I’m a huge fan of the British Museum, but don’t get there often enough. So I was amazed on a Tuesday lunchtime to find the Egyptian galleries packed with people. I don’t think they’d come specifically for the performance of El Tanbura but, judging by the reaction, it made a big impression.

Room 61 in the British Museum is hardly a regular concert venue. It’s actually the recently re-vamped collection of fresco painting from the tomb of Nebamum, a rich accountant in Thebes around 1350BC. The paintings are some of the most beautiful from ancient Egypt, particularly the scenes of fishing and of music and dancing.

Cue the Egyptian band El Tanbura performing in front of a fresco of a female musicians and luscious dancers. Dressed in a totally authentic mix of gallabiya robes, denim jackets, turbans and baseball caps, El Tanbura are not a folklore group but the real thing. They play the popular songs of their home town Port Said and the Suez Canal.

In his chat to the audience, band leader Zakaria Ibrahim said that we know almost nothing of the ancient Egyptian scales and music. So they are presenting Arabic music using instruments like the simsimiyya lyre dating back to Pharaonic times. It’s absolutely true. On my last visit to Cairo I saw a similar plucked instrument with a wooden soundbox and strings in the Egyptian Museum.

It’s the simsimiyya that gives El Tanbura their magic zinging sound and the way they personally connect with an audience that turned a museum concert into a party. 

El Tanbura play at the Union Chapel tomorrow (020 7226 1686,
www.unionchapel.org).