KAREN KOTZE
This Saturday, April 9, you could change the course of a man’s life – for R100 – and have a jol while doing so.
The Cape Farmhouse on Red Hill is opening its doors at 3pm to a fundraiser – Farmhouse Rocks – with a killer line-up of cool, conscious musicians who are all giving their best performances, to get one of their own to Europe.
André Geldenhuys is 33, and music has been his life since he was 18. The Kommetjie singer and surfer is described by Jack Mantis, of the Jack Mantis Band, as a phenomenal guitarist.
Jack heads to Europe in eight weeks to kick off the next part of his world tour – facing 48 shows in three months.
“It’s like being on the front line and bullets are flying and everything in you is screaming – leave no man behind…” Jack quips, “..and Dre is on my shoulder… He needs this three months life experience, of being with a touring band,” he says.
He may be innately playful, but music is his life, so if Jack recognises something unique in a musician, you can bet your cowboy boots there’s gravitas to what he sees in André. And during the two-week break in this tour, Jack plans to duck into a studio and put together some sounds as a duo, just himself and André.
Jack decided to host a fund-raiser, and placed a call to his musician friends. Everyone simply said, of course.
So aside from the Jack Mantis Band and André Geldenhuys, the line-up for the event stars Nic Gaud (7th son), Joshua Grierson, Ernestine Deane, Seemsoe Ma-zula, Nathan Maingard, Tim Parr and Philip Pells.
Andre is excited at the prospect of the tour and humbled at his dream being put in other people’s hands. “I am pretty amped, I don’t really know what to expect so it’s pretty hard to comment,” he says.
Jack completed three years on tour last year and flew to Cape Town to take a holiday. In Kommetjie he and André met, and Jack has been staying in his RV on Andre’s property. Jack said they have musically and spiritually connected. With 1 600 American miles behind him, Jack’s focus is now shifting to the same tour bus (a converted school bus which he says produced a mystical, magical journey through the USA) in the months ahead, travelling through “gypsy Europe”.
André will join one other new member, an Aussie by the name of Lincoln Davis, for this tour.
“We already have guitarists in the band, but André has a style of his own, he comes from another places, like a Hendrix from an-other dimension,” Jack says.
“In return for the R100 ticket, I feel we have some of the most beautiful musicians in the south and we will spoil you; there will be a raffle and good music,” he adds.
“I believe the energy we will push out on the day will just leave you happy and inspired and present. If you are worried about making rent or what a girl said to you last week, you are going to miss out on the beauty – and there’s beauty every day,” he says.
Jack describes his experience of living in Kommetjie as being drenched by a baptismal tidal wave of returns. “I have no excuse to wake up in a bad space and I want that for more people. On Saturday I want people to come and just ‘forget about your worries and your strife’ (dances to the tune of Bear Necessities) and help one man get closer to his dream…”
To book tickets ahead of time go to quicker.co.za Visit: www. capefarmhouse or call the Cape Farmhouse on 021 780 1246. Details also on Jack Mantis’s Facebook page or leave a message on André’s cell on 061 001 1744.
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