DEIR AL-QAMAR: An intrigued audience gathered under the near-full moon. Multiple amplifiers were tested to the max as the six musicians extracted an array of unconventional sounds from their instruments. Some dismissed the audio barrage before them as white noise. Others acclaimed it as brilliance. Estivales, Deir al-Qamar’s summer music festival, went underground Saturday night with “Beirut Rocks on the Moon.” The concert featured Scrambled Eggs, Youmna Saba, Mashrouaa Leila and The Incompetents, four bands associated with what is frequently termed Beirut’s underground music scene.
The first rock to strike the moon was that of Scrambled Eggs, whose post-punk stylings have been associated with the emergence of a progressive music scene in Lebanon. Many have seen their efforts as an attempt to drown out the sounds of political turmoil with those of politically-conscious music.
Anyone expecting the band’s usual post-punk sound was in for a surprise, since Charbel Haber, Tony Elieh and Malek Rizkallah (the band’s central trio) were joined on stage by free improv musicians Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui and Raed Yassin – Haber’s fellow stalwarts from Irtijal, Beirut’s international Experimental Music Festival.
Rather than being thrashed in rock-star style, guitars were laid across the musicians’ laps and romanced with a bizarre array of appendages to pull Scrambled Eggs’ audience out of its speed metal comfort zone.
Haber’s lead guitar was wielded with screwdrivers, a wrench and pliers, while trumpet-player Mazen Kerbaj made extraordinary sounds with tupperware and a balloon.
Some songs eerily resembled the cries of marine mammals. Others echoed the soundtrack of a TV documentary. The chaos betrayed subtle signs of organization: Throughout the delicious cacophony, there was always a beginning and an end.
Playing the guitar like a harp or a xylophone, Scrambled Eggs managed to cook up a polyphonic platter of psychedelic fun.
Next on the agenda were Youmna Saba and Fadi Tabbal, who put on a charming performance in Deir al-Qamar’s Serail. Saba’s subdued vocals were accompanied by acoustic guitar, harmonica, and the trill of a tin whistle.
The singer’s contemporary classical repertoire was performed in collaboration with Tabbal on guitar, drums, and xylophone. Saba’s delicate yet expressive voice took on a different character with each song and frequently utilized different tonalities within the same song.
The duo crafted a mélange of sounds using an array of percussion instruments, marking a welcome addition to the evening’s entertainment.
Following the serenity of Saba and Tabbal’s performance, hordes began to gather in front of the main stage in Place Dany Chamoun. Amid the rising excitement, seven musicians took their places behind a bonanza of instruments.
Hamed Sinno, lead vocalist of Mashrouaa Leila, was joined by Haig Papazian on violin, Omaya Malaeb on keyboard, Car Gerges on drums, Ibrahim Badr on bass, and Firas Abou Fakhr and Andre Chedid on guitars.
Opening the set with a tape recorder playing scratchy beats against the microphone, Sinno played with a variety of effects. At various junctures he called out through a megaphone, stirring the audience with a lively Arabic-gypsy-rock mash-up.
Underneath the stars, the atmosphere was electric and the audience high on reciprocated energy. Papazian’s violin rang over Deir al-Qamar’s historic stone buildings, while Chedid shook up some thrilling drum solos, sometimes segueing from one song into the next.
At one point the collective was joined by Yassin Kassen of I-Voice, the Palestinian rap duo. The combination of Kassen’s riveting verses and Sinno’s alluring voice threw a fantastic twist into the set.
This collective of fresh graduates from the American University of Beirut have already acquired a devoted local fan base. This popularity could be down to the band’s unique sound, difficult to tie down into a musical genre. Or perhaps it’s their phenomenal stage presence that stimulates the adoration of audiences.
Either way, this band is a valuable addition to the Lebanese music scene.
The dynamic musical troop The Incompetents ended the evening. Place Dany Chamoun had lost a few of its patrons as the night wore on, yet the shoeless lead vocalist, Serge Yared, remained resolute and mounted the stage with enviable zeal.
The Incompetents strolled in and out of various musical genres. Some songs majored in mellow harmonicas while others were equipped with death metal tendencies.
A solid group of fans swayed around to Yared’s yodeling. In spite of Yared’s winsome banter, which papered over the cracks of initial technical failures, the fragile power connection finally failed, prematurely ending an otherwise magical night.
