K'naan gig - How to rock in tiny places
I meant to write about the day I went to see the fabulous K'naan opening for the Australian artist Xavier Rudd on April 8th at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. However I can't write about that due to Idiot-virus I had caught that day, where I forgot to check if K'naan was actually performing there.Turns out, he wasn't.
At first I thought it was a no-show like at his previous gig. But it turns out that he opened the night before. So here we are, my friend and I, queueing to get all the way to the front, boxed in at all sides by a bunch of Australian hippies.
We were worried at first when we couldn't find a single other Somali person there, normally news like this gets out fast and the whole portion of the Somali community which doesn't condemn Western style music drives out like a herd to accost one of the few famous people we have. (Sure we have Iman, who's not bad, but tends to make some Somali people uncomfortable and Ayaan Hirsi Ali who makes a whole lotta people uncomfortable and who is just plain embarrassing).
Xavier Rudd wasn't bad, actually he was surprisingly good and any guy who can play several instruments at once deserves my admiration. The point however was that we were there to see K'naan and possibly touch him.
But genius struck my friend and she decided to check out his website when we got home, and lo and behold, as if to compensate us for my stupidity, there he was holding a free gig at the Market Place the very next day. We knew we were in the right place when the bar was full of Somali people following other Somali people, as Somalis can be trusted to do.
A bit late, but finally he came on. There was no stage, the sound was crap but K'naan totally rocked it. Too bad the only thing letting him down was ironically, the Somali crowd who came there to support him. Behind me were two guys who kept muttering about how skinny he was, loud enough I think for K'naan to hear who was standing right in front of me.
Anyway, he seemed a bit put off by the whole atmosphere and the venue (which was ridiculously tiny). Despite all that, as soon as he started with the fact-paced In the beginning K'naan was on form, faultless and stirred with what seemed to me boundless passion. What I saw him do in that miniscule cube of a bar, no artist can fake. Here you have a lone man, and three guys on instruments and with faulty mikes. But when the music stops, and K'naan voice just rants off a long piece to silent room, I swear I was shaking.
Afterwards I didn't touch him, mostly because I didn't want to get banned from future performances.
Brilliant man, can't wait to see him perform properly at his next gig, which is sometime in May if I'm correct.
masterfully reported by Xu Said @ 8:22 AM
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