Sand Music Festival Post-mortem

I have been asking myself whether I need to do a post-mortem on Sand Music Festival or not. My hesitancy to do so is owed to the fact that I did not attend the event. Nevertheless, I have been ardently following it from its preparatory stages right to its performative phase.

One thing which is very clear is that 8 years after it was launched, it has become a mature and well organised annual music fixture. We have quickly forgotten that it was borne out of frustration as a reaction to the manner that 'Lake of Stars' festivals allegedly used to 'abuse' the local talent.

This year's Salima event had its highs and lows. However the lows cannot compare with the incident where vehicles burnt down.

Overall it has become Sand Music Festival's signature to line up local as well as internationally recognised and popular talent that Malawian fun seekers can quickly identify with. 

At the moment Zimbabwean Ammara Brown is the name to closely follow with her Club bangers that are frenzying the international dancehalls. The Akilizi star was therefore a perfect invitee to this year's festival.

Kenyatta Hill, son to the fallen legendary Joseph Hills of Culture needs no introduction. Of course I already pointed out that he was a repeated dosage having occasioned the entertainment spaces both in Blantyre and Lilongwe just last year.

But his performance was electrifying as it was also unbelievable when he performed for 3 and half hours none stop.

This is what I took as another low.

It is not by accident that standard performance duration for professional performers is 45 minutes. Live performances are thus sold or bought in 45 minutes sets. If an artist plays for 90 minutes he/she gets money for two sets.

What this means is that Kenyatta performed close to five sets on trot. I am worried because his father Joseph Hill died in Germany in the middle of a tour which his son Kenyatta stepped in to complete. I should hope he is watching his abilities and that he won't be over doing it to exhaustion.

The other downside is the absence of Andrew Tosh, the son to the reggae great Peter Tosh. He was rescued by his so called cousin, little known Ricky Tosh who Google cannot even point as a musician at all.

It is clear that this was a learning point for the organisers. They need to do background check before engaging some of these artists. In fact by just engaging Google they would have known that Andrew Tosh is trouble. Numerous stories on his digital footprint can attest to the same.

Another shortcoming was that an all-stars performance was done in one night when it was supposed to spread evenly across the three days that the festival was billed to explode!

Yes the argument would be 3am to 630 am that Kenyatta performed was on a Sunday technically but this would be a desperate defence that would yield so little to assuage the pain of having to endure such an overload.

When all is said though, on a scale of 1 to ten (1 being poor and 10 as excellent) I would put the Festival at 8. Team Entertainers did not disappoint with their music equipment. Everyone is full of praise of the top quality sound that sent the patrons to this year's Sand Music Festival spell bound.

As a home grown music festival, it is only fair to commend the organisers for a show well down and console those corporate institutions that procrastinated and were left out. Next time take pride in best buy Malawian and support the home industry!