How the Arab Idol winners held up at Dubai Food Festival concert

Hazem Sharif and Mohammed Assaf deliver while Carmen Suleiman disappoints at the Dubai Food Festival concert series.

Hazem Sharif’s voice was top notch; the same couldn’t be said of his stage presence. Sarah Dea / The National

The first year of being an Arab Idol winner is normally a charmed existence. You have a rabid fan-base, the clout of a major record label and the gigs are normally relatively easy work, with a string of performances as part of glittering regional Arab Idol arena tours.

For the latest winner, Hazem Sharif, however, his debut UAE gig on Friday, February 20, could best be described as character building.

Without the usual Arab Idol tour at the Dubai World Trade Centre this time around, the 21-year-old Syrian had to make do performing in front of a more mixed crowd at The Global Village, as part of the Dubai Food Festival concert series, alongside Arab Idol season one and two winners Carmen Suleiman and Mohammed Assaf.

It was undoubtedly a tough assignment – the weather was muggy, with the occasional sand storm, there were two other bands performing simultaneously in the Iranian and Malaysian pavilions and the audience was more of a casual, shopping-festival crowd than Arab Idol diehards.

Fortunately, Sharif followed the age-old rule of show business: the show must go on – and he just got on with it.

With a set consisting of nearly all the cover versions responsible for his Arab Idol victory in December, his show was a trip down memory lane.

More importantly, the hour-long performance proved his sweet emotive croon is easily as impressive on the live stage as it was on the small screen.

Assi Helani's Beit Jeddi was a highlight. Sharif's interpretation was more gentle and gave the folk track a slight dash of romantic whimsy.

His sturdy take on George Wassouf's El Hawa Sultan raised the pulse with its dabka groove and anthemic chorus, while Melhem Barakat's Ya Hobbi Elli Ghab confirmed that Sharif is most comfortable in ballad mode, with his voice gliding effortlessly over the cinematic strings.

It was a good thing his voice was top notch, as his stage presence definitely could do with some work. Dressed in a grey suit and buttoned-up white shirt, he more often resembled a nervous suitor than the latest Arab pop star. He also kept his stage banter to the bare minimum of “thank you” and “ yallah, clap your hands”, which didn’t help.

Then again, this was how the night’s headliner, Palestine’s Assaf, was after winning the show’s second season. It’s amazing what a couple of hundred shows can do for a performer.

Assaf was totally at ease throughout his set, which blended tracks from his long-awaited self-titled debut album and Palestinian folk songs. The standout was his unofficial anthem Aali El Keffiyeh, which even had the 24-year-old dancing the dabka on stage.

Earlier, Egypt's Suleiman took the stage. The 20-year-old's career has been slipping ever since she was crowned winner of the first Arab Idol in 2012, and her set unfortunately didn't do much to much slow the decline.

Perhaps it was nerves, but Suleiman seemed wooden throughout and she only managed to connect with the crowd in the yearning Habi Moosh Habibi and her Khaleeji pop hit, Kalam Kalam.

With Sharif and Assaf blowing her away with their perfor­mances, the Suleiman camp need to hold an emergency meeting to reverse this downwards slide before it’s too late.