Lebanese singer Majeda Al Roomi was spurred Friday night to disguise herself in order to escape crowds and chaos around her during a concert at the concluding ceremony of the international youth festival in Algeria, according to the London-based Arabic daily Al Hayat.
Algerian TV interrupted the airing of the program due to the bad sound system, frequent blackouts and a lack of shelter from rain that fell on the audience on the campus of Hawwari Bu Medien University for Science and Technology, 20 kilometers south of the Algerian capital.
Roomi could not hide her anger at the confusion, which erupted everywhere, particularly in view of the power failure, and the behavior of people who threw fireworks at the stage. Thousands of the singer’s admirers were unable to continue attending the concert.
The concert was set to start at 11:00pm, but was delayed for two hours, which prompted the director of the cultural and information center, Lakhdar Ben Turki, to intervene more than once to organize the situation. However, his efforts proved fruitless. Turki made great efforts to convince Algerian TV officials to continue airing the photos of the Lebanese singer, who appeared very angry due to the negligence and confusion that spread even among the foreign delegations attending the festival.
The Lebanese singer held her first concert in the festival, which kicked off on August 8, last Wednesday and sang before 12,000 of young people from 120 countries.
The Qatari daily Al Bayan cited Roomi as saying, upon her arrival at Hawwari Bu Median international airport from Tunisia: “I have come to Algeria with love and a peace message for all nations. The role of the Arab artist should not only be limited to providing pleasure and beautiful songs, but it should also carry a peace and love message to all human beings including the Arabs. This is what I seek on this happy occasion.”
Roomi reminded the audience of her previous successful visit to Algeria in 1997 and the response of the Algerian people to her at a time when their country was almost isolated due to terrorist attacks and assassination campaigns that led to the deaths of many Algerian artists and scholars. She added that she would never forget that meeting with the Algerian people - Albawaba.com
