Maher Zain - Live in Concert ~ Mercy to Mankind

The whole family got to see the 1st Maher Zain Live Concert at Malawati Stadium, Shah Alam on 25th February 2011 and it was a wonderful experience indeed.

We decided to go to the concert after 2 weeks of the first announcement made….we thought his songs are very good…melody and lyrics wise, the songs are meaningful and the kids have never experienced being in a concert…so we thought this would be a good opportunity. So we finally bought 5 tickets from the Ticket Hotline office in Taman Tun. We collected the tickets from the stadium 2 days before the concert.

Tok Abah was not very pleased with it since we just returned from hajj but we thought this type of family oriented event was fine….good songs, good music, good people and good performance…not like Lady Gaga or Eminem or Iron Maiden or Metallica or Pussycat Dolls type of concerts!Dini and Faiz were not on holiday week so we had to get special permissions from their schools and the schools didn’t let us down. Dini flew in on Thursday 24.2.2011 after being fetched by Tok Abah and we fetched Faiz after Friday prayers on 25.2.2011 itself.

We went for an early dinner at Marche Movenpick at the Curve before we headed for Shah Alam ….Marche is a very nice restaurant with a unique dining experience. After a satisfying meal, we moved on to Shah Alam and arrived at the stadium just before Maghrib. So we joined many others for solat jamaah at the surau nearby. The ladies were on ‘leave’ so they wondered around the carnival areas…of course they bought some souveniers including the new Maher Zain Platinum CD featuring InsyaAllah, the Malay version!

@ Marche Movenpick, The Curve

Budak2 Asrama enyoying the food!

It was drizzling when we decided to go inside the stadium at around 8.00 pm….we looked for our seats and found them …..alhamdulillah the seats were located 4th row from the stage (AD61 – AD65), and people were slowly coming in. Since it was Friday evening, many people arrived after the concert had started….so it’s always good to be early for this type of event. We saw Anuar Zain, Kak Engku, Dayang Nurfaizah and Ally Iskandar were sitting among us…perhaps looking for inspirations and ideas for future songs.

The concert was hosted by Farh Adeeba and a nice gentleman (don't know who he is)….started with Inteam performing 3 songs, which we thought the music was initially a bit loud (or probably we have not been to a concert for a while now)..but it was okay at a later stage. Then came Irfan Makki, a Pakistani borned singer who is now a Canadian citizen….excellent songs that we’ve never heard before (Mother, Waiting for the Call etc), good voice and singing technique (sometimes he sounded like Michael Jackson).…insyaAllah, we will get a copy of his album.

The tickets

On the stage outside the stadium

In front the stage before the performance

Inteam performing

Irfan Makki

Then came the man himself, Maher Zain….from the whole concert, we would say that he is a very nice guy, simple, humble, good looking and have good manners on stage. He’s also an excellent song writer, probably equaling David Foster who wrote songs for Chicago, Celine Dion, Peter Cetera etc…he wrote all the songs himself!! Although he’s a natural singer, my opinion is that he does not yet have a good singing technique….probably he sounds best as he is now, so why bother!

He sang all his songs from his first and only album, Thank You Allah, except for one song, Awakening. He also sang ‘InsyaAllah’ in Malay version with excellent pronunciation, released new song ‘Freedom’ (inspired by the events happening in Tunisia & Egypt), repeated a few popular songs on demand and requests, sang along with Padi vocalist ie Fadzil and invited Mesut Kurtis to join him on stage. Mesut also performed when Maher took his break….Mesut sang mostly Arabic folk songs, not bad too.

After almost 3 hours, the concert came to an end…everyone was happy including the whole family. We came back, had late supper at a mamak stall before we went home for Isya’ and bed.
The next day, I had a family meeting in PJ at 10 AM, Dini flew off to Kota Bharu at 1 PM and Faiz was sent back to school after Asar.

Maher Zain’s phenomena reminded me of the time when Raihan released their first album….it was a huge success and the support was overwhelming….Raihan was made famous around the world too… these are the kind of music that Muslims want listen….contemporary, meaningful, R&B, beautiful melody….but the advantage that Maher has is that the songs are in English…so he got a wider audience. When I first heard the song ‘For The Rest of My Life’ on radio, I thought it was a very beautiful song (melody wise) by El – Divo but couldn’t find it!! Later I found out that Maher was the real singer and the lyrics too…simply beautiful and I dedicated the song to my wife too….

All in all, we thought it was worth all the effort and we will continue to support this kind of music. We wish all the best to Maher Zain and all the brothers who strive to spread Islam in a beautiful way.

Below are what Wikipedia says about Maher Zain:
Maher Zain (in Arabic: ماهر زين‎ , pronounced maa-hirr zay-ne) (born March 16, 1981) is a Swedish R&B singer, songwriter and music producer of Lebanese origin. He also resided for a while in the United States. His debut album Thank You Allah, with 13 songs and two bonus tracks was released on 1 November 2009. He sings mainly in English, but also, amongst others, in French, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish and Malay.

His early life
Maher Zain was born in 1981 in Lebanon. His father Mustafa Maher was a local singer in his hometown Tripoli, Lebanon. His family moved to Sweden when Maher was only eight, where he continued his schooling. Maher got his first keyboard when he was ten. He later entered university and got a Bachelors degree in Aeronautical Engineering. During his teenage years, he liked to spend late nights at school with his friends where they would sing, rap, compose and experiment with music.

2008: Involvement with RedOne
After being involved for a while in the music scene as a music producer, Maher was introduced to RedOne, a Swedish music producer of Moroccan origin in Sweden. Maher started working with RedOne on some of the latter's projects. Later, he moved to New York where he took part in producing Kat DeLuna on her debut album including hits "Whine Up" and "Run the Show". Then he returned for a while to Sweden where he had his spiritual 'awakening'.

2009-2010: Breakthrough success & Thank You Allah
In January 2009, Maher Zain signed up and began working on an album with Awakening Records. Maher’s debut album Thank You Allah reached the number 1 spot on Amazon.com World Music charts and number 9 on the R&B charts.
Following Maher's concert in Malaysia, Maher's name became the fastest rising name search on Google in Malaysia.

2011-present: Insha Allah in Malay and upcoming studio album
Maher Zain announced that he had released a Malay version for "Insha Allah", having released French and Arabic version along with videos already, while adding that it would be a track on his second album.

Maher has now commenced working on his new studio album which will be released in April 2011. No title has yet been announced. Maher sang a portion of a song from the album without backing music in a morning talk show slot at Malaysia's television channel, TV9. Maher explained that the song, a dedication to his mother, would be a "happy" song, as opposed to the usual songs dedicated to mothers that "are sad, and you want to cry listening to those."