NOVEMBER 21, 20080859am: Day Off. Not entirely sure how the day will unfold.
0900am: Adrian calls EVITA to collect his roster changes for the following day; Day Off.
0901am: Two tickets confirmed for tonights Kylie X 2008 Tour.
1430pm: The champagne pre-festivities unfold...
The whispers had started about 5 months ago, The Princess of Pop, arguably Australia's most successful musical starlet; Kylie Minogue was coming to Dubai! The rumour mill had been working overtime, Kylie was apparently coming to open The Atlantis, Palm Jumeira (Dubai's flashy new $1b resort replica of the Carribean getaway) with a private concert for the whose who of the Celebritorial World. The rumour then went on that she would then perform a public concert, her first in the Middle East, the following night, for all of those people who weren't Lindsey Lohan (Lilo to her friends), Mischa Barton, or Shirley Bassey. As the stories like this in Dubai often turn out to be uncannily true, we were hoping that this one would also be fruitful in delivering the popstar goods. So she came, she opened Atlantis, and then she Wow Wow Wow Wow'ed the crowds at Dubai Festival City.
A gala event like this, in a place like Dubai, it was always going to be a night that every male cabin crew member in the company would be trying to get a day off to attend!! So with that in mind, we didn't want to commit to buying tickets until we knew we had the night, and the next day off as well! Every male hostie was there, as suspected, which made for a fantastic night of Kylie fabulosity!
We got our grubby mits onto the perceived 'poor-peoples' tickets, costing us Dhs395 each. The tickets ranged from Dhs1000 down to Dhs195, so we figured that we wouldn't have the worst veiw, but we wouldn't have the best view in the house either. The gates opened about 18:30, for the concert that began at 21:00. Of course not wanting to be at the back of our cheap-seat zone, we got there ahead of opening time, and managed to get to the front row of our section; about 10metres from the stage, right behind the lovely folk who paid nearly 3 times as much for their tickets. A-MAZING!
After what we can only assume was a fight with the taxi-driver over avoiding the Salik (toll) charges on the Garhoud Bridge, Kylie turned up 20 minutes late. Forgiven though, she stayed on stage, except for her 7½ quick costume changes, non-stop for TWO hours. She razzled us, she dazzled us, and along with her 10 über flexible dancing boys and girls (hello sailors...), her 5 musically minded acquaintances (the band), and her 2 supporting vocalists (much nicer than saying backup singers, don't you think?) the concert was worth EVERY dirty dirham that we spent, plus more.
In the western world, every concert goer knows that when an event has gone well, an encore is ALWAYS built in to the set-list. What can only be described as the STUPID Middle Eastern audience, clearly are not educated in this "first rule of mega-performances 101". Kylie, despite not singing some of her old-time essentials, said her goodnights and took her bows, and left the stage. The venue lights then stayed dim. The crowd went wild. KYLIE, KYLIE, KYLIEEEEEE. The fools of a certain aforementioned persuasion then packed up and left, thinking she had said goodbye and she was on her way home. Tally Ho then. Not my fault that they therefore missed out on a further 3 songs, that we all knew were coming, but they were too dim to realise. Too late, they were in their diamante encrusted Hummers on their way home. All the better for us to have one last boogie, and one last woogie. I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY, LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY!
I know she would have been tired, but she departed the very next morning enroute to Bangkok, First Class, of course... Enjoy her, Thailand! She rocks the banana-boat!
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