Steve Newman could hardly have had a more dramatic prelude to his set at the Lowlander on Saturday 12 October.
Steve Newman could hardly have had a more dramatic prelude to his set at the Lowlander on Saturday 12 October.
The sash window behind the stage framed smoke that poured up from behind Mountain Drive, dirtying the dying sun. Reds and oranges smudged as Grahamstown guitarist Lizzie Gaisford started her opening set.
"Poisonous seeds… it seemed a good day to die…" went her song about a woman and a coral tree.
And then rocker Sarah Burger added her attitude and guitar to the stage and the pair jammed like it was the apocalypse.
Steve Newman’s Smoothtalker guitar was the talking piece before he even started his set. It looks weird, with a fan of black ivory pieces that he used extensively and effectively in a piece called Frogs.
He told the curious audience that Mervyn Davis, from Broederstroom, made the guitar. And an inventory of materials by way of saying no endangered flora or fauna were harmed in its making.
The Tananas veteran’s first album, Your Mother is Very Worried About You, was released 34 years ago and his distillation of World Music and home-grown flavours still speaks to young and old.
Plenty of Latin flavour with a rumba, a piece called Kaba ("Cape Town" in Portuguese) and the jivey Cape Town-flavoured Jaywalking.
The guitarists on Saturday 12 October weren’t fiddling, they were playing hard.
And even if they’d stopped, those fires would have burnt on.
Newman’s tour continued this week in KwaZulu-Natal.
