Today Rihanna has performed her concert in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As I've been saying since pretty much the date was announced the artistic/entertainment significance of this concert pales into insignificance compared with its political purpose. The idea of that was to drive Rihanna into a fullscale emotional meltdown whilst she is in the UAE in order to allow Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the managment) to restore the honour to the Gulf Monarchs that Rihanna is supposed to have taken from them. However what exactly Rihanna or even the management did wrong is still a bit of a mystery.
One of the main ways that the management intended to cause Rihanna a great deal of stress was by causing me a great deal of stress. The idea being that I get p*ssed off and start shouting at Rihanna. It goes without saying then that it has been almost impossible for me to get good quality information about the concert. For example the venue (du Arena) has on its website a clock counting down the seconds until Rihanna was scheduled to be on stage. The problem was that it was completely wrong and was instead counting down to the start of the Music Of Black Origin (MOBO) awards that are currently taking place in Glasgow, UK. No doubt the intention was that the snub of not winning a MOBO along with all the award show gossip would only add to Rihanna's stress levels. However it must be said that with the possible exception of Tinie Tempah if Rihanna considers any of those attending the MOBO's her peers then Rihanna is really selling herself short.
Another attempt to cause Rihanna the maximum stress while she is in the UAE has come from that European Monarchy Belgium where a plane carrying 10 parachutists has crashed killing all on board including the pilot. The idea being that with everyone waiting with baited breath to find out when Rihanna would fly into the UAE this would prompt me to point out Rihanna hadn't been killed in a plane crash. Rihanna's detractors - Teyana Taylor springs to mind immediately - would then seize on this to point out that Rihanna's 'Body Count' has risen. There is already some confusion about whether Rihanna's 'Body Count' refers to the number of people she has sex or the number of people who've been killed since the start of this tour so this was intended to both promote discussion about promiscuity (in Gulf nations any woman who consents to any form of sex is considered a whore) while leaving Rihanna with some unpleasant facts to dwell on.
Rihanna's better then that though and ended up taking to the stage between 18:00-18:30 (22:00-22:30 local). Obviously not knowing what time Rihanna was supposed to be on stage I cannot comment on whether this was early or late but the impression I get is that it was right on time. Rihanna then put in what even the local press are conceding was an excellent performance of the usual set-list although I'm not sure of the exact running order. The stage set was of course different. The intention being that outsiders would be forced to fight their way through the information blackout to find out if there was any significance to this. Apart from the managment trying to give the Emirs yet another gift there wasn't.
In order to adhere to Islamic dress codes/modesty standards that are strictly enforced in the UAE Rihanna obviously dispensed with the usual costumes and instead wore a single outfit. This consisted of loose fitting white trousers, a relatively loose white top with shoulder straps and a white hat with a long fabric train to cover up her hair. The only thing noticeable about this is that it indicates that the management are so subservient to the Emirs that they didn't even dare raise the issue of modesty standards. The fact that Rihanna did expose her arms though will be criticised loudly on social media throughout her stay in the UAE and we're all tensely waiting to see whether the UAE's Monarch will dispatch Salafi protesters to Rihanna's hotel to harass her further.
Most of the harassment of Rihanna will of course will take place on Sunday (20/10/13) while Rihanna's in the UAE with no concert to prepare for and I've had a very stressful day scheduled for me. The problem though is that it now seems extremely unlikely that Rihanna will experience any sort of emotional break down whilst she's in the UAE because Rihanna has certainly got a lot to be proud of at the moment. Even the Belgians have been forced to admit that this plan is a failure by blaming the wings falling off the aircraft for their plane crash.
Therefore most people in the business are currently casually waiting to see whether the management will continue to scrape their nose across the asphalt in subservience to the Emirs or simply give up and let Rihanna head on to Israel. After all the only thing that would more humiliating for the management then being seen to lack the courage to say no to the Emirs would be being seen to be too incompetent to succeed in the task the Emirs have demanded of them.
21:15 on 19/10/13.
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