From Moonwalk to shoes off
● From an electrifying moonwalk to a soulful serenade, the social highlights this week were a song and dance musical tribute to the King of Pop and a concert by a fivetime Grammy winner.
First up, the opening night of the return season of the Michael Jackson HIStory Show on Thursday evening at the Joburg Theatre in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
Running until February 4, the show featuring a live band and dancers with stateof-the-art lighting and sound is the sort of heart-thumping, bodies-bobbing experience you could never replicate on a VR headset.
And, while it’s been running for more than 10 years now all over the world from Australia to Europe, this new tour marks the first time a South African boykie, Garth
Field, has been tasked with slipping on those white socks and filling the bedazzled shoes of the Thriller legend.
I hear that before each show Garth spends time channelling Michael’s traits and mannerisms, so when I meet him about half an hour before the lights come up I’m not surprised when he speaks to me in a soft voice with an American twang.
“This is fantastic; I have always wanted to bring Michael to South Africa. I appreciate this so much and I hope everyone loves it,” says the performer, who hails from Elsies River in Cape Town, wearing the red biker jacket made famous by the Beat It music video.
And when the show, produced by Showtime Australia (the company also responsible for global hit tribute shows to musical legends such as Tina Turner, Prince and Whitney Houston) starts, it is uncanny how closely Garth is able to imitate Michael as he performs hits including Bad, Smooth Criminal and that moonwalk dance first witnessed when the pop icon performed Billie Jean.
The audience, which included 2023 Saftanominated actor Jason Willemse and his uBettina Wethu castmates, former M-Net presenter Ashleigh Hayden, theatre luminary Samantha Peo and Melanie Ramjee (this month featured on the cover of a showbiz mag as “Mzansi’s top public relations guru”), lapped it all up.
A change of tempo further up north at the Teatro Theatre in Montecasino, Fourways, the next evening for another opening night.
This time the curtain was raised on An Intimate Evening with Lalah Hathaway, a concert series running until tonight in Joburg and culminating next Saturday in Cape Town at the picturesque
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden.
While I should sheepishly admit that I was not familiar with the five-time
Grammy award winner, a quick internet search tells me that she has the rare gift of being able to “split” her voice (meaning that she can sing different notes at the same time).
I also learn that the 55-year-old Chicagoborn singer songwriter is the daughter of soul legend Donny Hathaway (if you haven’t heard his seminal A Song for You you would recognise his voice from his two collabs with Roberta Flack, Closer to You and
Where is the Love).
And, while many — including fans attending the concert — call her “Lah-lah”, it turns out that you should address the singer who earned her first Grammy in 2013 for Something with Snarky Puppy, as “Lay-lah”.
Back to the series at hand, which was a collab between promoter Showtime Management (not to be confused with the producers of the MJ tribute) and Liberty.
Arriving at the VIP wing hosted by the insurance giant, hostesses invited guests to leave a message on vinyl records featuring Lalah’s likeness, and where we enjoyed canapés including prawn spring rolls, chargrilled chicken skewers and bowls of grilled salmon on pea mash and chargrilled beef with crispy thyme-coated potatoes which were both moreish, though the caterer was a little heavy on the creamy sauce.
With Liberty falling under the Standard Bank Group, I had been hoping to bump into Sim Tshabalala, whom I always enjoy chatting to, but I learn that the blue bank’s group CEO was in Davos at the World Economic Forum.
Nor did I spot two potential contenders in line to fill Sim’s shoes should he decide to leave the banking top spot — COO Margaret Nienaber and Kenny Fihla, who heads up corporate and investment banking.
Downstairs, I catch up with Joburg Tourism’s Lumka Dlomo and say hello to the songbird on my list of A-listers to know this year, Lira.
On to the concert itself, and we are welcomed by broadcast vet Brenda Sisane, who says, “It is so wonderful to be able to step out on a Friday at the beginning of the year and walk into an environment where you can be soulful.”
The supporting act is crooner Langa Mavuso, who gives another torch song performance before a DJ gets the audience grooving during intermission. Meanwhile, Lalah’s performance is preluded by a short set from her band, Legally Blynd. The lady of the hour goes on to enthral her fans with songs like Forever, For Always, For Love and Angel, along with a new song, So In Love, which she tells us is from her new album to be released in May. Her performance is so passionate that off come her shoes not long into her set.
I am particularly impressed that the singer, whose repertoire spans R&B, pop and jazz, opted for a home-grown Mzansi design when she stepped into the spotlight: she looked like a true diva in Thebe Magugu’s Venda Mother and Child crêpe dress which features an original artwork from Phathu Nembilwi.
And, as for those vinyl records all those VIPs signed?
They formed part of a gift, along with a Maxhosa scarf, which was handed to Lalah by Liberty’s CEO, Yuresh Maharaj, when the concert ended.