Gargar on Tour – Day 06: Mon 19 Sept 2011

St. Patrick’s Hotel, Bulawayo
After breakfast, Gilmore picked Toby and I and we went over to the AF Bulawayo offices. We both wanted to catch up on some mail.

Fabien came by with some worrying news. According to our itinerary, we were meant to leave Bulawayo on Tuesday afternoon by bus to arrive in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning. But due to some miscommunication, we were not being expected in Johannesburg before Thursday morning.

This meant we could not depart Bulawayo on Wednesday afternoon to arrive Joburg on Thursday morning. This presented a whole new set of problems: were supposed to check out of St. Patrick’s Hotel Bulawayo on Tuesday morning, and the bus we were booked into for the road trip to Joburg was only available on Tuesdays and Sundays.

In short, Fabien had to find us a place to sleep on Tuesday evening and a bus to Joburg on Wednesday afternoon! He was clearly stressed, but he promised to have it sorted out. He suggested we all spent Wednesday night at his place. I was skeptical when he suggested we share beds and I told him that won’t be possible. We could share rooms but not beds. Fabien assured me he would find enough beds so that no one would have to share a bed. All the same, I had a talk with the guys to prepare them psychologically just in case Fabien wasn’t able tofind enough beds for everyone.

Rainbow Hotel, Bulawayo
After lunch at Papa’s, we took the short walk to Rainbow Hotel, the venue for the nights show, for set up and sound check. The sound crew was the same from the Hillside Dams gig. They hadn’t finished setting up, so once again we sent the ladies back to the hotel and then went off for a walk in town as the crew finished setting up.

We came back to the venue an hour at 5.00pm later to find them running a line check. Half an hour later they were done and we did a quick sound check and headed back to the hotel to rest before the show that evening.

Rainbow Hotel, Bulawayo – Intwasa Festival Opening Ceremony
We were back at the Rainbow Hotel at half seven (7.30pm). The other act of the day, Rainbow Marimba Group, was still on stage winding up on their set. They were a pretty impressive group, playing popular tunes only on the marimbas.

Rainbow Marimba, opening act for Gargar at Intwasa Festival in Bulawayo

The ladies, who had been taken to their dressing room by Gilmore as soon as we got there, came over to the hall dressed in some very intricate red costumes that had everyone gasping. I could hear murmurs from the audience as they pointed at Gargar, clearly impressed by their look.

Amina of Gargar in their red Somali dresses at Intwasa Festival

We had planned the show a little different this evening. We would break into two sets of 4 songs each. After the first set, Rainbow Marimba would come back for their second set followed by Gargar for their second set.

Luli was on fire this evening. She took to the dance floor from the first song, walking into the audience calling on them to join her on the dance floor. There was a large attendance by campus students who danced all through the set.

Luli giving an intense performance at Intwasa Festival

The audience was full of dancing university students

For their second set, Gargar changed their clothes and came on stage dressed in traditional Islamic black dresses called ‘buibui.’ Once again they worked the audience into a frenzy especially with their last song, the funk oriented Sar, which had so far been the audience’s favorite in all the shows. The standing ovation from the audience when Gargar stepped off stage was very touching, and Luli was clearly moved by the feeling of appreciation.

Gargar dressed in traditional black buibui's

St Patrick’s Hotel, Bulawayo
The same cycle repeated itself back at the hotel after the show, everyone else went off to bed, while Shady, Erico, and I whiled away the hours watching TV and drinking beer supplied to us courtesy of Fabien.

Makadem Opening for Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

Ketebul Music artist Makadem, travels to Europe today for his autumn One World-Scandinavian tour that will see him perform at venues in Denmark & Sweden. The highlight of this extensive one month tour will be opening for Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 in Copenhagen, Denmark on the 28th of October.

Seun Kuti is the youngest son of legendary Nigerian afro beat pioneer Fela Kuti. Seun is backed by his father’s former band, Egypt 80, which consists of musicians that not only played with Fela, but were often arrested and harassed alongside the founder of the Afrobeat movement.

Makadem, renowned for his electrifying performances and high energy on stage, is also set to perform at the 2011 edition of Word Music Expo (WOMEX), backed by his 4 piece band.

Makadem who plays the guitar, kayamba, and kalimba, will perform songs such as Kisumu Bound Bus and Nyar Nairobi City from his debut CD ‘Ohanglaman.’

For information on this tour follow Makadem on: Makadem on Tour

Gargar on Tour – Day 05: Sun 18 Sept 2011

Bulawayo
St. Patrick’s Hotel, Bulawayo
The following morning, Fabien showed up at the hotel just after breakfast. He asked me to accompany him to Hillside Dams and go over the technical details with the sound crew.

Hillside Dams, Bulawayo
The Hillside Dams was a very scenic set in the more affluent side of Bulawayo. It was a park with a dam in it and the stage was overlooking an amphitheatre curved out in the rocks.

Hillside Dams

The sound crew had followed my technical rider to the letter, including monitors and how they were configured and they also included side fills. Very impressive.

The-stage-@-Hillside-Dams

Fabien was concerned that everything was to our satisfaction before he took me back to the hotel. This was going to be a family show and was set for 4pm that afternoon.

Papa’s Restaurant, Bulawayo
Gilmore came by later at 12.30pm or half twelve as they say in Zimbabwe, and took us to Papa’s for lunch. Papa’s was a nice diner, which reminded me a lot of restaurants in Stone Town Zanzibar: it had an Arab-Swahili look about it.

As we had lunch, which ranged from sadza (Zimbzbwe’s version of East Africa’s ugali), rice, chips and a range of curries, Gilmore and I went over plans for the rest of the day. We were already short on time seeing as we had to have lunch, go back to the hotel for our gear, go to Hillside Dams for sound check, then back to the hotel for dressing up and finally back to the Dams fro the gig, all in a space of 3hours.

We came up with the perfect solution: after lunch, we would all go back to the hotel where the guys will all get ready and pick up their gear and head off to Hillside Dams for set up, sound check, and the show in the afternoon. The ladies would be left behind at the hotel where they would clean up and get dressed for the show. The guys will be dropped off at the Dams and the ladies would be picked up an hour later when everything was ready for the show.

Hillside Dams, Bulawayo – Showtime
Even though we tried our best and had everything ready as fast as we could, we were an hour late to start the show at 5.00pm.

The turnout was around 120 people, which according to Gilmore wasn’t bad for a ‘Makiwa’ (the Ndebele slang for white folks) audience.

As always, Gargar gave a stellar performance and had everyone up on their feet dancing with them at their last number.

The audience joins Gargar for a dance

After the show, people flocked at the backstage area clamoring for pictures with the ladies who were by now getting used to all the attention they were drawing and were happy to oblige.

Gargar backstage with Fans @ The Hillside Dams

Frustration creeped in amongst the ranks later when we had to wait for an hour for our transportation back to the hotel. Gilmore was at pains to explain the delay was because they had approximated the show would end much later than it did, thus they had asked the driver to come by an hour later. We tried our best to while away the time swapping stories and jokes with the ladies who had by now fully opened up to us.

Papa’s Restaurant, Bulawayo
We went straight from Hillside Dams to Papa’s for diner. We didn’t have long to wait for our food as we had placed our orders for diner over lunch.

St. Patrick’s Hotel, Bulawayo
Back at the hotel after diner, everyone else apart from Gilmore, Shady, Erico and I opted to retire for the night. It was pretty obvious now that Erico, Shady and I were the outgoing ones in the bunch. Gilmore told us there might be a nightspot or two worth visiting for a drink that night, and we were only too glad to go for the excursion.

St. Patrick’s Hotel, Bulawayo
Back at the hotel after diner, everyone else apart from Gilmore, Shady, Erico and I opted to retire for the night. It was pretty obvious now that Erico, Shady and I were the outgoing ones in the bunch. Gilmore told us there might be a nightspot or two worth visiting for a drink that night, and we were only too glad to go for the excursion.

Ayoba, Bulawayo by Night
We took a short walk into Bulawayo CBD to a place called Ayoba where we met one of the memorable characters of this tour. Babongile was Gilmore’s friend and the owner of Ayoba, one hell of a crazy dude. He immediately made it his duty to entertain us, his Kenyan ‘brothers’ as he introduced as to all his friends.

We knew we were in for a long night when Babongile said, “… you guys are drinking too slowly, you better catch up coz I buy fast!”

A few drinks down the line and Babongile suggested we go to another club that he runs in the other side of town. A few drinks later at the spot and we were all finally giving in to sleep. We finally gave in to the weariness and called it a night.

Gargar on Tour – Day 03: Fri 16 Sep 2011

Courtney Hotel, Harare
Because I had woken up pretty early the day before, coupling that with the fact that it had turned out to be a busy day, I was particularly tired the following morning. I was in no hurry to get out of bed, and only did so to make it in time for breakfast before the restaurant was closed. We were all taking it easy this morning and we all made it to the dining room for breakfast at the same time.

This was going to be an easy day in a sense because we did not have to go for sound check. Since we were the only band playing again tonight, the sound set up would be left the same as the previous night’s set up. The only addition would be a deejay set which only requires 2 channels on the sound desk.

Luli and the ladies retired back to their room to rest some more, while the rest of us went over to laze by the pool (again miraculously discovered by Toby). The sun was out and the stories were in plenty. Before we knew it, it was already half past one in the afternoon!

I took some time to update this report as I waited for the guys to dash back to the rooms and freshen up before we all headed out for lunch.

Alliance Française, Harare
After Lunch, Toby, Mathew (the drummer) and I headed off to AF Harare. Charles introduced as to Kid Fonque (South African deejay) who was going to play his set after Gargar at the Funkalicious show later that evening.

We ended up browsing for the better part of the afternoon.

Courtney Hotel, Harare
We went back to the hotel to have a few hours rest before the show. Showtime for us was 10.30pm, so we had quite a bit of time to ourselves.

Amina was developing a toothache and I had to get her painkillers to try ease the pain. I hoped it wont develop into a problem and keep her from singing that night.

Maarufu, time conscious as always, was there at 9.00pm to start the 3 trips to transfer us to AF Harare for the show.

Alliance Française, Harare – Funkalicious
The AF Harare grounds were busier than the previous night. The turn out was much higher, and there were food stands that were not there the night before. The dressing rooms were pretty much the same as the previous night: fruits water and wine. Charles kept popping in and out just to make sure we were okay.

There was a local deejay on set playing an interesting fusion of South African dance music accompanied by a live saxophonist. When he was done, we had a few minutes to plug in the instruments and do a quick line check. There was no need for a sound check since we were using the same set as we did the night before, and again we were the only band for the night.

Comrade Fatso (renown Zimbabwean artist and MC for the night) did a good job of introducing Gargar. You could feel the anticipation in the audience. And when the ladies stepped on stage dressed in their black hijabs, everyone moved closer to the stage, already applauding them.

When the ladies began to sing, it was obvious that this was going to be a special night. The audience was in high spirits dancing and cheering Gargar from the first note they sang. The ladies and the band picked the energy off the crowd and it seemed to feed their psyche. They in turn gave the audience all they had, and the snowball effect kept growing and growing into one big avalanche of an exciting performance.

Vusa had also done his homework, and the sound was crystal clear this evening. You could hear a pin drop on stage. I had given him a copy of Garissa Express after the previous show, and he told me later that listening to it had given him get a sense of what Gargar’s sound was supposed to be.

Once again the ladies took to the dance floor at the climax of their final number. The audience went crazy with everyone jostling for a chance to dance with the ladies.

Afterwards, we all went to chill out at the VIP backstage area. Maarufu plied us with drinks for the rest of the night. Luli, Amina and Anab were pretty happy and I was surprised to see them on and off the dance floor, dancing the night away. Asha on the other hand was tired and preferred to sit in the VIP area.

We all later retired back to the hotel at different intervals. All in all, this was definitely one of the most memorable performances by Gargar that I have seen yet.