Bluemerle

Via Spoons, the venue, concert date, and the singer who hired the band have been identified.
He links to an article in National Review Online, by Clinton W. Taylor, who writes

"...I am nominally the "news director" for Stanford University's student radio station, KZSU, and I figured I'd help the Times out. There aren't that many casinos in southern California, so I had my research assistant, Mr. Google, take a look at some. "

Singer Nour Mehana*, whom Taylor likens to an arabic "Wayne Newton" (admittedly there is a striking resemblence) performed at Sycuan Casino & Resort, near San Diego on 7/01/04. Taylor was able to confirm with the James CVullen of Anthem Artists, the booking agent for Sycuan, that Mehana's back-up musicians travelled in on flight #327 on June 29,2004.

Taylor was told by Cullen some of them came in from Detroit, and some from Lebanon, and that no fuss or trouble was reported to Cullen.

Taylor thinks that it must have been Nour Mehana, the big artist, and employer of the band, who was the freaky character in the suit and dark glasses who looked like the big boss.

Taylor says "Nour Mehana's band might have acted like jerks on the plane, but it appears safe to say they were not casing Northwest Airlines for a suicidal assault"

Perhaps others will be completely relieved. I'm not.
I always assumed that they were really musicians and had legitimate business in California, since Jacobsen was told as much.

I do not think casing an Airline and being a musician are mutually exclusive, for one.

But always I was most bothered that the only "checking out" of these men happened AFTER the plane landed, and not before takeoff.

Taylor tells me something I did not know:

"June 29 was no ordinary day in the skies. That day, Department of Homeland Security officials issued an "unusually specific internal warning," urging customs officials to watch out for Pakistanis with physical signs of rough training in the al Qaeda training camps. The warning specifically mentioned Detroit and Los Angeles's LAX airports, the origin and terminus of NWA flight 327"

And I'm not at all happy and secure knowing that, in that context, these men could not be thoroughly vetted before takeoff.

As Spoons says, read the whole thing.


*I googled up his name a couple of days ago, ona page of Arabic music videos, while searching Syrian musicians. I think I passed on linking to him because he did not have a named band attached to his recordings, and I only played part of the clip because it was painful to listen to.. But if you play his video clip a while longer, there he is with a BIG, OL' backup band.

I took a screen shot of some of the (blurry) faces - I'll try to get them up in a minute or two.

Blogger is acting up , so it could possible be later.