St. Patrick’s Hotel, Bulawayo
After breakfast, Gilmore picked Toby and I and we went over to the AF Bulawayo offices. We both wanted to catch up on some mail.
Fabien came by with some worrying news. According to our itinerary, we were meant to leave Bulawayo on Tuesday afternoon by bus to arrive in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning. But due to some miscommunication, we were not being expected in Johannesburg before Thursday morning.
This meant we could not depart Bulawayo on Wednesday afternoon to arrive Joburg on Thursday morning. This presented a whole new set of problems: were supposed to check out of St. Patrick’s Hotel Bulawayo on Tuesday morning, and the bus we were booked into for the road trip to Joburg was only available on Tuesdays and Sundays.
In short, Fabien had to find us a place to sleep on Tuesday evening and a bus to Joburg on Wednesday afternoon! He was clearly stressed, but he promised to have it sorted out. He suggested we all spent Wednesday night at his place. I was skeptical when he suggested we share beds and I told him that won’t be possible. We could share rooms but not beds. Fabien assured me he would find enough beds so that no one would have to share a bed. All the same, I had a talk with the guys to prepare them psychologically just in case Fabien wasn’t able tofind enough beds for everyone.
Rainbow Hotel, Bulawayo
After lunch at Papa’s, we took the short walk to Rainbow Hotel, the venue for the nights show, for set up and sound check. The sound crew was the same from the Hillside Dams gig. They hadn’t finished setting up, so once again we sent the ladies back to the hotel and then went off for a walk in town as the crew finished setting up.
We came back to the venue an hour at 5.00pm later to find them running a line check. Half an hour later they were done and we did a quick sound check and headed back to the hotel to rest before the show that evening.
Rainbow Hotel, Bulawayo – Intwasa Festival Opening Ceremony
We were back at the Rainbow Hotel at half seven (7.30pm). The other act of the day, Rainbow Marimba Group, was still on stage winding up on their set. They were a pretty impressive group, playing popular tunes only on the marimbas.
The ladies, who had been taken to their dressing room by Gilmore as soon as we got there, came over to the hall dressed in some very intricate red costumes that had everyone gasping. I could hear murmurs from the audience as they pointed at Gargar, clearly impressed by their look.
We had planned the show a little different this evening. We would break into two sets of 4 songs each. After the first set, Rainbow Marimba would come back for their second set followed by Gargar for their second set.
Luli was on fire this evening. She took to the dance floor from the first song, walking into the audience calling on them to join her on the dance floor. There was a large attendance by campus students who danced all through the set.
[caption id="attachment_874" ali