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‘Red Eyed’ Riaan and Friends open new year with a bang

Home Art Life ‘Red Eyed’ Riaan and Friends open new year with a bang

WINDHOEK – The Warehouse in Windhoek opened its doors last week Friday with a bang louder than the new year’s celebrations when local and South African musicians entertained a packed-to-the-rafters house with probably the best blues ever heard in the country.

With the theme ‘Gangster Swing’, organiser and frontman of the Cape Town based Crimson House Blues Band, Namibian born Riaan ‘Red Eyed’ Smit put together a show that will be remembered well into 2014 and one that will be hard to beat.

From the moment Smit jumped onto the stage it was pure barnstorming exuberance, reminding the audience that he is both curator and innovator of one of the greatest forms of music ever. “Blues is the roots, everything else is the fruit,” is how he sums up the music he and a host of special guests from Namibia and Cape Town dished up on the night.

While lead guitarist Thomas Bökemöller from the Mo Jo Blues Band had the crowd swaying and dancing to his breakneck, intricate solos with dazzling dexterity, Smit belted out blues numbers by many of the greats like John Lee Hooker and BB King, as well as some of his own band’s best material.

Joining the acrobatic frontman on stage in a memorable meeting of great blues minds were Robert Key on bass guitar, Christoph De Chevonnes Vrugt on drums, Savannah (lead guitar and vocals), PD Stohman (lead guitar and vocals), Nickolas Becker (saxophone), Ollie Reissner (harmonica), Tania Ott (vocals), Adam Brandon-Kirby (drums) and Anesh Mohar (drums).

The evening confirmed that the 12-bar blues will never run out of steam when four, five and even seven-piece bands rip into their instruments and interpret the classic blues songs in their own way, proving that blues never gets old if you dare to mix it up.

The result was a night of big blues music and very emotional guitar solos, backed by razor-sharp vocals and world-class sax solos from Becker from Cape Town.

For those who attended the Gangster Swing, the message was loud and clear: Blues is a universal language, and whether it’s a Robert Johnson or a Willie Dixon original, it remains fresh and exciting – provided it’s delivered in the spunky way ‘Red Eyed’ Riaan and Friends did it last week Friday.

By Deon Schlechter