In the week before North Sea Jazz Festival a mail reached me from my Myspace-friend DJ Aphreme from Poland. I’ve recorded a tune with him a few months ago. He was approached by a club scene promoter: if he would know a female sax player so they ended up with me. His name is Alphonse. He wanted a female sax player to play in Beirut at a party and it had to be fast!! If I could make it the weekend of july 13th. No, of course not because I had to play twice already at North Sea Jazz. If I could make it the week after. I was able to shift my appointments. Oh yes and if I knew a nice male saxophone player as well who could come with me and play one of the 2 gigs with me. After looking at websites of my sax friends and looking at their agenda’s and calling a few I found Cyrille Oswald. I met him a few years ago at the Dutch Jazz Competition. We were both in the final and had a nice little chat after performing. That’s it, further I didn’t know him.
Alphonse later explained to me that people in Beirut have to plan last minute because of the political situation which is stable at the moment but you never know exactly. What they know is definetely: Party party party as long as you can!!
Thurday 19th was a travel day, Friday I soundchecked and practised with dj Georgio and they explained to me that I had to play on a crane outside the building which would become erased to the same lecvel as the roof top bar… I can tell you it was kind of scary. I am not afraid of heights but yes, a crane, standing freely outside a building, about 10 meters away from the actual building… okay… to make my appearance even more special they installed fireworks on the crane. So imagine, somebody slightly neurotic like me being put into the situation of a) being on a meterhigh crane and b) having fireworks around me…that’s nightmare stuff, first fall then burn etc etc.. I have a rich fantasy. Well. It worked of course and it was a big succes. I just never had such shaky knees before in my life.
Next day, Saturday, the same procedure exept from Cyrille being on another crane and playing with me along the dj. It also worked. Of course. The party people were mainly Lebanese people which live abroad because of the political situation and enjoy summer in their hometown and visiting family. Skybar is one of the places to be in town, even Fashion TV Arabia came along and filmed us and the party people. At clubs like the Sky Bar money seems not to be an issue and beautiful women, beautifully dressed are average. I’ve never seen so many fasionable and well-taken-care-of women especially in a such big concentration as at Sky Bar. Men are ok, too, but women really stand out. That were the gigs, 2 nights playing a set on the crane with dj and fireworks.
Cyrille’s and my flight was Tuesday night so we still had a lot of time to see some of the country. Sunday I went to the beautiful beach at the city and read a book. Later that evening we went into the old town of Beirut, beautiful and well-rebuilt. We had some nice cocktails and met some nice people. Monday Alphonse took us to his parents’ house and at noon we went to the east to visit Baalbek, the oldest roman ruin ever found. We met some very friendly local people which introduced us to local habits and food. We enjoyed the beautiful valleys we drove by and finished the evening at the countyside house of Alphonse’s family with a lot of great food and Arak, the Lebanese drink.
Tuesday we went to a beautiful beach oasis north of Beirut, it was a kind of an insider tip, no fashionables and fancy people, just very down to earth ones.
We swam and played saxophone for Alphonse’s friends and had some more food and Arak and took the plane back home.
I learned that nothing is like it seems in Lebanon, that non-lebanese people can’t understand and judge on the politics. It’s a great country, there is fantastic food and drink and very lovely people. It’s so european and so arabic and so mediterranean and so different and people are rich and poor and party or don’t party at all, are politically involved or not at all. Very outspoken. Holland and Germany don’t have that extreme opposites, people and habits are a lot more mellow and similar.
As you can see it was a very interesting trip!
Stay tuned for video clips, I will post it soon at Youtube. Just type: susanne alt skybar beirut, and then you should find something….
Peace,
Susanne