Abi:original - If you aren't original, what are you?

When singing, dancing and acting are all rolled in to one artist, it almost seems unreal. Award winning artist, Ricky Martin is all this and much more. On his first concert in Dubai, he certainly had us swaying to his tunes and literally transfixed. "It has taken me 17 years to be at this front line to watch Ricky Martin sing live, and today that wish has come true," says Hosam. This Iranian fan has flown all the way and paid handsomely, just to see one of his biggest idols in person. It is 12. 30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and the sensational Puerto Rican artist Ricky Martin has just left the stage after 180 minutes of singing and dancing. It’s a night like no other for me. Not only am I covering the Dubai Jazz Festival, an event that's personally close to my heart because it promotes music, we are also given the rare priviledge to go up close for the first three songs of the show. When he first hits the stage the screaming fans don't know q...

SoundCloud Audio by Abigail Mathias A travel piece on Turkey that also featured on the mygola blog...http://www.mygola.com/blog/?p=97 Music holds the key to my soul. When it comes to a live music concert, I’m usually pretty kicked to attend. Hitching a train from Bombay to Bangalore for a Roger Waters’ concert with a bunch of office colleagues, including my boss, is certainly a memory I’m waiting to relate to my kids. Eight years and two children later, one of the biggest acts in music history and certainly in my book, were headed this way. I couldn’t believe it. U2 was in town. Ok so they weren’t particularly in my town but they were going to be somewhere in the vicinity. Actually they were going to be a four-hour flight away in Istanbul but hey, it was a great opportunity to see Istanbul as well, right. Luckily my amazing husband, agreed. Of course a few people thought I was insane to take a five-month-old baby on a vacation. What they didn’t understand was that I...

Girl power reached new heights on 12th May 2005. It was a night when Destiny's Child, the biggest selling girl band of our time set the stage on fire. A string of dancers of top class quality, a live band that knew no stopping and a trio of singers that left everyone breathless. The UAE has never seen a performance of this proportion and it will be a long time before someone pushes the limits further. They are truly a tough act to follow. Bootylicious Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams performed to a packed audience at Dubai Media City. They have been vowing audiences all over the world on their most recent tour. Residents of the UAE could not believe their good fortune. What was even more significant was that the mood was set a month before the concert date. It was the first time that tickets were sold out a month before the performance. "It is unprecedented that a ticket category has sold out so early", commented Thomas Ovesen, General Manager Mirage P...