Ladysmith Black Mambazo + Vusi Mahlesela:
Took me ma to see Ladysmith tonight at the Barbican. Got the last three tickets. It was a wonderful experience. Kinda spiritual I guess. It’s hard to put into words. 10 guys jumping and jiving in a tribal (Bill Cosby) manner, jumping 4ft into the air, kicking above their heads, and yet, there is not once a faulter in their delicate melodies throughout the entire performance. Nor can you hear where one singer’s voice ends and another begins. Soothing and exhilirating.
Vusi Mahlesela is apparently known simply as “The Voice” in South Africa, and I can see why (He’s kinda like a South African Shahen Shar). His range includes falcetto highs, barks, lullaby-softness, clicks, rasps, gutteral roars and more; with split-second changes in tempo, tone etc. The music was about romance and also political oppression – aparthied, which he had seen at first hand as a child. If you haven’t heard of either of these artists – I strongly recommend you have a quick search on Limewire/BitTorrent.
Saturday night was meant to be crazy busy, but it was dead. I’d worked friday morning and night, Saturday morning and night, and had planned to go home asap and sleep for Sunday was also to be crazy and I was due to work… you guessed it, morning and night. Instead, I hung around for a staff lock-in til 2am, for which we were provided a huge ham and fresh cobs by the boss-man. Then we all swankered back to my workmate’s pad where we drank cider til 6am. Then I cycled home (very, very slowly), and barely got any sleep before I was back, completely knackered and hungover at work bracing myself for the onslaught of wedding guests that … never showed. Working on a dead sunday morning by yourself is worse than watching paint dry.
The crowds came following the fireworks at 7pm. So too did the guy that got a HANDFUL of chest hair pulled out by one of the barstaff (ouch) and a big black guy who had recently joined a ‘private club’ and had received a txt telling him to meet ‘two couples’ in our pub at 8pm. One of the rugger-bugger bar staff got wind of this and kept sending wave-after-wave of rugby players over to wind him up and ‘help him find the couples’. Poor guy. But it sure was funny. He never did meet those couples.
By this time I was just about ready to smother myself with a dead fish and eat my shoes I was feeling so rough, when the rugby team that was in piped up a bad rendition of Happy Birthday and bought two “dirty pints” for the poor lad whose birthday it was to down. Piece of advice – if its your birthday, don’t tell any rugby players. The first pint, of my own concoction, contained gin, vodka, whisky, amaretto, tequila, tobassco, lime, lager and cider. The second one, well, it wasn’t quite so pretty.
Thank you to my Gwen-spotting minions out there. Your txts regarding her appearances on tv are much appreciated. However I’ve been working like a dog so I haven’t been able to get even close to a tv in days (which isn’t a bad thing). [http://channels.aolsvc.co.uk/music/exclusives/artomon/]
Sometimes things in the universe align perfectly. Gwen Stefani makes a solo video and its based on Alice in Wonderland (and a bit Matt Barney-esque). Case in point.
