It is a quick stop off as we have places to be, but we loved a number of his mad disco tunes when researching the line-up and we have to try and make sense of it all.

I have listened to a lot of music over the years and seen a lot of acts play live, but I am still struggling to put Ziyad Al-Samman into context. He is like some kind of bizarre Schrödinger’s Musician where we are simultaneously laughing with him, laughing at him, not laughing at all and grooving to disco tunes whilst also not doing any of those things. Basically, at the end of the gig, if he ripped off a latex mask and revealed himself to be Sacha Baron-Cohen you would shrug and go, “Well, duh!”

Except he most definitely is not Sacha Baron-Cohen creating havoc. I think the one reference point that makes sense to me is Har Mar Superstar. Whilst having never stepped away from the music scene this creation peaked in the early noughties with tracks like ‘Power Lunch.’ He would regularly strip down to his underwear on stage and it was that same mix of is this awful or is this brilliant? Is this comedy or is this good music?

On stage Ziyad Al-Samman is having a great time, and he wants the audience to have a great time. In terms of how he dresses, what he sings about, how he connects to the audience I am still unsure of how much is his genuine persona and how much is some sort of stage armour that he steps into to make it easier to handle. All I know is that as he steps down from the stage and goes right up to the faces of the audience and dances and sings to them there is an even split between those who are delighted and those who are struggling to hide the amount of horror felt in the pit of their stomachs right now.

The thing that makes it stranger is that he is a really good performer. He sings disco numbers and croons slower tracks with an easy control. He writes high quality danceable tunes. ‘Ya Habibi’ is an absolute genuine banger and one of my biggest regrets of the day is that I had to leave before he played it. Today it is just him and a box of tricks playing the backing. If there is one thing I am certain of is that Al-Samman deserves one day to play live in front of a full band with a string section and it will be glorious.

At least we did get to hear ‘Bang’ before we left. Don’t stop being weird Ziyad, the world is a better place for it.