Although the evening's musical selections were primarily Middle Eastern-themed, the performers brought in a flurry of influences reflective of their various crossings of paths in ensembles such as Ritual Party, Maza Mezé and Tasa as well as work with Jesse Cook, Trichy Sankaran and Rick Lazar.

As some of the musicians had previously met each other, wrapping around the stage was a strong feeling of comaraderie which was further enforced when Maryem introduced the band members as her 'brothers'. This feeling of love and brotherhood flowed freely across the stage, out into the audience and bounced powerfully back to the musicians in endless loops, through rousing applause and countless standing ovations.

Alfred Gamil's childlike sense of mirth was evident on his "Longa Jazz" piece in which he created dramatic musical drop-offs which were filled with colourful solos in succession by: Alan Hetherington's dramatic drum flourishes; a Coltrane-was-rocking-in-his-grave sax solo from Ernie Tollar, and finally, a Kenny Burrell-driven guitar solo from Levon Ichkhanian. For the final drop-off, as no solo awaited Gamil's quizzically mischievious eye, his violin sped up the tempo to end the song amidst laughter and overwhelming applause from the audience.

On another piece, "Why are you looking at me like this?", the tempo and rhythmic patterns were evocative of a lascivious chase around a couch, while "The Dream", carried by Andrew Stewart's gorgeous (self-constructed) groove-ladened bass, complemented by Debashis Sinha's digging-deep percussion, filled audience ears with sultry, bluesy intoxication.

Their final effort, "Peace", with it's creative unravelling of layers as it travelled towards a whirling finale, ignited an instantaneous standing ovation, ear crashing applause and a variety of shouts of admiration until the hoped-for encore arrived.