Concerning Guitars

City Hall, usually the site of adolescents throwing up in the hedges, as they succumb to their first drink on their prom night, or the favoured destination for most protest marches (I believe we should rename these to fun walks or something – I mean, if half a million people in London couldn’t stop the war, do we really believe four hundred people in Durban will coerce Israel to withdraw, or a newspaper to apologise? Yeah – they have their purpose bla bla – if you wanna help, its easy – you arm the Palestinians/Iraqis etc and level the playing field a bit) Anyway, before I drift further, lets get back to City Hall – two things made it clear to me that it was definitely an Islamic event tonight and not some Charou prom night. Firstly – Everything started half an hour late, and secondly – the toilet floors were flooded beyond use – what gives? I mean , while we were busy arguing about whether duff was permissible or not, did we forget the hadith about wasting water?

Yea – tonight, I attended the muslim forever concert hosted by Ilm SA – Also found out that the organizers read my blog, and were pretty pissed that I sat in the two hundred rand section last time (One organizer even told me this time around that I’m not allowed to go backstage – pffft – like that was gonna happen) I gave her this lovely smile as I walked past, helping myself to the appetizers that were laid out for the singers, en-route to see ‘ma boys’ Zain and Dawud.

Zain made my night by saying that he loves reading my blog! I’m gonna change my banner sentence from ‘Angelina Jolie to Zain Bhika! Dawud smiled at me, and he was like “ Hey, how you doing? I see you grew your hair”. Dawud rocks! Spent some time discussing comedy in Islam and my new radio show with Zain, before his manager shushed me out so that they could do final rehearsals. Naeem Sheik from Waahid asked me if I was excited about the concert - I was like “Hell No – I wanted to watch Harry Potter tonight”, but then I quickly recovered by saying that I’m hyped for their new stuff. Ahmed Bukathir was there – his stuff was good. The rainbow kids were good as well, so was Waahid. Zain and Dawud rocked (yeah – I’m biased, but its my blog, so blow me) The only substandard item was this Australian guys bayaan on charity or something – I mean, it went for far too long, and I guess maybe MJ wasn’t in Friday sermon mode or something, but I found that to be the lowlight of the evening. Yes – charity is good. I know that ok – its one of the five pillars! MJ and Dawud Warnsby Ali one and a half seconds AFTER they pose - we call it the 'constipated nasheed look'

Line of the evening – Dawud Warnsby Ali : “The organizers have stressed that I don’t include any musical instruments in my performance – because usually I sing with my guitar!”

MJ