Mango Groove wow them again in UK
IT’S SO GREAT TO BE BACK!
TWENTY-three years after they first played London’s Hammersmith Odeon theatre, now renamed the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith, Mango Groove returned to the famous concert hall on Saturday to rock a large, wildly enthusiastic crowd as part of the SA-UK Seasons initiative.
One of many events planned for this year as part of the cultural exchange between the South African Department of Arts and Culture and the British Council, the concert also featured hit South African acts Matthew Moll, The Soil, Kinky Robot and comedian Kevin Perkins, also known as Michael Naicker.
An audience of mostly South African expats waved SA flags and many stood to join Claire Johnston, vocalist with Mango Groove, when she led the 11-member band in songs melding marabi, kwela and pop, among them hits like Special Star, Dance Sum More, Home Talk, Moments Away, Hellfire and Another Country.
“This is the biggest celebration of South Africa in the UK right now,’’ said an excited Johnston, who has been with the group since it formed in 1985, when she was 17, and who last performed with them in London, at the same theatre, in 1992.
“There is so much history here, and it is great to be back,’’ she said in a pre-concert interview in the dressing room of the ornate theatre that opened in 1932 as the Gaumont Palace and which has hosted such acts as Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Queen, Kate Bush, Duran Duran, Robbie Williams, Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash.
The concert also served to launch the Wilderness Foundation Global, a conservation fund close to the hearts of Mango Groove, who are donating a portion of the concert proceeds to the fund established by the late Ian Player.
Johnston paid tribute to Player, whose birthday would have been on March 15, and the band performed a well-received rendition of The Lion Sleeps Tonight to further the conservation cause.
A big hit of the evening was The Soil, an a cappella trio from Soweto, whose second album, Nostalgic Moments, took awards for best group and best-produced album at the Metro FM Music Awards held recently at the Durban International Convention Centre.
The trio wowed the Apollo and their album will be released in the UK next month.
Among five songs performed by The Soil at the Apollo on Saturday was Joy, which the trio will also sing today as part of Commonwealth Day celebrations at Westminster Abbey in London, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth.
Also featured in London at the weekend as part of SA-UK Seasons events was local songstress Judith Sephuma, who performed at a jazz club in Camden Town.