The Sunday Mail
Andrew Moyo
SIX years ago, a festival was born.
Unique, perhaps even strange, Miombo Magic Music Festival grew to become one of the most significant annual events on the local entertainment calendar.
Last weekend, Miombo Park in Christon Bank played host to the sixth edition of this unique camping fiesta ahead of a break next year. While Miombo Park is notorious for low temperatures during this time of year, Mother Nature seemed to be in a good mood as the warm sunny weather together with the beautiful scenery created an exuberant atmosphere.
Even the campsite was alive with positive energy as the multiracial campers in various types of tents gave the venue a great ambience. With close to 30 talented artistes taking to the stage, this was poised to be a worthy farewell for this exciting extravaganza.
Proceedings started on Saturday morning with the first few groups keeping it on a low tempo as people were still trickling in and setting up their temporary dwellings. Around mid-afternoon, the energy was turned up a notch with traditional Irish group Feddelicious, which has become a permanent fixture of the event, giving the crowd a taste of their Gaelic sound. By sunset, the place was packed and the artistes who had been tasked with blasting the night away did not disappoint with acts that included Flying Bantu, Tehn Diamond, Suluman Chimbetu, Ammara Brown and Djembe Monks to name few, dishing out exceptional performances.
It was the birthday boy, Sulu as Chimbetu is adoringly referred to by his fans, who ruled the roost on the day, pulling off a flawless set that sent the crowd into delirium. His playlist also had his father’s hits including “One Way” and “Dzandipedza Mafuta”, songs that had part of the crowd familiar with the lyrics singing along. “Sean Timba” is one of the biggest tracks the dendera crooner has ever released and it proved to be a hit with the crowd.
One of his new songs “Alice Mbewe” sent the dance floor into hyper mode with some enthusiastic individuals even jumping on stage to show how well they can do the boogie. To cap off his performance, he was joined by a dancer who imitated the late Michael Jackson, pulling off some of the pop icon’s popular moves which was met with more cheers from the crowd.
After Sulu, Ammara Brown came on stage and managed to keep the momentum going with her amazing choreography and beautiful music. Her sister Chengeto also got to showcase her talent as she came on stage, with the sisters hypnotising the crowd with their hit song “Wachu Want”.
Tribal house group, Djembe Monks also brought their A-game with a semi-live set that was something to marvel.
The party kept on going way into the wee hours of Sunday morning and despite the tired souls, day two kicked off early with the first act getting on stage just after 8am. The first performers had to play for a paltry crowd as many people were still recharging their batteries after a long night of partying.
While all the artistes who performed did justice to their inclusion on the line-up, it was the closing act, Transit Crew that brought the curtains down in style with a performance that saw reggae music lovers dancing throughout the whole set. Performing both renditions and their own compositions, the reggae outfit managed to give the energetic crowd a proper send-off. After their set – the crowd demanded they come back for one more song, but they ended up playing more. Speaking to The Sunday Mail Society at the event’s after-party, festival director Gus Le Briepon said that this year’s edition had been fantastic. “This has been an amazing event and you can clearly see that everyone has been having an awesome time,” said Le Briepon, adding, “We have had a lot of new people coming through so it’s great knowing that more and more people are warming up to this concept.”
He said that the festival was not only exciting but also bigger than their previous editions. “Simply put I can say this has been the best festival which we have ever held both in terms of the numbers and excitement. “Last year we held the event over a three-day period but the numbers we have had over these past two days have been slightly bigger.”
The director was impressed with all the artistes who had taken to the stage during the festival. “All the artistes who came through performed exceptionally, which is the other reason why the event has been a major success. Artistes like Flying Bantu, Tehn Diamond, Suluman Chimbetu and Djembe Monks to name just a few, really managed to set the stage on fire. To me Sulu definitely stole the show because he pulled off a brilliant performance and the crowd really loved him.”
The festival will take a break next year and will make a comeback in 2019 as the organisers seek to reboot and create new strategies.
“The reason why we are taking a break is because we just need to rest a bit because there is a lot of work that goes into organising this event. We just don’t want to lose the energy because there is the risk that if it no longer excites us we might abandon it so at least if we take a year off, we can come back with more energy.”
