Gonubie singer turns heads
IN SUNDAY night’s first episode of The Voice SA’s season 2 Blind Auditions, two phenomenal singers sparked fireworks on the set and the seaside town of Gonubie was represented when Lira turned for Aston Wylie.
Both Freddy Lalendle, 23, and Marissa Petzer, 22, sang so well that all four of the coaches turned their iconic red chairs for them, just like they did with last season’s winner Richard Stirton when he first stepped onto The Voice SA’s stage.
During this phase of the competition, the coaches assemble a group of 12 singers for their teams based on vocal ability only. With their backs turned to the talent, they show their interest by pressing the buzzer that spins their chair into action.
When one coach turns around it’s a done deal, but when more than one chair swivels 180 degrees, it’s fun and games as the power to choose shifts to the talent.
After hearing out the desperate pleas from coaches Kahn Morbee, Karen Zoid, Lira and Bobby van Jaarsveld, who all want to be this season’s winning coach, the funky Freddy decided to follow in Stirton’s footsteps by picking Morbee.
Spunky rocker Petzer, however, took her cue from her boyfriend who happens to be last season’s Top 4 finalist Almur Marais, also fondly known by The Voice SA fans as “Stilfontein”. Petzer kept it in the family with #TeamKaren, hoping that South Africa’s No 1 rock chick would be able to boost her music career too.
Lalendle surprised the coaches with his rendition of Vance Joy’s Riptide.
The coaches showered him with compliments and Zoid’s rave included the praise that “South Africa needs something new … and that’s you.”
Lalendle lives with his wife Celene in Durban, where he also runs a band called The Subway Run.
The coaches were also shocked when they saw Petzer.
Not because they realised that it was Marais’s girlfriend, but because they couldn’t believe that the brave singer who masterfully belted out Led Zepplin’s A Whole Lot Of Love was the same person who was unable to get a single coach to turn their chair last season.
Even though coaches Zoid and Morbee snatched the two talents who received four turns each, coach Lira scored the most singers.
At the end of the first episode, #TeamLira had three members, #TeamKahn two and #TeamBobby and #TeamKaren one each.
Songstress Lira was over the moon when the appropriately named “Bubbles” Mnomiya chose her above Morbee and Van Jaarsveld.
The 23-year-old entertainer from Richard’s Bay, whose personality coach Morbee described as effervescent, opened the show with an energetic performance of CeeLo Green’s Forget You.
The other two #TeamLira members are Aston Wylie, 24, and Luke Lovemore, 23.
Wylie grew up in Gonubie and is now a full-time performer and private music teacher in Belville.
He grabbed Lira with Ellie Goulding’s smash hit Love Me Like You Do.
The newly wed Lovemore studied environmental management through Unisa while working and performing in Cape Town’s famous Stardust theatrical restaurant, where he met one of his best friends and Season 1 winner, Richard Stirton.
Lovemore won a spot on #TeamLira with the Seal anthem Crazy , after Lira and Zoid wanted to take him to the next round.
The only member in #TeamBobby to date is 18-year-old Rick Jansen from Centurion, the young singer whose career started with a neartragic injury.
At school, Jansen excelled in all kinds of sports – from water polo and athletics to kickboxing and rugby.
Then, in Grade 11, he broke his neck in three places during a rugby match, which pretty much ended all sport activities for him.
Jansen, who says he is grateful to still be able to walk today, battled the boredom of not being able to compete in the sports arena with the guitar that his grandmother bought him.
The young Jansen chose Calvin Harris’s This is What You Came For as his Blind Audition song and the crowd – and Van Jaarsveld – loved it.
Lalendle’s team mate in #TeamKahn is 23year-old Kirby Jo from Cape Town, who is studying early childhood development at False Bay College and volunteering at a crèche once a week as part of the course.
Kirby Jo has been gigging all her life and had the audience on their feet when she performed Michael Jackson’s very challenging Man In The Mirror .
Morbee was mightily impressed with the amazing quality of her voice and was clearly delighted when he turned his chair around.
The Voice SA Season 2 is broadcast on M-Net Channel 101 every Sunday at 5.30pm and is repeated every Monday at 6pm on M-Net City.