As American singer Beyonce set a placid Egyptian resort on fire, elation spread among her international audience, writes Mahmoud Bakr A few days ago I was in Port Ghalib, a splendid resort in Marsa Alam that has been declared a natural protected area, attending the 21st meeting of signatories to the Montreal Protocol. As you might expect, the meeting was all about workshops, lectures and brainstorming sessions. Then a colleague suggested that we go to a concert by the American singer Beyonce. People of all nationalities, he said, were flying in to see Beyonce give her first-ever concert in Africa or the Middle East. I am not used to this kind of thing. Now in my 40s, I have never even gone to a pop concert. Apart from a few concerts by the Arab Music Troupe and the occasional show at the Opera House, my musical experience has been rather limited. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a go. At six in the evening, I shed my suit and tie for jeans and sneakers and drove the 40km to the concert venue. This was to begin at 10.30, but we had been told to be there by 8.30 at the latest. I thought I would be the first one there, but even at seven, when I arrived, there were already some 500 young people in the grounds. The venue was high-tech, well-organised and well-policed. Dignitaries from Cairo were expected to attend, and extra flights had been arranged for the occasion. Charter planes were also coming from Kuwait. There were no seats in the "silver ticket" zone, the cheapest ticket area in which I had booked. After an hour or so of waiting, I surrendered to fatigue and sat down on the ground. It was three hours before the concert was due to begin, and the audience was still coming. My guess is that about 4,000 people showed up for the concert. According to the organisers, Beyonce charged nearly LE8 million ($1.5 million) for the performance, in addition to bed and board for her team of artists, numbering 100 in total. Beyonce was also allowed to bring her own audio and lighting equipment, flown in on a special plane one day before. An advance team of assistants came before the singer to prepare the venue. Her own chef supervised the preparation of meals for the musicians. Several public figures were present at the concert, including Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Maged George and the businessmen Naguib and Samih Sawiris. At first, the rich and famous sat in a special viewing section, good to watch but not so great to mingle. As the concert got going, many of them abandoned their location and moved closer to the stage. At exactly nine, the lights were dimmed and I saw what seemed to be a flying saucer approaching from afar. This turned out to be a balloon painted like a female face, with a dancer performing from an attached rope. There followed another balloon bearing the face of an elderly man, with a dancer attached as well. The two balloons met in midair as fireworks went off and the crowds got wild. As the fireworks tapered off, the two balloons circled over the audience, and the dancing began. Apparently, the two balloons were supposed to symbolise the earth and global warming, the white balloon referring to a healthy planet and the red to a troubled one. This was a nod to the meeting in Port Ghalib, the subject of which was global warming. Having danced a bit, along with everyone around me, I got out my video camera and began filming the scene for my children to view later. The first part of the show lasted for an hour or so. As Beyonce herself prepared to go on stage, the audience went into a frenzy, one that I must admit was new to me. I have heard a lot about what pop music can do to the human soul, but this was my first experience of the phenomenon at close quarters. Beyonce has a big voice, and she filled the space with an explosion of sound and colour. An acoustic fury had been unleashed. "I'm Sasha fierce," she sang, the lyrics matching Beyonce's throaty performance. An eruption of applause started, at times ebbing into rhythmic clapping and at times climaxing into furious uproar. In the next hour and a half, the Texas-born crooner went through an ecstatic repertoire blending romance with politics. She sang about America's past of segregation and exulted in Obama's election. The songs were accompanied by a dazzling video show of old and new films documenting historical material. She sang eight songs, and during that time changed her outfit six times. On average, it took her less than one minute to switch garments. Whipped into rapture, the audience chanted her name. Behind me, a group of Kuwaiti teenagers were shouting, "we love you, Beyonce!" Gracefully, she acknowledged them after she had ended her song, saying that this was the first time she had enjoyed such a boisterous reception. Then she sang some more, the audience clapping and some people recording the event on video. Standing next to me was Hanan Fikri, a reporter for the newspaper Watani. She suddenly took out her mobile phone and made a call. Strange, I thought, till I figured out that she was talking to her son. But not just talking: she was showing him the stage through a videophone call. I should get me one of those, I thought. My son would have loved it. He knew that Beyonce was coming, and he had begged me to let him come along, but I left him at home. Frankly, it would have been too costly to bring him. Aside from the cost of flying and accommodation, tickets for the concert were not cheap. In my Silver Zone section they were already LE250 ($45) a piece. In other zones tickets went for LE1,000 ($180) or LE2,000 ($360). A police presence was visible at the event, but everything went smoothly, not even a brawl. At the end of the concert, Beyonce sang a song to the soul of the late pop singer Michael Jackson, a sad song as it turned out. Then she sang one last cheerful song and came down from the stage and shook hands with some fans. Leaving the concert, I found myself feeling strangely elated. I had thought that my taste in music was of a more dignified genre, but I may have been wrong. This was boisterous, crazy, enchanting and infinitely pleasurable.
