  Guide toSA Artists in London I SAW THE WHOLE OF THE MOON Cutting Jade and Wonderboom @ The Shepherd's Bush Empire 26 July 2002 What is it with South African musicians and the moon? They sing about it (Koos Kombuis - 'Wrapped around the Moon', Piet Botha - 'Donkermaan' and Valiant Swart - 'Die Helfte van die Maan' to name a few), they often play at the Half Moon in Putney and when Wonderboom take to the stage, it's not long before drummer Danny de Wet moons. To be fair to him it was in the name of art as he was explaining the lyric 'left behind'. In fact a number of lyrics of the Wonderboom set are visually explained by Danny, tracing the outline of Africa with his finger in the air during the cover of Johnny Clegg's 'Africa' and being a cowboy, genius, raskop and all the other things that Johnny is during the witsblitz version of Koos Kombuis' 'Johnny is nie Dood nie' (except uitgepass). All this just adds energy and humour to what the rest of the band is doing. Cito on vocals is a true rockstar with swagger, poise and attitude aplenty. He twists, contorts and gyrates around the stage, roaring the songs while the two guitarists, Martin and Wade are constantly on the move. Martin joins Cito on vocals for the Rock Kwaito version of 'Charlie' and it's quite a sigh to behold the two of them, both stripped to the waist bouncing up and down on stage like a couple of, err... Rabbitts? The band hurtle through their set of original tunes and cover versions that they made their own on the CD 'Rewind'. Despite all the energy, excitement and sheer blast of the Wonderboom set, we cannot forget to mention Cutting Jade who opened the show. A young band, they delivered a solid set of blasting rock, tight and confident. Maybe not quite as dynamic as Wonderboom, but they do a good job of warming the audience up nicely. The band seems to be going from strength to strength and based on this performance look to go further still. Despite a rather poor turnout both bands gave their all and produced an great evening of rock music that scores high on the jol-ometer. Back to Archive Index Page
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