Backstage about to be centre stage

MBOMBELA – In the words of Meat Loaf, Backstage is “everything louder than everything else.” But its the kind of loud that makes the blood in a true rocker’s veins turn purple – deep purple.

Backstage is the rock band from Komatipoort that made it onto Innibos’ webpage as one of 21 finalists in the festival’s RockRumoer competition. Their improvised version of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the water” is testimony to the talent of the band’s four members.

John O’ Reilly is the bass guitarist. The man is as cool as a cucumber and has only one warning, “Just don’t make them think we’re a boereorkes,” he says during Lowvelder’s interview at The Pub on Friday. According to the members, people tend to make that assumption because they come from Komatipoort. “I took music lessons when I was young, but stopped and taught myself to play the guitar. At varsity, I had a bass guitar and played rhythm and bass,” he says.

His son, Cashel’s talent is put on display when he improvises, making use of intricate scales and moving his fingers on his guitar strings with a speed the audience can barely keep up with. And he makes it look easy. “I’ve been playing the guitar for about 15 years or so and performed in a few bands before this one,” he says.

They play to the beat of Henri Jansen van Vuuren’s drums. “We had a family orchestra when I was younger. So I kind of ended up playing drums to be part of it all,” Henri smiles.They performed at weddings and parties, but he also stopped for about 12 years before drumming in a church band. “And now I’m here,” he indicates, pointing towards the others.

Their vocalist, Hannes Eloff, is a qualified opera singer. “After switching from opera to Frank Sintra songs, the jump to rock was quite a challenge,” he says. He has, however, made the new genre his own. The vocal techniques used in opera should, according to American voice coach Jeffrey Alani Stanfill, benefit Hannes. According to Stanfill’s website, opera training enables one to sing “just about anything you want to sing without damaging your voice”.

Backstage came into being in 2014, after Komatipoort’s well-known Prawn Festival. “We had invited the town’s former musicians to perform on the main stage. And then we became a band,” Cashel says. Hannes performed his Sinatra repertoire at the very same festival, but the guys wooed him into roughing it up a bit. He’s never regretted joining the band.

The four consider themselves privileged to have met one another. “Talented musicians are scarce,” remarks Hannes. “And here we stumbled upon one another in Komatipoort.” Backstage is no weekend band. They practise for hours a day and take their music seriously. The group has performed as far as Sodwana Bay. Apart from wanting to be chosen as part of the final 10 and winning RockRumoer, the group is focused on making excellent music. After watching them strut their stuff for a quick video recording, pub owner and music enthusiast Etienne Coetzee has the final say in this regard. In his opinion, they’re good. “Really, really good,” he says.

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Watch their music video here: