New top music tour destination: Damascus
| Damascus, Syria
鈥� A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
Syria鈥檚 ancient capital is hardly the usual venue for an international band on tour. Partly due to its negative image in the West and partly because it is uncharted territory for foreign musicians, pop-loving Syrians have long been resigned to traveling to neighboring Lebanon or Jordan to watch their favorite international artists. Now that鈥檚 changing.
This summer saw pioneering dance DJs making inroads. Legendary Dutch trance-music producer Ferry Corsten was one of the first. 鈥淭he Syrian crowd was amazing,鈥� he says. 鈥淓veryone should go and play there.鈥�
Fresh from a summer schedule headlining the Coachella (Calif.), Glastonbury (England), and Benecassim (Spain) music festivals, Gorillaz 鈥� the genre-defying animated brainchild of former Blur front man Damon Albarn 鈥� recently performed in Damascus鈥檚 medieval citadel, giving Syria its first taste of an international rock show. Among the 60-strong band were Bobby Womack, De La Soul, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash, Bootie Brown, and the Syrian National Orchestra for Arab Music, but no one really knew what sort of crowd would show up. 鈥淚n London we play to 100,000, but here we鈥檇 be happy if 10 people turned up,鈥� Mr. Albarn said before the concert. 鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping to start a dialogue between Arab and Western musicians, that鈥檚 all.鈥�
Thousands attended. 鈥淭hat was so surreal,鈥� said Bassel Harwil, a college student. 鈥淚 just hope we get more of these.鈥�
They might. Event promoter Naji Baz declared it a success: 鈥淭he crowd response was better than anyone had hoped; there鈥檚 definitely a market here for more.鈥�
