News that boy band One Direction are heading to Dubai has sent a wave of excitement through the UAE’s youth – and, doubtless, a good number of older fans as well. The concert in April next year – part of the On the Road Again world tour – is expected to attract a capacity crowd to the Sevens Stadium.
The continuing success of One Direction flies in the face of critics who wrote the band off almost as soon as they were thrown together on The X Factor, the British TV talent show, in 2010. Instead of quickly fading away, they were signed by Simon Cowell and quickly hit the big time, not just in their homeland but around the world. Unlike some very popular British acts of the past, they have also managed to crack the lucrative American market, becoming the first band to have three consecutive albums enter the Billboard charts at No. 1.
Although the band are clearly a big deal, it’s fair to say that younger fans can be fickle in their tastes. The biggest worry for any parent preparing to shell out between Dh250 and Dh1,000 per ticket when the box office opens tomorrow, is not whether the band will still be popular this time next year, but whether their child will have outgrown them.
