Dur da, dur da, dur da da da da....

You’ve met my mate Fintan in previous posts, he’s a frequent visitor. In April 2005 he came to Dubai with his partner Rob. I’d not met Rob before so was looking forward to meeting the man I’d heard so much about. Fintan was stopping here on yet another flight home from India and was arriving the day before Rob, who was flying from the UK. This gave Fintan and I a day to catch up, and as usual this meant several hours in the bar gossiping and drinking to excess! Rob and I finally met a couple of days later at Traders where along with his nibs, we sat outside, ate and generally had a good laugh. Rob and I got on like a house on fire, and his nibs and Fintan traded insults in their usual comic manner!

Their visit coincided with a most eagerly awaited concert in Dubai; Sister Sledge and Gloria Gaynor at the Aviation Club on April 26th and I’d got tickets for the four of us. The Aviation Club is a large complex originally built for the Emirates staff; it has a sports club, a tennis stadium and several bars and eateries. The Irish Village is probably the most well known and the biggest. In the winter it’s a great place for drinks and food as they have an enormous beer garden. One of the joys of living here is sitting in a beer garden at 10pm in December wearing a tee-shirt and jeans! That’s were we headed for a quick one before the concert. The atmosphere was great, the clientele most of whom were going to the concert were in good spirits and looking forward to the evenings entertainment.

When we got into the venue, we located seats and stocked up on a few tinnies! The lights went down the music started and on stage bounced two of the sisters in Sister Sledge. Only three were touring and one of them had had her passport stolen in New York so was delayed! Not that that affected their performance, they were great and I danced the actions to “Frankie”, to much hilarity of his nibs et al. Once they were done, out came Gloria; what a powerful voice that woman has! She was so nice, chatting away to the audience then belting out disco classics. Of course she saved the best till last; “I will survive” had the entire audience on their feet singing and dancing. For the encore she sang “Can’t take my eyes off you” one of my all time cheesy faves, a great end to a really great night! Dur da, dur da, dur da da da da Dur da, dur da, durrrrrrrr…..I love you baby…….