22 July 2012 (gig)
24 July 2012
One week prior to the Olympic games opening ceremony was the BT River of Music Festival. The aim of the festival was to represent music from each continent across the 5 stages. The Noisettes headline day 2 at the Africa stage.
With 3 years after the release of the hugely successful 2nd album and a new one on the way next month, Dan and Shingai are on good form.
The band made an entrance, with the upbeat track from Wild Young Hearts ‘Saturday Night’. The big entrance was not only audible, but visual too. Shingai wore a gold structured ‘space skirt’. Her top half was encased in a giant love heart. She turned her back to the crowd to reveal the split heart on the back of the costume, which cracked into 2 halves as she moved her shoulder blades!
Shingai has amazing stage presence as well as a tremendous voice. She seemd to be everywhere, all at once, engaging the crowd with her charisma.
Mixing it up, the band gave the first taster from the new album. A track called ‘Winner’ which was followed by top hit ‘Don’t upset the rhythm'. This trio of upbeat songs really got the crowd pumped up. Not to waste the opportunity, it was time for the costume reveal. Shingai cracked off the heart, to reveal a Barbarella style gold corset- she looked fantastic!
Throughout the performance, Shingai never missed a perfect Kodak opportunity. One minute she was draped over the drum kit, the next she’s up at the front clapping and grooving; all the time, smiling and flirting with the audience.
A kind of break down now developed on stage; as they performed the massive house track from 2010 ‘I heard You Say (Hey Hey)’, which was a huge hit for Shingai with Dennis Ferrer. The backing band took instrumental solos over the infectious beat.
The band now introduced their special guests; 2 Malawian sisters- Grace and Madalo, who’s talent Shingai and Dan had discovered when they saw the girls singing and accompanying themselves on a homemade banjo. The Noisettes had vowed to bring them to perform alongside them in London.
Madalo played a homemade banjo, which she had made just 2 weeks prior to the gig. It was made from a cooking pot and a goatskin, which had taken a week to dry!
Despite some technical issues on stage, the girls lived up to the hype and delivered a touching performance. They played 3 tracks with the band including one original, which they had written called ‘We Are One’.
Back to the original line up, it was time for another new track- an almost country style number “Rag top car’, followed by the bands biggest hit ‘Never Forget you’. At this point Shingai launched herself toward the crowd, with the security helping her to balance on the barrier between the stage and the audience. As she balanced on the slim ledge, she continued to sing the entire time, which was pretty impressive!
A mock stage invasion reunited all the performers from the gig, including Grace and Madalo, along with the festival hosts. The crew all took to the stage for final song ‘Kilimanjaro’ which ended the show with a bang.
