Larry Amos rocks Ella Mera

A UNIQUE and incredibly versatile talent, Larry Amos is held in highest regard by faithful fans and fellow musicians.

It was one of these highly talented fellow musicians, Vryheid’s very own Ian Bland, who saw an opportunity to share the amazing talent of Mr Larry Amos with Vryheid.

Local businessman and owner of Ella Mera Pub and Grill, Michael Phytides hosted the event, attracting a good crowd of music lovers and expanding his clientele to include a somewhat maturer, but no less keen, audience.

As well as Mr Amos’ own material – he currently has over seventy original songs registered with SAMRO, the audience also thoroughly enjoyed a few well known and much loved covers of a few classic hits, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and Janis Joplin’s ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, to name but a few.

For those of us old enough to recollect, Larry Amos was the driving force of Baxtop, an original blues-rock band from South Africa. He wrote and composed all of their songs, playing lead guitar and doing vocals. Baxtop won a Sarie Award and Battle of the Bands in 1979 and had a number one hit with ‘Jo Bangles’ in the same year.

Aside from the phenomenal blues/rock guitar style of Larry Amos and Ian Bland’s brilliant bass playing talent, the crowd was treated to, not one, but two dexterous drummers.

Kalvern van der Merwe, who played the first set, wowed audiences with his spectacular skills, and Kelvin Bland, a talented musician from Vryheid, who has been affiliated with such bands as Vonkprop, The Far Side and Black Whiskey, whose passion for the music could be seen right down to the paradiddle on his T-shirt.

The performance, which was scheduled to begin at 7:30pm, started at approximately 8:00pm, due to a slightly extended, but very enjoyable soundcheck.

The accommodating Mr Amos and his band continued to play well into the night, stirring up the crowd with their smouldering tunes and getting people up off their seats and dancing to some familiar favourites.

“If Ella Mera can host this kind of thing more often, they might just convert me into a regular,” said one of the patrons, when asked what he had thought of the event.