The Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival returns this weekend to keep Dubai’s celebrity-heavy February roster scrolling for days. Among the year’s most anticipated events, this three-night concert from 20 to 22 February brings to the stage acts loved across multiple generations and geographies. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, we have three reasons you should:

Come on, come out to Day 1

Five-piece rock band Snow Patrol is best known for the 2006 soulful ballad ‘Chasing Cars’, a scene-defining track in the hit television series Grey’s Anatomy. But the northern Irish band has a lot more in their arsenal to boast: think ’New York’ (2011), ‘Run’ (2003), ‘Chocolate’ (2003) and the electro-inspired ‘Just Say Yes’ (2009). They grew to prominence during the Post-Britpop movement in the mid-2000s and have earned seven Meteor Ireland Music Awards in their 25-year career.

See Snow Patrol share tracks from their newest album, Wildness, as they launch this year’s Jazz Fest on 20 February alongside local act Vandalye and funk harmonica master Frédéric Yonnet.

‘New York’, Snow Patrol





When: 20 February

In Dubai from another galaxy



‘Cosmic Girl’, ‘Virtual Insanity’ and ‘Space Cowboy’ are just a few of Jamiroquai’s eccentric funk/acid jazz meets disco tracks you can expect to hear on Thursday, 21 February. Jamiroquai’s sound takes cues from a medley of influences that push boundaries of genre and geography. The group’s 1996 album Travelling Without Moving still holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling funk album in history and went multi-platinum in Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the UK. They’re taking the stage with Dubai’s very own funk-reggae/neo-soul R&B group Abri & Funk Radius on 21 February.

‘Cosmic Girl’, Jamiroquai

When: 21 February

This girl is on fire, on point and on Keys

That’s right, 15-time Grammy-winning, R&B/soul diva Alicia Keys is taking the stage on the third and final day of the Jazz Festival. An icon in every regard, Alicia Keys began writing songs when she was 12 and has become of the most influential female artists in the past 25 years. Single after single and album after album have been a commercial success if her 65 million global record sales are anything to go by. Keys is a lighthouse of talent who has critically-acclaimed tracks like ‘No One’ (2007), ‘If I Ain’t Got You’ (2003) and ‘Empire State of Mind’ with Jay-Z (2009) in her repertoire.

‘No One’, Alicia Keys





When: 23 February

Get tickets to the Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival here