The Sunday Mail
THE countdown to the Jameson Vic falls Carnival, which takes place from December 29 to the early hours of January 1 in the resort town of Victoria Falls has already begun.
The charm of Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) will be complemented by a headline act from Mango Groove, one of the best music groups to emerge from the African continent.
A mixed bag of acts such as the Mokoomba, Good Luck, Judgement Yard, Zyon Black, Jason Le Roux, DJ Rax, Mornak and Charma Gal among others will also perform.
Mango Groove
But the headline act is undeniably a big draw card for this year’s carnival. With its first iconic multi-platinum album
“The Band” released in 1989, Mango Groove and its charismatic lead singer Claire Johnston went on to become a household name on the continent.
To date, the group has sold over 750 000 albums in South Africa alone and dominates airplay across a number of radio and television stations.
Mango Groove has enjoyed over 12 number one hits and received several South African music and video awards as well as a number of global ones.
As the only group to sell out the Sun City Superbowl and the Standard Bank Arena on six different occassions each, Mango Groove set new precedents for South African artistes.
This band re-defined live staging and production standards for South African acts and was the first one to command a one million rand sponsorship deal.
They are also the only group that managed to remain at the top of the South African national sales charts for over a year.
Highlights of their career include the direct satellite link-up to the Freddie Mercury tribute in London to an estimated audience of a billion people, their performance in front of 200 000 people at the Paris “SOS Racism” concert and their performance at the renowned Montreux Jazz festival where the band received three encores. In an interview with The Sunday Mail Leisure, Mango Groove lead vocalist Claire Johnston said the group was thrilled to be coming to Zimbabwe.
“It feels exciting to be performing in Zimbabwe, especially on New Year’s Eve where we will be singing in a new year,” said Johnston.
This will not be the first time that the group is performing in the country.
“The first time we performed in Zimbabwe was in 1989 after the release of our first album and our last gig was in 2008. We had a fabulous time with the huge, energetic crowd and we are looking forward to a similar experience on New Year’s Eve.”
Johnston went on to promise an electrifying performance where her group will play both old and new music. “We are promising our fans loads of happy craziness and positive energy because we are having more fun on stage now than ever and we will be playing mostly familiar crowd favourites.
“We have been working on a new album and plan on performing our brand new, upbeat single, ‘Faces to the Sun’ which has a lovely, positive message for a New Year.”
Johnston said that several factors can be attributed to the success that the group has enjoyed for so many years.
“A lot has to do with the support we have had from Mango fans over the 30 years we have been together. I joined the band while still at school and so much has changed since those days, both in Africa and the world at large but there is a whole new generation of young people who love our music and this means the world to us.
“Music seems to carry across generations and all sorts of other supposed barriers. Also, we are all good friends in the band, there is a lot of trust and kindness, which binds us and for me, Mango Groove, is my musical home.”
Mango Groove is expected to usher festival-goers into the New Year in spectacular fashion as they will do the countdown to 2016.
Although, the format has slightly changed this time around, there will be plenty of thrilling activities lined up on the programme. The famous train and bush party set for December 29 has been made bigger with the organisers arranging multiple trips to the secret location.
On December 30, there are going to be several parties at various venues and carnival ticket holders will not pay to get into any of the party venues around Victoria Falls.
The biggest celebration will be on December 31 when musicians and DJs will take turn to entertain the crowd as they welcome the New Year. The first formal music festival in Victoria Falls started in 2009 with Falls Fest which continued until 2011. In 2012, Sean Young and Blessing Munyenyiwa founded the Vic Falls Carnival, and they brought on Seed Experiences to manage the event.
Seed Experiences is renowned for delivering world-class events such as “Rocking the Daisies Music and Lifestyle Festival”, “Vodacom in the City”, “Sowing the Seeds” and “Sonar Cape Town”.
