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Saturday 09 December 2006 -
Whipping Up A Desert Storm!
The day arrived and we took
ourselves along to the venue to check the whole deal out and, man,
what a pleasure! As the organisers had promised, there was a
professionally erected outdoor stage, a sound system to die for and a
full backline in place. In something that may be uniquely
Namibian, the stage and artists performed in the sun whilst the audience
enjoyed the shade of a large marquee! Not that we minded, of
course, as it was a tremendous way of building a genuine thirst!
Then we had our first pleasant
surprise, when we realised that the sound engineer who had been brought
in from Windhoek was an acquaintance of ours, Swartzie. Swartzie
did a great job on our sound at the Windhoek Rock Festival a few years
back and really knows his field. It was so fantastic being able to
benefit from his accomplished services again.
 Later
that afternoon, a little later than was scheduled due to the inevitable
delays, we took the stage immediately after "Big Brother" and Egoli
super star, Stefan Ludik. Stefan had put in a really rousing
performance in the hot sun and soon had the audience eating out of his
hands. Good one!
As soon as Stefan stepped down we
took the stage and did a very brief soundcheck.
And then we were on our way, ripping into the audience with Metallica's
"Enter Sandman". It must be mentioned that one of the drivers to
this festival was the celebration of diversity and, when it came to the
music, that was certainly the case! We took absolutely "no
prisoners" on this occasion, belting out numbers from Deep Purple and
Black Sabbath as powerfully as we could. Boy, was it good!
And then, before we knew it, it was over. Admittedly our set had
been shortened due to the lateness of the programme so no doubt there
were many aching hearts in the audience that we hadn't been able to play
on! And so it was that we made way for the headline act of the
day, Jackson Kaujeua.
Friday 08 December 2006 -
Nam-Jam!!
We were originally supposed to
have been in Luderitz for this weekend, playing at the German Club's
music festival which, unfortunately, was postponed/cancelled at short
notice. Despite this disappointment we were able to pick up two
local gigs. In fact, they were gigs we'd declined previously as we
thought we'd be out of town. Traditionally, the band closes each
year off with a gig at the "Place Of Happiness", however, the consensus
on this occasion was that we make the Don the venue.
December is never a particularly exciting month in our little oasis as
many people proceed on their annual leave and the whole tempo subsides.
It was with this in mind that we were a bit uncertain as to what
response we'd garner up at the Don. We needn't have worried!
Before we kicked off the local
folk gathered at the town's main grassy square, George Square, where
they participated in carol singing. The live music was provided by
a group of musicians from local churches. This was followed by the
lighting up of the town's Christmas lights - and splendid they look,
too!
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With all these seasonal
festivities taking place who could have escaped the mood? You see,
the people who were in town were definitely in the party mood.
This
 was
largely due to the fact that a long-planned Cultural Festival was to
take place on Saturday, 09 December, 2006, and a number of visiting
artists, entertainers and dignitaries had descended on the town for this
auspicious event. It was a bit of a Namibian "Woodstock" with many local
music icons trooping to the town for the occasion. Aside from all
these local heroes, we even had a visiting bassist from one of South
Africa's up-and-coming metal bands in the form of Ichor's Darius
Willemse at our gig. It was Darius' first visit here after his
folks recently moved to our settlement. A hearty Bedrock welcome,
Darius, and may Ichor go from strength-to-strength in the months and
years ahead. If you're into local music get along to the band's
very professional site at
www.ichor.co.za
Anyway, with one of the visiting bands, the Reho Combo,
putting down their cool vibes for a "langarm" dance at the next door
venue, we got into laying down sounds of a slightly different type -
Desert Rock! After a prolonged and meticulous soundcheck things
started quite slowly and we weren't too sure what top expect going
forward. Things were fairly subdued until halfway through our
second set when, almost without notice, a number of good folk
simultaneously pitched up. Included in their number were two of
Namibian's top music acts, the veteran Jackson Kaujeua and Kwaito star,
Killa B. It was just so great seeing local artists coming out in
support of each other!
At the end of our second set
Jackson got up to fill the break with his
unique sound. His music doesn't take long to get used to, as one
infectious rhythm pattern follows another. When he broke into "No
Woman, No Cry" as his final number there was only one place for Bedrock
to be - and that was alongside him. We quickly dropped into the
song and jammed our through it much to the audience's delight. Even
Killa B managed to put in a guest appearance although our rock is quite
distant from his beloved kwaito! Jackson was gracious in his
gratitude at the end, such is the measure of the man. The honour
was all ours, Mr Kaujeua - may you enjoy many more years on the road and
keep rolling those hits out!!
In between all this Heiko had done
a great job of dishing out complimentary Christmas crackers to all, just
to capture that festive spirit a bit more. I tell you what, I
think the folk enjoyed the bangs the crackers made more than their
Christmas hats or the trinkets which tumbled from within!
By this time the place was fairly rockin' as we took it
home with the third set. But there was still one more twist to the
evening's activities and that was the arrival of Eddie's 49th birthday
at midnight! At the given hour we broke into "Happy Birthday" whilst
Eddie continued to drum along not initially realising that we were
toasting him!! Our came the champagne to appropriately mark these
significant event.
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It was then time to take the whole show home and only
one final act remained to be carried out, the awarding of the "Party
Animal" prizes for the night. The two winners basically chose
themselves as they didn't have too much opposition on the night.
Both are longstanding Bedrock supporters so they fully deserved this
honour - congratulations to Esther Auala and Nico
Venter. Let's see if you can defend your titles in 2007!!
Friday 06 October 2006 - A
SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY OCCASION
12 YEARS….13 MUSICIANS…3 ALBUMS…120 GIGS!!
All The Two's: Eddie -
Dave - Heiko - Solange - Pete & Dan
It’s always nice to be able to celebrate something
a little bit out of the ordinary as was the case on Friday when we
marked our 12th anniversary. Not only that, but this was
our 120th gig. This is quite feat considering where we are
and how difficult it is, firstly, to find reasonable musicians to start a
band in the first place and, secondly, to keep them once you’ve found them.
This is easier said than done and a number of fine characters have
passed through our ranks since
 1994.
Still, it is a truism that persistence pays and the band has probably
never been in better shape than it is at present.
And so it was that we
trundled our musical caravan on down to The Don to share the occasion
with anyone who felt like having a party. To make the event even more
special we were delighted and honoured to have Dan Shout, on a well
deserved break from his commitments with Johnny Clegg’s band, grace the
occasion with his presence. Despite the fact that the weather was more
worthy of an autumn than a late spring/summer day, it wasn’t too cold
and the wind held off. There was more than a sprinkling of new, or
strange, faces present amongst those of the stalwarts, including a
number of previous “Party Animal” award
winners. It was especially good to have Jill and Les Krynauw back with
us after an absence of a few years. Jill and Les have been Bedrockers
since the days of the band’s inception as their former son-in-law,
Charlie Piggott, was one of our founding members. Since then Jill and
Les have immigrated to the United States and were back on a short
sojourn to our desert town to celebrate the arrival of their latest
grandchild. Congrats Grandparents – and thanks for finding the time to
get down with Bedrock again!!
Soon we were into our opening song, U2’s “I Still
Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and before long the folk were on
their feet and starting to rock. This was a good sign as things
normally take a little longer to warm up. Towards the end of the set
Dan came up to put in his first stint with the night and, together with
Dave MacMillan’s more
 than
competent lead guitar playing, blew the audience away as horn and guitar
sparred their way through George Thoroughgood’s “Bad To The Bone”. In
an amazing aural duel, Dave met any challenge Dan put to him on the horn
and Dan, for his part, reciprocated in kind to anything that came back
at him! The audience was enthralled and that was that – this was going
to be a party bar none!! (There was, admittedly, a bit of a curved ball
thrown when Solange decided to hand the keyboards over to Dan for “Black
Magic Woman”. Although a bit nonplussed at first, he managed to make
his way through the song whilst Solange retired to the ranks of
percussionists – nice “ambush” there, Solange. It’s always good to keep
these pro musos on their feet!!).
After a short break we really got into the swing of
things, opening the second set with the Offspring’s perennial favourite,
“Why Don’t You
get A Job?”. From then onwards the pace was flat-out as we laid
standards such as “You Really Got Me”, “Brown Eyed Girl”, “Jailhouse
Rock”, “Strange Kind Of Woman”, “Powerful Stuff” and “Locomotive Breath”
on the rocking audience. Eddie’s drum solo, as always, went down a
treat with a blur of digital camera flashes constantly exploding. Dan
added a sax solo to “Brown Eyed Girl” which added an extra dimension to
the usual arrangement we play.
Then it was another quick pit stop to add a bit
more Tafel to the tank and, just when the audience thought it couldn’t
get more hectic, it did as we blasted into the third set with
Metalicca’s, “Enter Sandman”. This is an absolute crowd favourite but
we were once again disappointed by the fact that nobody got around to
moshing. There
 was
plenty of headbanging but the moshing…not yet! We’ll probably have to
show them how to do it – and pay one of our Party Animal icons to lead
the way! Fourth song up in this set was another crowd-pleaser, “Mustang
Sally”, which you will all know is manna from heaven for a saxophonist.
With all the Mustangers catching a breath we moved onto the rest of the
set, a nice mix of old rocking tunes like “Honky Tonk Woman” and
“Paranoid” and more current material such as “All The Small Things” and
the Dave MacMillan-penned Bedrock original, “Sex Machine”. Dan joined
us on this one, too, and added a bit of spice to the instrumental
bridge. We even got the speed right this time!! To close the set for
good measure there was only one song for it – “Smoke On The Water”.
Enough said!
By now the competition for the Party Animal Of The
Night Award was red hot and furious. Knowing up-front that this would
be the case,
and in view of the auspicious occasion that it was, we had decided to
present two PA prizes this night – one for the best party male and, the
other, for the biggest female party creature. In an even cleverer twist
we asked Dan to be the judge, thereby relieving ourselves of the
pressure of having to make difficult choices!! There was no ways that
this was going to be an easy task, irrespective of who it fell to.
After much reflection it turned out that the “male”
prize would be a lot easier to award than the female one. You see,
there had been these three head-bangers who had gone flat-out in front
of the band all night. And besides, anyone who takes up the insistent
chant of “Bedrock, Bedrock, Bedrock…” everything we did something,
surely is scoring big brownie points!! In fact, they even chanted when
we didn’t do anything! So that was a genuine group award that could
not have gone anywhere else. Their commitment to the team ethos also
manifested itself when they shared their prize – a bottle of vintage
pumpelmussen – with the band. Being off the shelf it didn’t taste that
great and there was no chance of seconds anyway as the contents
disappeared in double quick time!
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"PARTY ANIMAL" ACCOLADES -
VLEIS, SHAUN & NEIL
Deciding on which of the ladies had earned the
accolade was a little more challenging, however, the most dame who
impressed more than the rest of Des Rentel. Des was attending her first
Bedrock gig after a period of extended absence due to sad fortune and
bereavement within her family, so it was perhaps fitting that her return
to the social scene was marked in such a way. Unfortunately Des has
spent all her energy by the time the award was made so it was presented
in her absence. She will, of course, be presented with her bottle of
“happiness”in due course.
 Just
for the record, The Don’s raffle prize went to Martin Niemand who had
managed to survive the evening without being molested by too many
drunks, this being his greatest fear in life! Like we told you, Martin,
people don’t get drunk at Bedrock gigs – they get wasted! There is a
difference! Anyway, the bodybuilding course looks like it’s working and
you’ve lost lots of weight so, like the band, you shouldn’t ever lose a
fight over 100 metres again!
And so, with the midnight hour well past, it was on
to the final few songs, accompanied by the incessant crowd still baying
for more. As our slogan says: Some people will listen to anything!
And what could have been more appropriate than “Midnight Special” on a
special midnight? John Fogerty gave way to Bad Company’s “Can’t Get
Enough Of Your Love” before we meandered our way through to the closing
number which was another Fogerty composition – “Rockin’ All Over The
World”. And then the real slog began…packing it all away until next
time!!
Still, it was a wonderful evening celebrated in the
finest Bedrock party traditions that exist. Thanks to everyone for
making it the success that it was and we look forward to seeing you all
back at our 12 years and 1 month gig shortly!!
Friday 15 September 2006 - Don't
Stoep Back!
Being back at "The Stoep"
after a period of absence was again a most enjoyable event. True,
being mid-month, it was never going to be as busy as a month end but, no
matter, we were there to rock whoever wanted to be rocked and so it was.
With host Fanie keeping hungry
tums well nourished with fish 'n chips and the most stunning spare ribs
seen for some time, party-goers had no excuses for running out of
energy. As usual, the "Party Animal" Oscar caused a great sense of
competition amongst those in attendance, with Kage VDM setting the early
pace and showing what would be required to even lay a single finger on
the trophy! As was the case at our last gig at The Don, however,
the fresher faces at the occasion were not going to stand back and be
intimidated by reputations! And so it was that Adrie Henning took
up the cudgels and went at it to show what party-ing really could mean.
Last month's winner, Dawn Sparks, displayed an admirable measure of
brave resistance in trying to defend her title. It didn't last,
however, as she realised that one or two of those in attendance were
going to slug it out on the dance floor until the last
 second.
With the tussle for the award being as tight as it was, and the leading
contenders being very definitely members of the fairer sex, we called on
Solange to cast the winning vote. It was no surprise that this
went to Adrie Henning who just never let up. Well done, Adrie -
the question is, will you be able to defend your title next time more
successfully than Dawn? Or are Dawn and Bob going to combine to
snatch the trophy (which they believe is theirs) back? Be at The
Don on 6 October, 2006, to find out!
Friday 01 September 2006 - Donning It!
With the winter weather hopefully on the
retreat we were back at The Don after quite a few months' absence and
what a night it turned out to be - pretty much like old times in fact.
As usual our devoted Oranjemund fan base was there in full cry and it
wasn't long before
 the
mood took over, table top dancing and general fun being the order of the
night. A special bonus was also the presence of a few first-time
Bedrock gig attendees - we hope you folk enjoyed yourselves as much as
we did. Please come back in the future!
The competition for "Party Animal Of The Night"
was as tough as ever with the votes - and competing performances! -
drifting back and forth throughout the evening. With many of the
town's regular party crowd present, this was never going to be an easy
accolade to win on the occasion. The crunch was always going to
come with the "Pop Idols" challenge, the time in the evening when the
strongest contenders
would pit their vocals skills against one another. This stringent
process of elimination saw a veteran Party Animal in Bob Burrell taking
on the new pretender to his throne, Dawn Sparks. The competition
was awesome as each endeavoured to ruin whatever lyrics were put before
them to a far greater extent their rival!
When all was said and done, however, it was the
turn of a fresh face to come to fore and lay claim to the coveted trophy
in the form of Dawn! Well done, Dawn, you really worked for this
one - dispatching the challenge that is Bob Burrell is never easily
done. The bad news is that the real work begins now as you try to
defend your "crown" against all-comers into the future. We look
forward to seeing what else you have up your sleeve, as it were!
PARTY GIRL OF THE NIGHT!!
Saturday 19 August 2006 - After The Flood...
After last weekend's
case of "apprehension", you would have thought we'd had enough excitement
for one month, wouldn't you? Sorry - we've been out of luck.
This Saturday it was David's turn to be late. We were all too
scared to ask why. Could he, too, have followed in Heiko's steps and
been thrown into some dark, dank, cell somewhere?
Nothing quite so dramatic, fortunately.
Guess what had delayed him? A flood. A domestic tsunami.
A disaster of epic proportions. You see, Pops is not as young as he used
to be and, as we noted last week, amnesia is catchy. Assuming that
David caught it a week ago it's taken seven days to incubate, and
incubate it did! It manifested itself when Pops forgot to turn off
the tap at the kitchen sink! So whilst he was standing in front of
his mirror doing "air muscles" to imitate Heiko, or "air hairstyle" to
mimic Pete or "air good looks" to copy Eddie or "air physique" to be
like Solange, the frigging water overflowed and drowned the entire
kitchen! Spouse Wendy, by the way, also just happened to be out of
town. And so, for the second week in a row, our practice started late
and, literally, AFTER THE FLOOD!!
Saturday 12 August 2006 - Jailhouse Rock?
You know, Saturday mornings for Bedrock are pretty routine. Up
at six for a bit of a four kilometre jog, followed by time in the
gym and, then, a health breakfast full of cereals and good things to
keep us young. That's normally followed by a few more press-ups,
sometimes a quick twenty kilometre cycle into a 60 knot headwind before
taking a shower and getting ready for band practice. Then the band
arrive, we practice and then go home. We've been adhering to this
strict regime for many a year and are set to stick with it for many
years to come. Pretty straight forward, I can hear you say and,
generally, we'd agree with that...until today!
You see, we thought that it had all gone to plan until the practice
arrived and we were on the brink of finding ourselves vocalist-less.
What ever could have waylaid young Heiko? Late night, maybe?
Throngs of fans in the street? No hire cars available to get to
the gig? How about "been arrested"? Yes, folks, there you have it
- so determined is Heiko to live the rock 'n roll dream he went out to
get arrested. The good news, though, is that it wasn't for
anything as unsavoury as being drunk or seeking unsolicited sex.
He was apprehended for amnesia. Bet you never knew that was an
offence, did you? Well it is - especially when you forget to pay
your speeding fines. Actually, this was a very severe case of
double amnesia. You see, he actually gave the ticket and the money
to a friend who was to pay it, however, little did they realise that
amnesia is a virus and is contagious. The upshot is that the (ex)
friend forgot about it, too!
And so it was that young Heiko, instead of adhering to his normal
Saturday routine, spent the morning sweating it out until a young damsel
pitched up and had him sprung. The morale of the story? I
think I'll leave that to you to work out!
Friday 21 July 2006 - BEDROCK Feature In
Their Own Radio Special!!
Who would have believed that after all these years of endeavour,
we would finally feature in our own one-hour radio special?
Definitely not the band, that's for sure! But we were reckoning
without
sparing a thought for Namibia's leading radio station and their dynamic,
talented, connoisseur of outstanding local rock music, Juan Vorster.
You see, when Juan gave us a call and invited us to participate in his
programme there was just no holding us back! Radio time is
priceless - and best of all, this was for FREE!
After the actual interview and a bit of editing, the programme was
flighted at 6:00 pm on Friday, 21 July, 2006. The programme
featured an interview with Bassman Pete and six of our original songs
from our last two albums were played. Even better is the fact that they have all
been play listed to add to the presence of Bedrock's vibes to the
Namibian airwaves. Radio Kudu have always been fantastic
supporters of local music and have kindly aired some of our material in
the past. Let's all hope that this leads to BIGGER things!
The songs that were featured on this radio special were:
- Rock 'n Roll Man II (Should have been our most "famous" song,
Rock 'n Roll Man I but they slipped up).
- Mobile Party
- Crowd Invasion
- The Air Guitar Song
- Last Round
- (Na Na Na Na) Take A Look
If that great selection doesn't get Namibia rocking, very
little will!!
Saturday 01 July 2006 - BEDROCK Headline
Inaugural Music Festival
There's nothing better than being around when a plan
actually comes together. And boy, did this plan come together or
what!! You see, a small seed that was planted many "moons"
ago - figuratively speaking, of course - in a quiet, beer-lubricated,
chat on the local Hockey Club steps led to the staging of Oranjemund's first
Music Fest. The "seed planters" were none other than SnoBlind's
Warren Weidemann, Jetfuel's Jeremy Smith and Bedrock's Dave MacMillan.
Their inspired idea was latched onto with vim and vigour by the
Hockey Club's members and committee who delivered this memorable event
on Saturday, 1 July, 2006. This is a date which is sure to
go down in local music annals for centuries to come!
Despite all the anxiety as to whether the logistics would ever fall
into place, together with other considerations such as what the
probabilities were of the mid-winter weather behaving itself, the day
arrived with everything set fine - including the weather which presented its
windless East warmth for the occasion! Combining all the sound
equipment Oranjemund could muster, and creating one of the biggest stages
seen locally, the tangle of wires, cables, guitar leads and microphones
were eventually all connected in some semblance of order and, after a
short period of tweaking and cursing, everything reported that it was
"live" and ready to deliver. The other minor concern was whether
any of the townsfolk would bother to turn up at this august event.
Have no fear - they did turn up, full of interest, fun and festivity.
In their droves.
At 2:00 pm the programme kicked off with Jetfuel Expansion with their
traditional sounds of a
.jpg) Boeremusik Orkes - and did they do it well!!
Just the type of music to get the ball rolling. Jetfuel Expansion
is quite a confusing concept, actually. You see, the core of
Jetfuel Expansion is Jetfuel which is anything but a boerebop band.
Jetfuel is a lively punk-rock outfit. That's their one
guise, however, when they take off their chameleon coat they transform
into Jetfuel Expansion, piano accordian, squashbox and all!! How's
that for diversity and multi-skilling all in one???!!
Next up was Hans Profijt and his talented daughter, Janika.
Their interesting mix of popular and German songs went down a treat with
the party vibe strengthening in the air. This duo was followed by
Dave MacMillan who was backing another of our local songbirds, Fransie.
As usual, Fransie put on an accomplished
 performance with her years of
experience on stage being evident in her professionalism throughout.
With those acts out of the way any form of good taste and class went
with them as the rock portion of the afternoon followed!
First up was Jetfuel with their youthful good looks, dress, talent
and energy. Well rehearsed, the band delivered a nice tight,
disciplined, set of songs catering for the punk-rock lovers. With
sun setting and the smells of delicious braai-ed burgers on the air, the
timing of their performance was just about right. As the lights
came on the whole scene took on the vibe of a really chilled outdoor
concert in the warm evening air.
Jetfuel were followed by a slimmed-down SnoBlind who hadn't played a
gig for over two-and-a-half years. Since then they have shed half
their members and have reduced from a colony, or
.JPG) metaphoric shelter for
wayward musos, to a band! Not only that but a touch of glamour has
been added to their ranks in the shape of Warren's sporting spouse,
Denise, who took her first tentative steps into the world of rock.
Confining herself mainly (at this stage) to tambourine and backing
vocals, her debut was a steady one. Denise, of course, has
music in her genes but has been slow in revealing her talent and skills.
Her Dad was a regular performer in Oranjemund on the keyboards and
saxophone in the years prior to his retirement and brother, Riaan,
is also SnoBlind's lead guitarist - so you can get my point about the
talent, no doubt!
Finally, it was the turn of Oranjemund's rock veterans to strut their
stuff - and this that did with their usual high level of proficiency.
We launched the set with an innovative rendition of George Thorogood's
version of "Bad To The Bone" before winding the pace up with the
Fabulous Thunderbirds' "Powerful Stuff". From then it was
flat-out until the inevitable happened in this part of the world -
multiple power cuts!! Well, at least the audience got their value
for money and it was a case of third time lucky for our rendition of "My
Generation"!! Three times did we start, and twice did the power
fail us. Undaunted we rocked on in the true Bedrock tradition,
finally taking the show (and the day) home with a momentous version of
Metallica's "Enter Sandman".
Check out the photo gallery for more pictures of the fun that was had
that day!!
Friday 20 January 2006 - It's A Rockin' Send-Off For That "Smart"
Guy!
No tussle for dancing space here - grab as much
floor as you like!
Hey! Our first gig of 2006 and what a way to get the year rolling with
a full-house at the local power station building. Well, it used to be a
power station but it ain't no more. Now it's just one, huge,
cavernous monster with acoustics from hell and more room than you know
what to do with! Ag, but who really cares - when Bedrock are on
the go it's good times either way. The occasion was a farewell to
one of Namibia's foremost, and most popular, business leaders - Rob
Smart. Rob has been General Manager of the World's leading
alluvial diamond mining company, steering the organisation to many a
precedent-setting success during the four years of his tenure. Not
only that, but when he celebrated his 50th birthday (at the same venue)
he not only hired Bedrock for the night, but also made his vocal debut
with them on that occasion! It has only been work pressure which
has prevented him from taking his singing achievements to greater
heights. Luckily, he still has the rest of his life in which to
achieve that!
What we're getting rapidly used to as a band is being surrounded by
dance troupes - last year it was the can can girls (Oh la la) and, now,
tribal and cultural dance groups. What an absolute pleasure -
rocking  diversity,
for want of another expression.
The tribal dancing was provided by the Ondunga Cultural troupe and,
man, was it full of energy, bravado, rhythm and skill. With the
drums pounding away the dancers mesmerised us all with their discipline
and timing making it look rather like hard work compared to rock 'n
roll. And did they look fierce!
The other dance entertainment was provided by a highly talented group
of kids known as the Nama! Nub Cultural Group. This team of little
folk had travelled 500 kilometres from Keetmanshoop - the capital of
southern Namibia - to honour Rob with their presence.
Similarly attired in cultural dress reflecting the traditions of the
southern peoples of Namibia, their unusual routine (for those people
unacquainted with the traditions of the south) fascinated and held the
audience spellbound. With an air of confidence and assurity way
beyond their tender years, the youngsters made the floor their own -
even giving Rob a solid grounding in how to dance their dance! A
special touch was their presentation of traditional Nama gifts to Rob
and his delightful wife, Lorian. And then it was time to rock n'
roll, Bedrock being just one of a number of acts and entertainers
engaged for the occasion.
To be fair, rock 'n roll is not everyone's choice on hugely diverse
occasions such as these. Indeed, such is the breadth of musical
taste that there's no pleasing everyone with one music style - hence the
need for different acts. So, Bedrock went out there to entertain
their old friends and, hopefully, to introduce the unknowing to the
delights of desert rock. How well did we succeed?
Errrr...the jury's still out on that one!
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| Decking the hall...errr...building |
Get that lighting rig up, boys - it's
sound check time! |
Needless to say we pressed on with our usual aplomb,
Duif keeping us on our toes by repeatedly calling out "next
songs" which weren't! Sound problems abounded, right from speaker
horns that were breaking up to monitors that were too soft and acoustics
that defy description! Heiko, meanwhile, was struggling with
not being  over-awed
by the occasion and size of venue. Not that this affected his
singing at all. Eddie somehow managed to keep to the time on his
skins, despite the sound issues, and Pete and Solange just kept bouncing
along with silly smiles on their faces! Best of all was that some
people actually enjoyed our gig, complimenting band members on their
performance. As we always say, class will OUT!!
The highlight of the evening for us was our final song,
whereupon we summonsed Rob Smart onto the stage to close his Oranjemund
rock singing career with his version of "Midnight
Special". And, boy, was it special!! Well done,
Rob. Despite being totally unrehearsed you made it look like you
were born to it and we would really urge you to continue to explore and
devlop your career in rock 'n roll!!
Rob - And The Band In The Power Station! |
