Beirut Warms Up

You know Beirut summer has started when there’s one too many parties to choose from on any given weekend. That was already my feeling last Saturday when P…C… threw its Pirates de Cannes and Basement its last reunion party on the same night. But then again like many times I ended up choosing… neither.


Just like churches and mosques get fully booked come wedding season, which stretches all the way to September, so do the indoor and outdoor venues on summer weekends. All the major festivals - Byblos (and Off-Byblos), Baalbeck, Beiteddine, Beirut Music and Art Festival, Batroun) have already announced their concerts programs, but we can certainly expect some last minute surprises!

… As for BiG GiB parties, it seems the official summer kick-off will be coming from Matinée's Circuit Festival, with their June 18th Beirut Official Preparty – location still tbd.

Can you feel the heat approaching?

--by GiB#2. Flyer from Facebook

Bring On the Porno Chic

There’s a new party in town called “Porno Chic” – oops scratch that, it’s “P… Chic” to stick with Facebook etiquette – the new label created by two cool dudes from Beirut’s gayfriendly society.

A first installment in Zico House last month, a second one in Argos (Hamra) two weeks later, and a #3 at the Roger Moukarzel studio in Qarantina a couple weeks ago – feedback says they were all kindof fun and started to build a growing pack of regulars.



Terrible quality phone pic
from the Roger Moukarzel party
but… you get the picture.



To stay in line with Facebook lexicon, we’ll say we LIKE the gayfriendliness / diversity / age mix of the crowd; we LIKE the male/shemale dancers in minimal attire (a daring and rare sight for Beirut); we LIKE the choice of music pre & post general drunk status. And we LIKE the choice of locations so far, although still lacking the creativity of Cotton Candy – speaking of which, last Saturday’s at Cinema Estral with Nomi Ruiz was a blast!

But to be fair, let’s also mention we UNLIKE the “open-bar” that runs out of alcohol at 1am; the unavoidable hangover from the cheapest choice of vodka. We UNLIKE promoting so much the drinking part of it like this is a fraternity beer pong, and trying too hard to convey that trash/glam image they seem to have in mind.

Party #4 is coming up this Saturday with a mystery “P…C…” theme. Scratch that. It’s “Pussy Cat”. Will you make it there to find out what the kittens have in store?

GiB#2 | All Day Sobhiyye with Matinée

It happened. Last Sunday gorgeous Riviera Beach opened up its doors for the long awaited pool party by Matinée. A perfect day in the sun for hundreds of ‘beautiful people’ to wander around the pools showing off those abs (and implants) and dancing all day long to housy tunes by international and local DJs. My hat goes down for the local DJs especially the closing set by Madjam, to the Matinée beach balloons floating in the pool and used as GiB carrier pigeons, and the Matinée logos made of foam passing above our heads. My hat stays on however for the stage ‘performances’, sorry but a well crafted costume alone doesn’t make up for a good show.

The venue was a bit too spread out, and in my mind GiBs and friends don’t need that much 'sectionization' (what’s with the VVVVVVIP thing?!), although it didn’t prevent the party from getting wild at times. With twice as many guys per square meter in the pool and half as many girls at the party, this could have seemed like a Matinée party in Europe... but it doesn’t make it any less amazing for Lebanon! It was great fun indeed.

Kudos to the Ghazal brothers for putting all this together, it was a definite success guys. Hope this is a first of many more to come!

GiB#2 | Two Summers This Year

It should come as no surprise that the summer cadence of the DJ events started as early as May this year.

If two big-name DJs, Carl Cox and Tiesto, are playing in Beirut on the same night (tomorrow, Saturday July 3rd), it’s not just because the producing companies Crystal and Mix FM are in one hell of a dog fight. Everyone knows the times of the massive events that draw 15,000 people are gone, but although they’ve been much smaller lately, their cadence has gone way up.

The reality is, this year the producers have been trying to get as much done as possible before the month of Ramadan kicks in. Ramadan this year is from August 11 to September 9, and from what I can recall from previous years, nightlife tends to slow down a lot during that month. This will leave time, however, for another mini-summer in September to catch up on August… if we’re not completely broke and exhausted by then, that is.

(Photo taken on the Corniche)

GiB#2 | It’s Getting Warm in Here

A few weeks ago I put up a post that was sort of an open call for a true gay festival in Beirut. Judging by the parties going on in June, I think we’re getting closer to it every week!

 As one would have expected, Danny Tenaglia’s gig last Saturday was as GiBby as it gets. The crowd was perhaps smaller than usual, but GiB attendance was massive for this exceptional performance of the gay DJ who went on till dawn.

But watch out: Even bigger GiB-oriented events are coming up next.

Supermartxé, the famous label from Spain, is kicking off its summer 2010 world tour in Ibiza on June 18, then flying straight to Beirut where it will throw a potentially huge party at la Marina Dbayeh on June 19. The advertising campaign is now in full motion. The flyers were all over the place last Saturday in Hamra, discrete yet suggestive... let’s hope the gig lives up to its promise!

GiB#2 | Summer’s Gonna be Hot

It was time for a good night dancing, and all I had to do was choose from the multitude of DJs gigs going on that weekend and the following one. Big names playing in town both weekends, and even bigger ones announced for April. It’s still only March but the cadence looks already like June!

So it was the Cosmic Gate & John 00 Fleming gig at Forum de Beyrouth last Saturday. Another success by NRJ/Poliakov, although the music was not my favorite, and the crowd not the hottest.

It seems like yesterday when we were offered our first true “laser show” experience at an event in Beirut. But today, it looks as though it has become standard for a Beirut gig of this scale, to boast incredible lighting, laser show, sound system, VJ’ing, not to count the dancers, fire blowers, and other aliens marching in the crowd – all by keeping the entrance around 40$.

If this is not just a temporary Spring revival and it keeps going the same way till summer, it’s about to get really, really hot around here…

GiB#2 | Beware of the Undertwenties

They come out at night. They’re ruthless and they’ve seen it all.

Party animals, they’ll take over the DJ gigs till 5am, dancing the night away until you’ve fallen so low that you wonder if the 6 halves of their (local) ecstasy pills might be a better option for you next time, if you haven’t retired yet from the scene, than the pill that your friend brought over from his recent trip to Amsterdam. The undertwenty always beats you.

Carefree groups of GiBs, who flock the street in front of Acid like this is San Francisco. They can claim they’ve owned their Friday and Saturday nights since their teens, making you mess up your math as you try to figure out how many years you’ve missed of raunchy boys-nights-out. No, it’s not that Acid was still a straight club ten years back when you were their age – you had Orange Mécanique. Just admit it, the undertwenty does a better job than you did.

They know what they (don’t) want, they’ve tried this before (a lot), and have nothing to learn (from you). Date one and you’re under the spell, because he gave you some (lots of teasing and maybe a one-time fcuk), and he awoke the big-brother in you. Enjoy the moment, but count to ten. At ten, you’re alone, and you’re down. Don’t expect any hand to pick you up, the undertwenty is gone. Just hope you didn’t fall too deep, that what you heard from him won’t take you straight into therapy, and try not to think of the naïve bliss you felt each time you took out your wallet. The undertwenty outlives you.