What Rocks? Syrian Punk.

A week or so ago I met Ibrahim at the coffeehouse of unreliable-wireless and overpriced-drinks where I like to study. He was wearing a Harley-Davidson t-shirt and one of his first questions for me, after asking if I could charge his phone on my computer, was if I liked Harleys/owned one in the US. He is studying medicine to be a plastic surgeon, because they actually make money, and wants to work in the US because you can have tattoos and piercings without losing all your clients.

Somehow we got onto the topic of metal music, which is forbidden here because it encourages devil-worship and unproductive behavior, as is rap, which encourages an equally immoral lifestyle, albeit in a completely different direction. He told me that if you have a band and want to put on a concert here you have to register it, and if you register it as a metal concert of course it won’t be approved and you might be asked a few questions. (It is not, however, forbidden in other places in the ME and he told me that Metallica and Megadeath were on their way to play Dubai, and he had been to two metal concerts while living in Saudi Arabia—the first was men-only but the second was on the American compound.) But rock and roll is an unknown here and so he told me about his friends who were putting on a punk concert the following weekend. I had actually seen posters for it around the university campus and had been curious to know more.

So yesterday, after my leisurely lunch with Katherine and Jack, I met my friend Frank and a few of his friends who live in the center of the city (conveniently located to our restaurant) to hang out for a bit before the 6 pm concert. We went to the house of Nanju, who I had met a few weeks ago when we went salsa dancing together. He lives in a house with other foreigners, the rooms are on the outskirts of a nice garden/fountain with tables and chairs and they pay about the same as me for their rooms with shared bathrooms and kitchen.

Just before 530 we made our way out the door, collecting a few more friends on the way—Traviss, from Michigan, and Paolo, from Italy. We were all curious to see what the music/crowd/scene would be like. We met Ibrahim and four of his friends and then found a near-empty mini-bus to take all 9 of us to our destination.

The concert was in a venue called Dar al-Fanoun “House of the Arts,” which we found, as per usual with concerts in unknown locations, by following those who looked most likely to be going to the same place we were headed—the two guys with shoulder-length black hair. The crowd had filled the street outside the door and was waiting to be let in. Ibrahim knew the band and said it was their first concert ever, and that rock concerts only come around once or twice a year, as large congregations of people are considered a little suspicious. By the time we made it inside, there were probably about 200 people inside, from mid-twenties and older down to the young teens. Based on the crowd response, it definitely seems like a scene waiting to happen, and the absence of alcohol or drugs from the venue made it authority-friendly as well.

The kids were appropriately dressed with Vans and Cons, jeans, red black and white checked belts and sweatshirts, black wristbands, neon graffitied t-shirts, black mesh gloves—even a girl in a white headscarf with a skull and crossbones necklace, and the same pattern repeated on her shirt. In addition, there were plenty of people dressed like any other Syrian youth just off the street; in Ibrahim’s opinion this sign of mainstream appeal bode well for the argument that not all rockers/metal-heads are devil-worshippers and depressed drug addicts. They jumped around, cheered and screamed, waved their fists and devil-horns, tried to crowd-surf but were held back by security… just a good old-fashioned rock show.

The band had passed out sheets with their lyrics printed on them while the fans waited outside the door, so some held them up to sing along to the unfamiliar songs. In between their original material, (written in Arabic and including songs about the pressures of graduating high school, girls getting married too young, fathers, unemployment/lack of money/lack of future, general discontent) they played songs from AC DC, Metallica and the Offspring. It was particularly entertaining to hear the lead singer call out “I don’t want to be an American idiot” followed up later with the lyric “I’m not part of your redneck agenda” in a surprisingly accurate American accent. And then later, the last song (played twice, to the crowd’s delight) which had everyone singing along, “We’re on a Highway to Hell.”

It’s interesting to see how rock and metal seem to have caught on here, a few decades late but without the influence of drugs or devils, inspired only by good-old discontent, concern for the future and a need to have fun.