Boney M shine at Dubai’s Mixtape Rewind concert

Boney M showed the seventies still trumps the nineties in the popular Mixtape Rewind concert, held as part of the Dubai Shopping Festival.

  Snap performs during the Mixtape Rewind concert in Dubai. Silvia Razgova / The National
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It is a problem when the standout act of a 1990s-themed concert comes from two decades prior.

This is what happened on Friday night with the return of the Mixtape Rewind concert at the Emirates Golf Club.

Boney M wiped the floor with the nearly half-dozen other survivors of that era of acid-washed jeans and pastel shirts. The 1970s Germans disco stalwarts proved that memorable melodies and songs about dead Russian mystics are infinitely superior to clattering Euro-cheese pop beats.

That said, it all made for an ­enjoyable affair stripped of any irony.

The German duo Snap! returned to remind us that the hip-hop and house production of their 1990 hit The Power was forward-thinking for that time.

N-Trance kept the energy up, with the original member Kelly Llorenna still able to hit the big notes on Set You Free.

Just when those bubblegum dance beats began to grate, Boney M showed up to add some nutrition to all that cheese.

The sole surviving member ­Maizie Williams, who still has the voice and moves at the age of 62, tore through a half-dozen classic tracks including Daddy Cool, Rasputin, Gotta Go Home and Rivers of Babylon.

The group easily received the biggest reception from the audience, which made it all that much harder for the poor Vengaboys. Following up such a classy set of songs with the likes of The Vengabus and Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom! was hard to take – even for the most diehard 1990s fan.

sasaeed@thenational.ae