly advertised within the country, especially given how hard it is to set something up.
I DID however, see lots of Michael Jackson t-shirts and a couple South Indian glam rock bands. There’s about a 20-year culture delay sometimes….
wow that sucks that u get shut down just cuz a girl went on stage and kissed u. The band must hate her.
Sorry Jay. Forgot to hit my “sarcasm” button on that last post. Stupid laptop keboard with it’s Fn keys and stuff.
It’s cool PJ. It’s hard to detect sarcasm accurately when scene snobs are a reality.