My first concert wasn't 50 Cent, it was Fairouz in Las Vegas
How music gave me a Lebanese childhood in California
This essay was meant to be published on Sa’alouni el Nas but then decided to put it on ice for a while. Hopefully, it’ll be back but make sure to check out his work there and all over the internet.
“What was your first concert?” is a fun question that gets thrown around sometimes. Mine was 50 Cent’s in BIEL Waterfront in June 2006, a month before the July War with Israel.
Except that isn’t true.
My first concert was Fairouz at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas in 1999. I wish I understood the significance of that night like I do now. Living in Southern California means a drive to Vegas typically takes four hours, including the obligatory stop at In-n-Out in Barstow. My parents frequently took advantage of the proximity for a weekend getaway. For a kid like me, Vegas was buffets, casino gimmicks, magic shows, and virgin frozen margaritas by the pool. There were no complaints from this minor.
That May 15th weekend was different though. According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the MGM Grand “invested more than $1.5 million to bring Fayrouz and her 48-member entourage to Las Vegas for nine days of rehearsals, pay her fee and cover advertising and publicity costs.” A New York Times article1 published after the concert says, “the 34 musicians included five male and five female backup singers, nine violins and a Arab instrument section comprising a zither, a tambourine, an oud, or lute, a hand-held drum and a nye, a reed flute.”
At the time, I didn’t know that the mayor gave Fairouz a key to the city and declared May 15th as “Fairouz Day.” Vegas was overrun with over 10,000 fans from across the Western Hemisphere for her sold-out, one-night debut. I should’ve known that given all the hotels were fully booked.
We ended up staying 40 minutes away in Primm, on the California-Nevada border. All I remember from the concert was being in the nosebleed section surrounded by people who were in a trance, swaying and singing along with a small speck of a human that was waaaaaay down on the stage below us. There were so many people but still, the importance was lost on me. My recollection of that night is more about how the car’s backseat window wouldn’t close on the drive back to Primm. I was freezing by the time we made it to Whiskey Pete’s but its McDonald’s couldn’t make me a warm beverage because their microwave was off. To 11-year-old me, the whole thing was a bust and it didn’t register as my first concert experience. It was just something my parents dragged me to.
Very few people had dry eyes when she finally sang “Take me and plant me in the land of Lebanon.” The crowd gave repeated standing ovations compelling her return to the stage to perform five encore selections.
I didn’t know who Fairouz was then. Before moving to Lebanon, her music wasn’t part of my morning routine because my American mom drove me to school. As of 6th grade, I took the bus. She wasn’t played there either, nor at home on random afternoons.
My musical education was much more stealthy and innocuous. While kids at school were talking about Robert Plant and other bands from the 70s that their parents were listening to, I had younger parents who were 80s kids stuck on Duran Duran and Journey. And I had my dad’s Lebanese friends and their kids who were my uncles and cousins a la Richie from The Bear.
My Lebanese family was separate from the one I had at school, even the American half I saw at Thanksgiving and Christmas. At home, the likes of Assi El Hallani, George Wassouf, and Ragheb Alama lingered. I knew who Wael Kfoury was before I knew Rafik Hariri.
While all these tracks are mainstream to a typical Lebanese person of the 90s, I was getting inoculated with my dad’s heritage from 12,000 kilometers away without even being aware of it.
The good stuff was what blasted from the stereo during the family house parties. Tunes from Tony Kiwan and Fares Karam that always had a munjeira, mejwiz, or buzuq playing in the melody. It was the dabke music, the dal’ouna, the ateba.
In 2001, after moving to Beirut with the family, Fairouz began to accompany me on my morning rides to school and Ehab Tawfik would play during the afternoon drives home. It was the same two tapes everyday for 40 minutes, back and forth.
When I started going to school in the same car with my actual cousins (and sometimes theirs too), our driver would play Fairouz and Najwa Karam.
Oddly, even in Beirut, my spheres of musical absorption were like oil and water. In the South, I found a drawer full of my dad’s cassettes. Abdelhalim, Warda, Mohamad Abdelwahab. My aunt would take me with her for kazdouras around the Manara corniche with Amr Diab2, Nawal El Zoghbi, Diana Haddad, Moustafa Amar, Mohamad Fouad, and Hakim. I remember watching Monaya’s music video on Mazzika. It was genius and yet, listening to Arabic music wasn’t cool for kids in the American System. They listened to Crazytown, Linkin Park, and Evanescence.
Until Ali Deek crossed over into International Baccalaureate 1. The same classmate who made me a mixed CD of American oldies was singing along to the same track my dad would play at home.
Now, as more of my generation shed our internalized desire for Western approval and flaunt our cultures’ richness instead, new Arabic music has progressed beyond the pop of the 90s and the nostalgic ballads of the balad. Now, the Lebanese bands that sang in English in the early 2010s have switched over to a galvanized harmony. Now, there are sounds that are gritty, edgy, rebellious.
Music was how I grew up with a Lebanese childhood in America, with a heavy emphasis on southern sounds that are deeply folkloric. I didn’t know how ingrained those early years were until I moved to Beirut and attended 3-day weddings in the South. Until I used Mashrou’ Leila’s Ibn el Leil album as background music for days on end. Until I saw ZthePeople perform solo at a conference. Until I went to queer parties where Arabic was the dominant beat.
It’s why I listen to Bedouin Burger’s Taht el Wared, Skrillex and Nai Barghouti’s XENA, and Lina Makoul’s 3 Sneen on repeat. Marwan Moussa’s Batal 3alam, Cairokee’s Wrong Way Blues, and Perrie’s Ghaneema. They have traditional rhythm with a new layer of electric beats.
It’s why seeing 47Soul in Beirut this June was more than a concert to me. Everything had been leading up to that night. To feel so connected to a crowd, a sound, and a message while our Zionist neighbor was actively erasing us? It wasn’t a celebration, it was a congregation. It was proof that in carrying music through generations, we carry the homeland.
And we return.
Also from that article, “One group of fans fled from the darkened and dripping Rainforest Cafe because its fake thunderstorms intruded on their thoughts about the music of Fayrouz and made them feel as though they were back in their Beirut bomb shelters.”
Amr Diab’s Tamally Maak took the crown in Rolling Stone’s “The 50 Best Arabic Pop Songs of the 21st Century”
My first concert was George Michael's Faith tour. What a voice.