Thursday March 28th, 2024
Download SceneNow app
Copied

Top 5 Disastrous Concerts in Egypt

While performing in our ancient land might sound like a dream come true for international musicians, we have a habit of driving them away...

Staff Writer

Meglomaniac organisers, delusions of grandeur, siphoned money, fights, falls and f**k ups. Despite the promise of sell-out performances in the ancient desert surroundings of Egypt, we're just not very good at throwing international concerts. Yesterday news came out of the calamity that was the Enqique Iglesias concert; yet another artist who has sworn never to play in Egypt again. Whether it's bogus contracts or broken stages here's a run down of the most disastrous concerts in Egypt...

Enrique Iglesias - Porto Golf Marina - 9/10/2014

It started with a press conference that was supposed to be held on Friday, which was then delayed until Saturday then delayed again, and then nobody showed up. On with the show, where fans near the front got heavily beaten with belts, and abused by security whilst Enrique sang Hero before the Spanish pop star and his manager were rumoured to have been beaten up themselves. His manager has now announced Enrique will never perform in Egypt again.

Akon - Cairo Opera House - 2/26/2009

Probably the most infamous of Egypt concert nightmares. The people who paid 1000 LE for VIP tickets ended up being sent to the hospital because the VIP Lounge collapsed before the show even begun. Akon appeared four hours late, completely wasted, sang for thirty minutes and then jumped into the crowd losing his microphone. 

Shakira - Pyramids - 28/3/2007

There was so much traffic going into Haram, where the Colombian songstress was performing at the foot of the Pyramids, that most of the guest arrived after Shakira had finished her brief set. People had to walk for miles across the desert to get there during a sandstorm. If you could actually find a ticket, it didn't matter whether you paid 750LE, 1000LE or 2000LE; you were put in the same place anyway.

Mariah Carey - Pyramids - 17/5/2010

After three hours of apocalyptic brainwashing from sponsors Etisalat, the seated concert (where you couldn't actually see the Pyramids) saw an electrical fire set alight on stage which Mariah Carey herself had to put out, before tweeting about it. She sang about five songs, and the stage was too far away from anyone in the crowd, allegedly out of her fear of looking too fat.

Tiesto - La Jolie Plage - 5/10/2010

50% of the tickets were fake prints so the gates to the concert refused entry for hours. Tiesto tweeted that he couldn't get into his own concert. Crowds were bribing security and still not getting in. The compound where the concert took place didn't get their bribe so shut off the electricity for three hours. The management was taking bribes behind the organisers' back and at the end 9,000 people entered the concert space despite 1,000 tickets only being sold. Tiesto finally got on to the decks to play a half an hour set at 3AM. It didn't matter much at that point; the crowd were all on Tramadol.