Mawazine Music Festival

For more than a week, the Mawazine Music Festival was held in Rabat starting May 16. We had heard a lot about it and felt that some of our coworkers were over hyping it. It turned out to be amazing. We tried to take full advantage and go to as many concerts as possible. The concerts were taking place in 10 outside stages and had famous musicians through out the world. Most of them were free or if you wanted to get up very close you could pay to be in the first row. We first went to Amadou and Mariam a very popular group from Mali. Good dancing and they put on a very good show. The next day, we went to listen to a group from Palistine called LE TRIO JOUBRAN. Three brothers who played Spanish style guitars in a style we had never heard before. They played in the Chellah, which is a magnificent out door place and was a great place to get the crowd involved in the music. Two days later we listened to FAIZ ALI FAIZ which was a group of 5 musicians from Iran. We had never heard iranian music and enjoyed it a lot. We then listened to famous American musicians. On Friday night listened to Alicia Keys, which we didn't enjoy as much as the other musicians. We got up close and it was too crowded. We later went to the back and it was much more enjoyable and we could see more on the Mega tron TVs. The last day we saw Stevie Wonder. He was very good and we stayed in the back and enjoyed the show. That same night in another venue there was a stampede that killed 11 people. We weren't at that show and felt very safe.

http://www.festivalmawazine.ma/en.html