Smokie takes a minute

Lesego Maja

lesegomaja@caxton.co.za

SOUTH Africa's sunshine keeps bringing legendary English rock band Smokie back.

The band landed in South Africa on Wednesday morning for their ninth concert tour and attended a press conference at the SABC in Auckland Park mere hours later.

The press conference turned into an intimate meet and greet session, where journalists had the opportunity to let their guard down and chat with Mick, Martin, Terry, Mike and Steve as fans – not reporters. With eight tours behind them, the guys have picked up some crucial SA vocabulary and offered their “boerewors!”, “lekker!”, “baie dankie!” and “padkos!” enthusiastically, much to the amusement of everyone in the auditorium.

What struck a chord with the band is the distinct and ingenious way a handshake is conducted throughout the country.

Vocalist Mike Craft marvelled at the many variants of the local hand shake. He admitted his intrigue in the rhythmic elements that are incorporated in the handshake.

“I learnt a handshake in Sun City and was quite surprised by the amount of time and effort which is put into it,” he said.

“It takes me longer to shake someone's hand than it does to walk to my hotel room,” he joked.

Terry Uttley, one of the original members, added that South African hospitality is unparalleled.

Drummer Steve Pinnel agreed and said that SA audiences were just as welcoming.

“It is a great pleasure to come back to South Africa,” Steve said.

“The crowd is always great, we get to see interesting places and the shows are always amazing.”

Terry attributed Smokie's success in Mzansi to the fact that its music is non-confrontational to what is a somewhat conservative society.

“Our music is never complicated, never political and we don't make any silly comments and that is how we manage to remain relevant to the South African audience,” Uttley said, adding that the band's fan base has grown since their first shows in apartheid South Africa.

“When we first performed in South Africa in the early nineties, we thought we would be playing to a mixed crowd and were shocked that it wasn't the case.” “However, it is great to see that as time goes by, a lot of black South Africans started attending their shows and people even brought their families along.”

Smokie performs at the Big Top Arena at Carnival City on 4 and 5 October. They will leave South Africa with an extended vocabulary and many bottles of their recent discovery, monkey gland sauce, which to

their amusement turns out to have nothing to do with a monkey, or its fluids.