Arguably the most loved woman in the country’s popular music and rock scene, Karen Zoid was in town last week for a series of National Arts Festival performances.
Arguably the most loved woman in the country’s popular music and rock scene, Karen Zoid was in town last week for a series of National Arts Festival performances.
Zoid has a large following, particularly among Afrikaans folk/rock fans.
She is a versatile performer and knows her audience well, playing the majority of her work for her target market with hints of hard rock creeping through the cracks.
Undeterred by the power outage during most of one of her Arts Festival performances, Zoid soldiered on, speaking openly about her life and highlighting the humour in the everyday lives of women in South Africa's entertainment industry.
“This is a first,” she chuckled, gesturing around the dark room and at the battery-operated light on the stage in front of her. “I will personally phone Tony Lankester (Festival CEO) in the morning and ask that all of the people in this room be refunded the cost of their tickets,” she said.
Zoid’s hits include Paper Aeroplane and Small Room.
She has released seven albums and two DVDs.
She came to the attention of the South African music industry and public with the release of her debut album, Poles Apart in 2001.
Zoid performed in the Smirnoff Music Room for an hour – 50 minutes of which were in darkness.
The versatile artist launched into a series of anecdotes about the music business and her life, turning the evening into 'Karen Zoid in Conversation'.
This was interspersed with the occasional song, covers of popular music that the audience knew and could sing along to.
"We love you Karen!” rang out across the darkened room several times as she carried the show forward, her sense of humour carrying her and the show through what would otherwise have been a very awkward moment in her career – her fans singing along on the improvised covers and standards.
The gig was acoustic in the purest sense of the word, and Zoid's choice not to play the original set list and to conserve her voice for her performance with Dan Patlansky the next day showed sense and professionalism.
In the last five-minutes of the show the electricity returned and Zoid and her band performed Bob Marley’s hit, Is This Love?, as well as a song she wrote for her young son, reflecting on her life and mortality.
Zoid’s mother passed away when she was nine years old and this year Zoid is the same age her mother was when she died.
“As a child you don’t understand what people mean when they say, ‘She died young,’ because they’re old compared to you," she said.
"But now, if I was to drop dead this minute, there are things I would like to say to my son.”
She sang the piece in Afrikaans, her home language, the language suited to the very personal messages she had.
“Ek gaan eindig in my taal,” Zoid said.
She sang about helping others, living the life you want and that you can be proud of and encouraged her son to chase his dreams, ending with a reminder of the endurance of a mother’s love.
Zoid has had and will continue to have a successful career in the industry, playing to a target market that loves her as much as she loves them.
