"Leh Jani" by Omar Souleyman

The Montreal International Jazz Festival with my brother. On this evening, we found ourselves at the Bell stage looking up at this mustachioed middle-aged Syrian man in beige robes, red and white checkered headscarf, and aviators. And it was clear he was leading a dance party.

While the singer delivered the Arabic lyrics to his songs in traditional mawwal style, the man standing behind him produced these frantic pulsing electronic Middle Eastern rhythms on his synthesizer. With this brand of "Jihadi techno," the duo worked the young crowd into a dancing scarf-twirling frenzy, hoisting their friends up and bouncing them on their shoulders.

However, with the black magic of these strange sounds, the pair also managed to summon an enormous stormcloud, carried in on the back of a brisk wind. The skies over downtown Montreal darkened quickly and ominously as the ringleader tucked his microphone under his arm and clapped to the beat. Who knows what he could be chanting in Arabic, probably some kind of devious spell. I wanted to cry out and warn the people, "Watch out! Look what he's doing to the sky!" But there was no hope, they had fallen victim to his spell, they were in too deep a trance to notice the threat approaching overhead. As soon as Omar Souleyman had finished with us and left the stage, he bade the great gray beast break open and cover us all with rain. It was Biblical. Or Qur'anic.

And the night was still young.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgRUHIeaKOk