Planet Doha - SERENDIB STYLLLLEEEE

Last night we continued the Planet Doha shoot of Sri Lanka in the most bananas style....
We covered a giant Sri Lankan concert at the Qatar International Tennis Stadium.
I got stuck at work for a little while because of a meeting (that never ended up happening... go figure) so Christian headed over at 4pm to fill in for me and shoot a time lapse of the stadium "filling up" with people. Turns out.... no one showed up when the doors opened hahaha.
Lauren (the audio master supreme) and I showed up at 6pm just in time to head up to a make shift studio and do a sit down interview with Bathiya and Santhush with Ashanthi and Umara. Check this official music video for a little taste of how they roll:

They kicked some sweet acapellas for us during the interview. Great voices.
When the interview wrapped we headed down to the stage to check out some of the bands playing.
When I turned and looked up in the crowd, the 5000+ Sri Lankan dudes were losing their damn minds. Everyone was up on their feet dancing and going absolutely ape shit.

Lauren shot this video with her trusty FlipCam
I knew what I had to do....
Join them.
I took the camera up into the stands (with 2 bodyguards) and shot as much of these guys as I could. The amount of sweat and man on man daggering was insanity.
I climbed back down and shot some of the bands performing then had the bright idea to take Dale up in the crowd and get some shots of him getting down with real mofos.

Once we got up there, our "bodyguard" was sort of ruining our shots by pushing people away from us... so we made him leave.
Maybe a bad-ish idea.
As soon as he left, the dudes went totally bonkers. One guy was grabbing Dale's hands and hip thrusting all over him. I'm fairly certain that they were yelling "Wet Boy!!! Wet Boy!!!" hahaha
That's when we knew we had to get outta there.

We climbed back down and enjoyed the music for awhile.
Then when Bathiya & Santhush took the stage.... It was on.
We shot the first 3 or so songs...
then waited for the moment of truth: when they called Dale up on stage and made him sing with them. (will be seen in the episode of Planet Doha when its done.... dont want to spoil any of the surprise)
Bathiya & Santhush requested that we bring a full production crew on stage with them to sort of "show off" that they were a big deal.
So Lauren was rockin the headphones (and actually working) and Christian was acting as a boom operator with a make shift pole that we concocted out of a deconstructed mic stand. We ran around on the stage and got all the footage we needed. Great time.
We hung around for a bit longer, shot some more footage, Christian fell in love with Ginger,and we all sweated through every bit of our clothing.
It was a crazy night. Super surreal.
Didnt really hit me til this morning (when I woke up late for work haha) that it actually happened.