The quartet of Skeffa Chimoto, Dan Lu, Lulu and Zambia\u2019s Mampi gave an impressive opener to their three-show Easter tour of England, at the Leicester gig on Friday that left most of the patrons longing for more.<\/p>\n
Most patrons were clearly disappointed because the four could not dish out most of their known songs, apparently because \u201cwe could only do so much with the band.\u201d<\/p>\n
On behalf of colleagues, Skeffa continuously apologised to the mixed nationality crowd that thronged the Athena Theatre, for failing to give out \u201call you expected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand your feelings. I can assure you, on a good day, I can perform for three hours continuous, but we appreciate because we only managed to rehearse with the band for one day, which was not enough,\u201d apologised Chimoto.<\/p>\n
It was so clear throughout the show that communication breakdown between the singers and the band marred the smooth flow of otherwise great show.<\/p>\n
Midway through the show, Skeffa had to come in to redo the keyboard notes as Lulu did his usual wizardly with the lead guitar while providing backing to Skeffa alongside Dan Lu.<\/p>\n
On average, \u201cthis was 50 percent of what I expected,\u201d remarked Victor and<\/p>\n
Martha who travelled from London for the show in Leicester.<\/p>\n
This was a common discourse, with patrons murmuring on their way out as the show closed just slightly after 2am, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of us expected to dance until 5am,\u201d said Khama Mindiyela with Rhoda Mainala echoing: \u201cI was yet to start dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey surely, should have done better than this,\u201d said Wolverhampton based Mercy and Yamikani.<\/p>\n
While it was the amount of time on stage that disappointed patrons, the promoters, GRAJO, were not impressed with the amount of support the show received.<\/p>\n
In an interview, director Grace Mtolera-Mujungu said was \u201cvery shocked that Malawians and Zambians still can\u2019t support each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought Zimbabweans here and this room was too small. You could not even dance freely. But look at this disappointment,\u201d said Mujungu.<\/p>\n
She claimed that several Malawians de-campaigned against the show; most of them claiming that \u201cit had been cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome were writing on Facebook that tickets were sold out, which discouraged a lot of people who had prepared to patronise the show. I am disappointed with Malawians, but I will not stop. We will bring more,\u201d she promised.<\/p>\n
Comparatively, the crowd in Leicester could only fit a quarter of the main theatre at Bingu International Conference Centre, in Lilongwe, but for Skeffa and Dan Lu, \u201cit was ok, being the first show.\u201d<\/p>\n
After all, the jamming machine, as Chimoto is popularly known, was able to mesmerise with his numbers such as \u2018Chinamuluma Chakuda,\u2019 and \u2018Ulendo.\u2019<\/p>\n
It was Dan Lu and Mampi\u2019s dancing antics that connected with the crowd more. Of course, Lulu\u2019s leg twist dance, earned enough hand clapping from the sizable crowd.<\/p>\n
At the close of the show, the Malawi trio paid tribute to departed gospel singer Grace Chinga. They performed her song \u2018Thandizo Langa.\u2019<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Dan Lu has revealed plans to work on a single with Mampi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The quartet of Skeffa Chimoto, Dan Lu, Lulu and Zambia\u2019s Mampi gave an impressive opener to their three-show Easter tour of England, at the Leicester gig on Friday that left most of the patrons longing for more. Most patrons were clearly disappointed because the four could not dish out most of their known songs, apparently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21531,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21526\/revisions\/21531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}