Prepare for the unexpected!

Many years ago, I was having dinner with Stewart Irving (ex Ballyhoo) when he lived in London. He told me about a West End Theatre Show called ‘Umoja – The Spirit of Togetherness’. It was a South African production.

Their drummer had a health issue, and they had tried other drummers, but it wasn’t working out. The music was tricky and the show was in trouble because aside from the music it featured a lot of dancing!

This was in January of 2003 and I was immigrating back to South Africa in March. So I asked Stewart to give Joe Theron (the shows owner) a call to say that I would audition for the gig – which was supposed to last a week.

When I arrived for the audition on a Friday morning at the New London Theatre, they were trying out another drummer from Mozambique. I could hear he wasn’t cutting it. Then it was my turn. I played through one piece of music. The keyboard player Sipho (ex Hugh Masekela), who was the Musical Director asked me if I could start that night.

I asked for the drum charts? There weren’t any. The guys weren’t readers. So, I grabbed my pad and pencil from my bag and started transcribing.

14 Songs! I’d never seen the show or heard the music.

After I had my charts in place, we ran through each song once to make sure everything was fine. And that was it.

I played that night and after the first half of the show I turned to climb down the stairs of the raised stage we were playing on. The whole cast was at the bottom of the stairs and clapped and cheered as I climbed down. This was one of the most emotional experiences of my life. Amazing.

I went on to do the show for 3 weeks, which for me personally was enough. I’m not a show kind of muso because after a while it starts to feel like Groundhog Day for me – same thing day in and day out. They asked me if I wanted to do a tour and I declined because I was leaving in March anyway.

The Umoja Band. A great experience and great bunch of guys to work with.

Cest la vie!