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Katie Melua weaves her magic
22/03/2005 09:08 - (SA)
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| Katie Melua performs at Carnival City on the East Rand on Sunday. (Dawid Roux, Beeld) |
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Tori Foxcroft
Cape Town - People in Cape Town gear up for summer sunset concerts in the same way that they prepare for a trip to Knysna - cooler bags, backpacks, sleeping bags... trailers. And watching them is almost as fun as watching a concert itself. Which is why I love summer sunset concerts.
Katie Melua, on Monday night, was no exception. Although she took some time to start - about 15 minutes after scheduled, she was certainly worth the wait. And her opening, a tribute to Eva Cassidy, set against a backdrop of stars and the moon, was enrapturing.
Followed by Call off the Search, the song that first made her famous, and the name of her South African tour, a romantic, and sexy atmosphere was set.
The Kirstenbosch crowd was pretty sedate to begin with, but with a glass of champagne in one hand and brie cheese on a cracker in the other, it's not always so easy to clap.
Once the snacks were done with, however, the atmosphere intensified. And as the temperature dropped, Katie's concert heated up. Her effortless charm, together with her integration of the words Cape Town into her song London Town Looking, made this possible, of course.
Her rendition of Blame it on the Moon was spine-chilling, and as the evening progressed, it became apparent that the setting she chose couldn't have been more fitting.
Her perfectly-tuned voice, filled with clarity and passion, resonated off Table Mountain. Suffice to say, Kirstenbosch has become a natural, world-class venue. The stage is simple, and the acoustics work.
'She is so much more...'
At one point I overheard an enthusiast say that her singing was the type of singing he jived to in the 60s. And so right he was - long-stemmed cigarettes would have been most appropriate in this venue that could have been a very large, open-air and unstuffy late-night jazz club!
Katie Melua was shy, cute, and sophisticated all at the same time in her jeans and little black jacket.
Only 20 years old, this singer who has so much soul, is going to do amazingly. I know it.
Originally from Georgia in Eastern Europe and then Belfast, she has come from a politically rife background - something that lingers in the lyrics of the songs she writes. Her moving Spider's Web, written in the build up to the Iraq war, illustrated this. If she weren't a musician, she'd be an historian, she says.
KFM is slowly killing her, though, by playing her most famous song, The Closest Thing to Crazy over and over again.
She is so much more than this, something that was evident at Monday night's concert. And she has drawn in avid fans who stem beyond those who only know her for that one song.
For those fans who know her well, the performance was surely satisfying. But for those in the audience who came to the concert for the experience, I would imagine were even more rewarded.
Because she's not that famous, one really did have the opportunity to lie back on the grass, in the cold, under the stars, and soak it all up. We could enjoy her, rather than obsess about seeing her live, and in the flesh.
Some say Katie Melua is going to be the next Norah Jones. I think she is going to be so much more.
- News24
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