Zahara, Mole head to summer festival
POP artist Matthew Mole and Afro-soul superstar Zahara are two big acts lined up for the SPAR Delight in Summer Festival at various venues in Nelson Mandela Bay, with Mole in action tonight.
Mole is a singer-songwriter from Cape Town, who made history when he became the first local artist to top the iTunes album chart with his debut collection, The Home We Built.
He will be on stage at the Movie and Carols by Candlelight evening at Happy Valley tonight, supported by Port Elizabeth-born musician Claire Venn and Afro-soul singer Pam Jikwa. The programme starts at 5pm at the open-air venue up from the bridge in Humewood.
Tomorrow it will be Uitenhage’s turn for live entertainment, with the annual Uitenhage Picnic at Willow Dam on Saturday.
Then on Wednesday, East London’s singing star Zahara will enjoy top billing at the popular Sizzling Sessions evening at the Tramways Building.
She will be joined by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Bongani Thulwana, pop singer Stuart Reece as well as other guest artists. Zahara will be performing numbers from her new album, Mgodi, a Xhosa word title loosely translating as “hole”.
The 12-track album which delves into a few of the singer’s trials and tribulations experienced in the recording industry has already been flying off the shelves, and hit the No. 2 spot on the iTunes top 100 downloads chart and No. 1 in South Africa the same day it was released.
It is not the first time Zahara has smashed records however: she broke through the 200 000 unit sales mark in a month for her first album Loliwe, which also went gold in a short space of time. The programme at Tramways will start at 5pm.
Looking ahead to December 31, the energetic five-piece reggae band Skank and the Roots, will open the New Year’s Eve programme at Hobie Beach, supported by a bunch of entertainers and musicians.
A fireworks display will signal the end of the entertainment and the start of the new year at midnight.
Similarly, at Wells Estate, a first-rate line-up of artists will entertain people who gather there on the last day of the year. Both New Year’s Eve events are due to start at 4pm.