High-Kickin' It

I know, I know.  Here I am, writing about an a cappella group, and it's not Rockapella, and I still haven't written about Napa.  That will come in due time.


Last night, I saw Ladysmith Black Mambazo at the Lewis Family Playhouse in Rrrrrancho Cucamonga.  If you're not familiar with the Spike Lee documentary "Do It A Cappella", you may have heard them on Paul Simon's "Graceland" CD.  I haven't seen them perform live before.


LBM is a South Afircan group founded by Joseph Shabalala back in 1960.  He's still the leader of the group, and can still do a few high kicks! Amazing.


I don't know most of the song titles, so I won't be doing a set list for this show.  

•   I like the soothing tone of their voices.
•   I loved seeing the dancing and the kick lines.  They kick high!  I would have fallen down trying to do those moves.
• Two guys in the front row (I was in the 2nd row) were obviously big fans, and were encouraging the guys to kick higher.  Later on, when Joseph Shabalala was pointing to people in the audience to join them on stage, these two guys went up there and danced, too.  They couldn't kick as high as the guys in LBM, but I applauded their efforts.  Two other men joined them on stage and tried to do the kicks, too.  That whole part was funny.
• They were promoting their Grammy-nominated CD, "Songs from a Zulu Farm", so we got to hear songs about a rooster, a duck, and a bad donkey, among others.  I bought that CD.  
• The only song that I was familiar with during the show was "Homeless", which they had sung on the "Graceland" CD.
• For their encore, they asked us to sing along if we knew the song.  It ended up being "Old Macdonald had a farm."  
• I really liked the shirts that they wore after intermission, because they had different animals on the lower portion, as well as on the back, covering their butt.  I was amused by the lion butts.
• Joseph's youngest son, Thamsanqa, seems to be the one that's being groomed to take over the leadership of the group.  He's cute!  I liked how he smacked his own butt when he danced at one point.  
• One of the guys kept acting like he was in pain from all of the moves, but he did end up doing some high kicks later on.  He signed my CD.
• i wish I knew all the guys names, so that I could write down the names of the 2 guys that signed my CD.  At this moment, you can see the picture on their home page.  The 2 guys that signed were the guy on the right of the top row, and the 2nd guy from the right in the bottom row.

I was able to go out for dessert at The Cheesecake Factory with Jeff and Wendy, who had volunteered at the theatre that night.  None of us actually had cheesecake.  But the Godiva Chocolate Brownie Sundae was quite yummy.  Thanks for the company, J&W!