On Friday, April 5, NYU Abu Dhabi student band Shaghaf performed with other local talents when they opened at the Wasla festival in Dubai’s Burj Park. Returning for its 3rd year, Wasla Festival features alternative Arabic music with headliners such as Cairokee, Mashrou’ Leila, and 47Soul.

The band previously formed in Cairo, where the three members – Class of 2021’s Sara Fakhry and Ahmed Mitry and Youssef Azzam, Class of 2020 – went to high school together before attending NYUAD.

“We started off just me and Mitry jamming out,” said Azzam, the band’s drummer. They soon realized they needed a pianist and reached out to Fakhry, who they had heard played keyboard.

“We instantaneously clicked,” said Azzam. “We all felt the chemistry right away.”

All three members eventually came to NYUAD, which the trio saw as a sign to keep the band going and give it their all.

The band’s name comes from the Arabic word for passion due to their desire for expressing themselves in what they describe as “the most common, distinguished language known to mankind; music.” They currently have a single, ‘Helmak’, out on Spotify and Soundcloud as well as an EP in the works to be released this summer.

Prior to the Wasla festival, the group had performed on campus, where they won the 2017 Battle of the Bands, and at various festivals and venues back home in Egypt.

For the band, getting the gig at Wasla came as a shock. Fakhry had met the festivals cofounder back in January and showed him their songs, but had not heard back.

“We moved on and forgot about it,” said Azzam.

“Then two weeks ago, during spring break, I wake up to a phone call while in Mexico. Mitry was skyping in, asking ‘why aren’t you answering your phone’. I look at my phone and I have like 70 missed calls. And they say, ‘guess what happened, we just got invited to open for Wasla.’”

“At first we were trying to figure how to even make it to Wasla,” explained Mitry. “I was studying away in Paris, Youssef was studying away in New York, and it was so hard to make it there and the ticket was so expensive.”

The band reached out to various university departments for funding, but saw no options available to them. The band talked together to evaluate if this performance would be worth it.

“The decision was yeah, it was worth it,” said Azzam. “This was actually our dream before we came to NYU, was to make it to Wasla. We should not lose this chance.”

After arriving in Abu Dhabi, the band had an intense two days. A friend on campus organized a photoshoot for them to use as promotional material, and they booked equipment in the NYUAD Arts Center to rehearse as much as possible. The practice was especially necessary, as two session players, Aaron Marcus-Willers, Class of 2022, and a friend from the American University of Sharjah who goes by the stage name Hussob, would be joining them for the show.

“Everything was happening so fast and so quickly,” explained Azzam. “I finished midterms, flew right in, arrived at Abu Dhabi at 8 p.m., went to rehearsal at 9 p.m., finished at [midnight], woke up and went to the sound check in Dubai, finished that, went back to Abu Dhabi for another rehearsal.”

Their initial impression of the performance was then marred by unbalanced monitor sound, which is the audio the performers on stage are hearing.

“We couldn’t hear each other,” stated Azzam.

“It was really devastating walking off stage feeling that we could have prepared better, we could have done better [...]. We sat in the backstage area, not wanting to go outside because [we were] too ashamed to meet our friends.”

However, Shaghaf clearly had the support of both the crowd and their friends, who showed them a video that Wasla posted of their performance with great sound.

“The people really loved the sound,” said Azzam. “When we checked the video [and] we started laughing. It was amazing.”

“I’ve been attending Wasla for the past three years,” said Azzam. “And every day we were telling our friends, one day, you will see us on stage with the rest of the people. Having that happen is priceless.”