Welcome to the biggest music festival in southern Africa! As we said before Lake of Stars has been running in Malawi for a number of years and is now quite famous in Europe. Music and bustling activity, sandy beaches and stages and beer stands made of straw, happy locals and foreigners walking around with big smiles and dancing  bare foot all around in the sand  that’s just a sample of the sort of weekend this was!

This year the location chosen on the beachfront was a grand hotel called Nkopola lodge overlooking the lake with huge ground big enough space to stage an international festival as this. Four star quality rooms with palm trees in the exterior and grassy recreational areas outside set against the beachy sands. You can see why this hotel complex turned into a festival ground was a perfect setting for three days of music, arts and theatre.

As mentioned already, this music festival was created over 7 years ago by Will from England, and its purpose was to promote the arts, music and tourism of Malawi (and Southern Africa) to the world. A lot of people from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and the rest of the world  descend unto  the lake to enjoy the festival, have a holiday and find out more about this enchanting region in southern Africa. It also attracts musicians’ and artists from the length and breadth of Africa, Europe, Asia and the biggest stars from Malawi. Q magazine, a famous publication in London calls it ‘the finest festival in the world’, The guardian newspaper has been equally complimentary on the show.

Our story begins when we were fortunate enough to meet the production manager in London, Eddie FitzPatrick. We got on very well and she felt they could use our expertise and experience at the festival this year to manage one of the three main stages there. As this was a dream opportunity for us, it was very easy to agree to do it. The three main stages on site are called the ‘Main stage’  for the headline acts to the show, the ‘Beach stage’ for entertainment and music by the beach and the ‘Band stand stage’, a musical and cultural awareness and experience for the festival goers. Our assignment was to manage the Band stand stage.

Upon arriving onsite in the town Mangochi, we were hit by the hot temperature basking against the tall trees and warming up the dry dusty ground. Just outside the Nkopola lodge you are surrounded by several local villages and communities, bringing home to you the stark contrast between the grand hotel and its local surroundings. The villagers on arrival outside are very friendly and once again the children are always keen to practice their ‘hellloooo!!!’ in English with you.

THURSDAY

We arrived there on Thursday and headed straight for the stage to inspect and find the rest of our team. The stage was constructed by local skillful craftsmen using wood, straw, and bamboo. We were a team of four of us including us two, the sound engineer Castro and stage assistant Kananga. We also had an ‘Artist liaison’ contact who would report the latest schedules on the two way radio or bring down the artists from the main hotel reception to the staging area to meet us.

On the first day our main job was to ensure most of the band equipment allocated to our stage was delivered by a truck to our site, and the equipment was ready for setting up. We coordinated the set up following guidelines from Castro for wiring the various instruments in place, mic-ing up the equipment and placing bottles of water under the stage for the artists. It was a sweltering 80 deg F you know!

You would expect a big festival like this would throw up big characters, divas and wannabes but it turns out none of them would be bigger than Castro the sound engineer! Larger than life character when you meet him with tons of stories up his sleeves and the cheekiest grin you have seen! Originating from Mozambique and able to speak Portuguese, French, English and Chichewa. Very unconventional, a bit eccentric but hard not to like.

The first day we met him was a clue of things to come: a lone man sitting on the newly constructed Band Stand stage steering into the distance past the construction workers and stand owners stocking up their stalls with their food and drinks for the show. As I approached I could make out he had no shirt on (it was a very hot day), dark beach shorts, no shoes and a big yellow Vuvuzela strapped on his arm…’Hellooo I’m Castro!’ firm handshake, cheeky big grin in place, blowing up his Vuvuzela loudly before jumping off the stage. And the next very soon to be familiar conversation ‘Now listen, I tell you I spoke to Will about …..’Will being the Director of the festival…and then the conversation descends into various stories about his experiences working the sound at this festival, the good, the bad, the craziness and the downright unbelievable.

Finally he jumps on to the stage and proceeds to the back to put on the CD some of his favourite songs on the sound mixer LOUDLY and the whole Band Stand area and food stands come alive. The workers and stand owners look up from their work momentarily, acknowledge the music nodding their heads and go back to work. We run through the equipment check list music still blasting from the speakers and then he turns the music down…’also before I forrrrget’ he grabs the cute young quiet little lady in the corner ‘this is my wife! She is my life! My heart, I cannot work without her on my side! Now I tell you speak to Will if you want me to work very well on the job, they have to give her an All access pass and move her into my accommodation here at the hotel grounds’ his hands alternating between wild gestures and pulling her close for dramatic effect ‘they gave me a double bed to share with Lemme (another sound engineer). Why,why they do this man, do they think we are lovers? You tell Will they must change this please! Otherwise…..’ holds his hand onto his head ‘I can’t concentrate on my job oohhh!’ at this point  he is getting  more animated as I try to reassure him we’ll ask Will to get his room changed, 15 mins go by before we can calm him down on the matter. ‘And food… tell Will I cannot function without something to eat, I need ENERGY man!’ a loud laugh bellows from his gut as the cheeky grin follows again…..

FRIDAY

As it turns out Castro should have been happy this morning. We had tracked down the busiest man on site, Director Will, the night before. We caught him in the talking to various people on the phone and at present running between the control room and the artist liaison building, just generally getting ready for the show the next day. We explained to him about Castro. Will for someone who had a thousand and one things to do at that moment was very kind to us. He stopped and listened patiently for a couple of minutes. We went to find Castro at the Beach stage and Will explained he would see to it that his wife could get a free pass for the week end. Big smile across Castro’s face, job done for the night.

We had planned all four of us to meet at the Band stand stage for 9am in the morning to go over the schedule and plan ahead for the day with regards to staging the show. We were due to start the show at 12am. When we arrived on site the next day, we could tell someone had been there earlier due to the sound mixing desk been moved around and some of the microphone stands had not been placed. Kananga was earlier sitting in solitude quietly waiting in the corner.

‘Where is Castro?’ –‘I don’t know I didn’t find him here’

Oh dear. We needed to find him if we wanted to start the show on time! Where was he? Inquiring with security guards on our site and the food stall owners, he was nowhere to be seen… Running through the whole site from one end to another, from one stage to the next , no luck. Checking at his apartment, no answer. This was getting worrying. We radioed on the two way to control and artist liaison departments : ‘any one report sighting of Castro anywhere today?’ –  ‘negative not seen him yet’.

We had to leave the search and just try to carry out the scheduling and sound check between the three of us. So between the coordinating and running around I ended up looking for some particular vocal mics on the other  side of the festival complex on the Beach stage. In deep conversation with the stage engineer the subject of Castro came up.

‘Oh yeah by the way I’ve seen him today, he’s over there….’ he said pointing towards the nearby beach. Dropping what I was doing I rushed over the hot sandy beach to try to find him. There on the hot beach sands in the middle of a group of men and women with a big grin smiling and talking animatedly was Castro… wearing a lady’s beach outfit!

‘Heeyy Man, how are you?’

‘Castro, where have you been, we’ve been looking everywhere for you, its 11 oclock, we ‘re supposed to start at 12!’

‘Whhhy man, you no hear? I Came there to the stage at 6am, coz I wake up early ask my wife, I arrive I see the electrician and he tell me no power yet for the festival, no power man! So I go and have a swim at the beach, you tell them all I no care this not professional man! And you tell Will for me …’

Oh no. Here we go again! After gently persuading him to join us back at the staging area with his lady bathing suit in hand… ‘Hey Castro why did you get the lady beach wear to swim?’

‘Man I buy this cheap in store but also I thought it’s a lot of fun  to try haha’  the now familiar laughter tones ringing aloud.

The electrician arrived again. For there to be electricity we needed the generator working and for the generator to work we needed diesel. The lorries bringing diesel to the festival were still two to three hours away and could arrive even later. A big diesel shortage had been hitting Malawi for a few days. A call to the production manager confirmed the news. Yet not the most welcome of news as we were now getting radio calls from the Liaison officer Ken informing us the first set of artists were on site and coming down to see us. More frantic calls to the production crew, in particular Tom.

Around this, the festival area and sandy beaches were beginning to get crowded with people ready to kick of their weekend fun. All of a sudden there was a lot of activity around as food and beer stand owners, promoters, NGO’s and companies with stands started to hurry up getting ready as the sense in the air was the festival was soon to start. And still no fuel. And still no electricity.

The first of the artists Chief Chipoka Band turned up and introduced themselves with Ken from the Artists department. A local group of six members from Malawi, very polite, we were very lucky that they weren’t in the mood to throw a tantrum at not being able to sound check early because of the electricity issue. Then a radio call from Tom and Will. Fuel is on its way shortly, please ask the artists to be patient. We make a call the engineer asking him to return to our stage to be ready to go.

Ken returns to introduce us to the MC (master of ceremonies for the day). Her name is Fatima, a veteran of previous festivals and a delightful Lady to meet. It felt like her presence brought a certain sense of professionalism over the proceedings. The fuel arrives finally and the electrician powers us up by getting the generator going… an hour and a half late but the show was ready to begin!

From the moment Fatima takes to the stage to announce we are about to start, there is a mixture of excitement and expectancy that this is going to be a great weekend….we get the first band through the quickest soundcheck we can, with Castro thankfully approving the sound and they take to the stage.

As the first strains of music blasts through the large monitors, there is a feeling of relief as the band launch into the first song. The small crowd that has just gathered are enjoying it and yelling their approval. For us there was no time to be listening just yet. We had to ring through to Liaison office to update us on the coming artists and their requirements for their set.

‘Heyy man you tell them we need food over here to eat I’m getting hungry!’ Castro yells over the music as I make way back to the Artist Liaison office at the other end of the festival ground….

‘Shishani are not happy with not having rehearsal space, we are franctically looking for somewhere for them to play be warned!’ I was informed when I reached the office.

Shishani were a five person band. The name of the band was taken from the band leader’s name also. They were a bit unknown quantity in these parts and we didn’t know what to expect. Apparently the band had thrown a big tantrum at having no place to rehearse before they were due on our stage and having travelled all the way from Namibia and Netherlands, you could understand why they felt that way. The lead singer had apparently let her feelings known to the artist liaison and for the last hour or so was the most infamous band at the office! Apparently she was a no nonsense straight talker who had more than a few at the office running around to fix the problem. We went off looking for them and found them outside the hotel lounge practicing with a couple of acoustic guitars and a steel pan…

Approaching them we apologized for all the issues they were having at the festival and they turned out to be really sweet people. We would try our best to make sure they got what they needed for their show we told them, and they were due on our stage next after Malawian band Waliko.

Upon returning Waliko had just finished their set and were coming off stage, to the sound of some applause from the small crowd. Given that we had a very short time to set up for Shishani, the four of us worked really fast to get it all ready in time. We were already running past schedule and Shishani had arrived. The band quietly set up their equipment and were helpful in getting their soundcheck to their requirements… this was going much better than planned, the crowd had started to grow larger as more people were coming through the gates… Radio message comes through from production manager Tom : ‘just to warn you our man in Mangochi town has just warned us there were storms there just now and its beginning to rain over there, you may have to  bring out the plastic covers and stop the show for a while we looked up and you could see dark clouds now approaching’…. oh No, not now!

After all the preparation we would have to tell them they may not be able to play…. We steeply walked over to tell them… they did not look amused but took it well all things considered today.

Radio call comes over again.. ‘errm could you tell them to start anyway but if it does start raining you’re gonna have to stop though’ ‘we copy that!’

Phew! At least we could start the show and hope for the best and at least the band didn’t have to come off stage just yet…

MC Fatima duly took to the stage to introduce the band and create a fun atmosphere with the crowd for the band to come on to. Then Shisani took to the stand. The music started playing. The moment she started singing we could all feel this was a special band and her voice was very good. The crowd agreed and cheered. People who had been walking past to get to the beach, or go to the fall stalls all stopped to watch and appreciate the sweet sound. We looked up and the dark clouds had not reached the venue yet… We were looking to Castro and telling him to let her play on, for now. The music and her voice were just really great. Castro was happy that the sound and levels were perfect.

Dark clouds started to gather as people were singing and dancing. Small drops of rain started to drop on the ground… ‘we may need to stop the show in a minute if this goes on no’nodding over to Shishani we get word to her that we may have to stop soon. She looks over into the crowd and shouts back ‘ok, but I really want to do the next two can I get 10 mins?’ Oh what the heck the crowd is enjoying themselves, we’ll take the chance and see what happens….the  band then launch into a song called ‘Clean Country’, which is about the environment. The crowd is really getting into the music and dancing everywhere… even the stage crew join in the clean country dance momentarily before returning to our positions…

Then, the sky started to clear like a metaphor for the day we’d been having. This was worth all the issues and problems we’d had for the last day! By the last song people were dancing excitedly to the tune and singing along with the band. They came off to a huge applause and people yelling for them to come back! Thankfully the sky stayed clear still and we could continue the rest of the show.

‘Hey did you get my food voucher man? Thanks!’ Castro said as he disappeared into the crowd of food stalls to have a much needed break….

We were lucky. The other performances went ahead without any issues. They all finished after 5.30pm giving us a chance to watch and enjoy the rest of the festival just like every other audience member!  One of the highlights for us was watching the Malawian rock band Mafilika and dancing to various DJ sets at the beach stages with some friends! There was the beach bar in the middle of the festival ground where everybody gathered till late at night to listen to more music dance around.

SATURDAY

After dancing and partying with friends on the beach and main stage till late the previously night we woke up a bit sleepy eyed but raring to go and got to our stage by 8am… Background music was playing again loudly with Castro nowhere to be seen… but we could guess where he was… swimming at the lake again. We sent Kananga out to the beach to look for him and let him know it was time to get to work. We were determined today to at least start the show on time and have the artists performing all at the allocated given to us by Festival Control. We went over all the details and created a stage plan and time plan for the day, and then radio-ed through to the main stage management to get some extra keyboards, guitars and microphones we would need.

The day seemed to feel busier than yesterday simply because the people were already here, some at the grand hotel and others at the tent  area nearby so the food stalls, beer huts, arts and crafts shops were already buzzing with quite a bit of activity. As this is an international festival the show attracts a range of companies and charities also including Books by bus, Access mobile and Jambo Africa and they were all getting attention on their stands facing right opposite our stage…

It’s 11.30 we are due to start at 12pm.Thatch Roof Carousel, a three piece Canadian rock band based in Malawi has just arrived with Castro strolling in just behind them…… ‘don’t’ worry man, I come earlier and left this morning, I checked everything here…we get this set up done quickly!’

Sound check begins… we go through the guitars and then the drummer runs through a funky drum fill… the sounds coming out through the speakers boom out to the emerging audience to their amusement. The band has already brought their own friends, family and colleagues at the front who are already excited and start screaming and shouting.

We are all happy with the sound and approve for Fatima to introduce the first act on the stage. They set off into the first song… it’s loud but the fans are responding positively, in a tongue in cheek way, as there are many of their friends and colleagues with mock up posters claiming love for the lead singer and the bassist like a boy band, with the grown ladies screaming like young teenage girls also its quite funny actually. In the middle of the set the bassist asks Castro to turn up his monitors… they rip through their next song energetically but also… blow up one of our speakers! We chose to let them continue for the next song but have to ask them to call time and come off soon.

One of the challenges of this job is when the artist is having a good time on stage and you are the one who has to tell them it’s time to come off to a slightly disappointed turning into desperation to a ‘pretty please’ face as they ask you to do one more song. The band come off but we have to take a quick break to replace the defective speaker…

At this moment a small Japanese lady is found wandering onto our stage which is a relief as the artist Liaison department kept radio-in us to find out if we’d seen her. She couldn’t speak much English or French. After many hand gestures and movements we managed to get her on stage to do her quick set… it was a set of famous songs covered with classical guitar music, she came off afterwards and disappeared as quickly as she had turned up, leaving us to wonder if that set had really happened at all or not…

As one of the bands had dropped out, we called Shishani and Tonetic who were just wandering around back for an encore on stage for an improvised two-songs set.

Next up we had a very entertaining artist Sophie who provided sweet Rwandan music for the appreciate crowd with her Guitarist Dickens. We were lucky as both these sets of musicians didn’t need amplification and we’d sent Kananga to the main stage to see if they could help with providing a fix for the blown up bass monitor.

‘Hi Guys just to let you know the ‘Amitoto kung fu group are stuck in traffic and may not be able to make it on time, if so just carry on with the show!’

They were a famous Blantyre martial arts children’s group who were famous for their brilliant theatrical kung fu arts and acrobatics show. We hoped they could make it as this was supposed to be one of the day’s highlights.

Future King vibrations, a local group strolled on next as most of their instruments were homemade( including the drums) we had to move all our equipment further away from the stage so they could move up theirs. Mic-ing local instruments is a big challenge because you can’t plug into them so you have to set more microphones around them and their instruments…

‘ask dem how many are going to be singing?’ Castro asked as he tweaked the sound mixers.

The Blind lead singer insisted he be placed towards the right end of the stage, as some of the band members led him to this side of the stage…

‘erm how many others in the band are going to sing?’ he looked like he was thinking for a moment then swung his head back and forth the way Stevie Wonder does in his videos…’Yes tell the engineer there will be five of us, five yes for sure’

‘Castro we need five vocal stands please’ Castro looks up from setting the levels on his desk…’no way maan we no have enough mikes coz we put the rest on their instruments, tell him may be four…’

We tell the singer and a frown comes over his face. ‘Ok make sure my mike is set up clearly please and …’ it looks like he is nodding to the right (how does he know they are there?!!) ‘make sure them two have one together and the guitarist  and bassist too, you sure five is not possible ‘

‘no we have run out of mikes’  the drummer puts his hand up ‘but they need me to hit the high notes for the background singers’

‘Just tell the drummer to sing into one of his instrument mikes on the side’ Castro directed from the back ‘Now we ready to go!’

Future kings sang through their four songs. The sound was very Malawian with a beat you could nod your head to and very attractive melodies. But we were now running in overtime and were expecting one more act to come in and close the show….

Next up was Mr Giddes Chalamanda a 79 year old very very famous musician in Malawi. In fact we had no idea how famous he was because he came dressed very humbly with his electric guitar and sat quietly in the corner as he watched the previous performers. We got a clue when one of the younger fans came backstage and virtually bowing at his feet was and calling him a musical great excited that we sort of started to get the message. As he only required one guitar amp we miked him up pretty quickly and Fatima introduced him to his adoring Malawian crowd, he started playing to the loud cheering of the day.

Then out of the blue, a man in a hat with a group of security people approached the stage… word rang out that the minister for tourism was here to make an announcement and we had to clear the stage….I ran onto the stage to usher Giddes off as I could feel the security group approached from behind… ’No let him play, its him I’ve come to see!’ I heard from behind before I had to step aside quickly as the minister shook hands with him, and chatted to him while everyone was trying to work out what was going on… he took a quick photo and left as quickly as he had come, apparently he was also a huge fan and had actually just come over to greet and meet him… and Giddes carried on playing his music with his guitar, and his local crowd was really loving it.

At some point he had gone past his allocated time slot and gave no indication of stopping soon… the production manager had come over and asked us to be sensitive about how long to keep him up there as the crowd could get upset at having to take their Legend off…another song plays and still no sign of him coming off …the time is going by and have all our crew waiting in the wings to close the stage…looking over to the crowd, they give no indication they are satisfied either and still singing and rocking to the guitar music… its now the third extra song he is playing that we hadn’t planned.

‘It’s 5pm could you tell the crowd to make their way to the main stage, as the Minister is opening the evening show today please’ radio message comes in.

We then make an executive decision that it’s time to pull him off… I walk onto the stage as his is in the middle of the next song, stop his playing and whisper to him in his ear that we have to call time on his music right now. He takes it pretty well, thanks the audience and starts unplugging to come off… Boos start ringing loudly with everyone thinking it was not fair for him to come off they weren’t ready yet… I take to the stage to make an announcement ‘We are sorry to have Giddes come off’ Louder boos ringing ‘but we have to close our stage soon but you are all asked to make your way to the main stage for the opening show’ booos ring louder. I look behind and start to walk off the stage…

Artist Liaison radio back: ‘sorry guys we’ve just had news that the Kungfu  group has just arrived, we know you should be closing but they have travelled from far to be here, so you are going to have to carry on the show’

The thing about stage managing is you are busying running around all day that even when you are tired it doesn’t matter, you feel like you are in automatic mode and carry on regardless. Castro though was not amused ‘we finish at 5.30 man, why they don’t let us finish now?’ we had already started packing though so he may have had a point!

A Chinese man walked round to the back of the stage, with a CD in his hand. He gestured to the soundmixer, looking at us as if to try to explain. He obviously couldn’t speak much English and we couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell us… a minute or so later the back stage area was full of children, all Malawian, ranging from the age of about four to about  sixteen years old. We worked out this was the Kung fu group. Along them walked in a Malawian man who looked after the group and explained he would liaise with the Chinese man (he also spoke Chinese that is why). After listening to the requests of how they would like the sound for their performance, we decided we would stage the concert in front of the stage as they were too many kids to fit our stage. There must have been about 30 young performers for this show. We cleared some of the crowd left back, the music was set up for them to begin…We exchanged with Castro to look after the sound as each of us strolled off to use our food vouchers quickly to get some late lunch as they started, it had been a long day and our tummies were grumbling!

It was a great show performance definitely the highlight of the day. The children were performing like seasoned professionals as they presented to the crowd a show containing swings, somersaults, parades and mock fights in between dancing and introducing a taste of Chinese culture for the crowd to appreciate. It’s amazing how a crowd that had deserted us almost 30 mins ago came and was back in full swing. A lot of them couldn’t believe they were watching young kids from their own country performing feats and tricks they only saw in Kung fu movies. People were cheering wildly at every move, gesture and kicks from this group. After the debacle of taking one of their hero Giddes earlier, this more than made up in their eyes. The group left to a standing ovation as the kids proceeded backstage where we were overcrowded by the group and new fans wanting to take photos with their newly found heroes!

After packing up we made our way to the main stage to catch some of the highlight performances of the festival… in particular Liz Ogumbo a cross between a singing Grace Jones and a modeling  Niaomi Campbell, Malawian icone Lucius Banda, English indie-rock band Falls, English soul singer Beverley Knight, Malawian reggae band Black Missionaries and of course the South African band Freshly Ground. This band are responsible for creating the song “Waka Waka” which Shakira used as the World cup song and they absolutely rocked the house on this day. When they finished their set singing this famous song the whole festival was jumping up and down singing back at them! The song they did sounded like this: unfortunately most of us were too busy enjoying the music to film it but here is a replica performance:

SUNDAY

On Sunday, it was even more difficult to wake up as the night had been very short for all the crew. But we were still very motivated to carry on the show. To start with, around forty girls from TILINANU ORPHANAGE, based in Lilongwe, came on stage to perform some gospel songs. They are looked after by a lovely Malawian lady helped out by two amazing British volunteers, Alice and Nina.

After that, Jimmy Chiozo “the King of Africa” came on stage to perform a mix between rock guitar and reggae along with some traditional dancers from his village.

He was followed by a 3-piece French band called “From two” who came all the way to the lake from France. When they arrived after 30 hours of travelling they were exhausted and quite sensitive about their equipment as their show was based on electronic samples. We were lucky to have Artist liaison manager Anna Cox who came down to our stage to help liaise with them. After some time trying to set up the stage, they finally started their performance which was an original set compared to all what we had heard so far.

After a few acts of poetry and theatre, we finally closed the Band stand around 5pm that day. We packed up all the instruments and went to the Star bar to hang out with our friends and the crew until early hours in the morning.

MONDAY

On Monday, we went to visit an orphans school working in partnership with the Outreach projects which collaborates with Lake of Stars to raise awareness of the local community : the MANGOCHI ORPHANS EDUCATION AND TRAINING.

Here is a video about the work of the Outreach projects in the villages.

After all the hard work of the weekend and since the Monday was a bank holiday, the organizers threw us all a thank you party. It was basically in appreciation of successfully managing to pull off another great Festival for this year. Everybody in the staff was invited from Directors, production staff, Artists Liaison, Managers, Ticket office workers, Electricians and security. The party was thrown at a smaller lodge called ‘Pamudzi’. We were first served with various local buffets before heading for the bar to dance the night away. First Will the organizer thanked everybody for their hard work and also those who had returned again this year to help with the festival. Then we had an open dance floor where people could dance and enjoy themselves! Ann cox took over proceedings and hosted the show, DJ’s who had played during the festival were also invited to take over the decks and spin some good music. Here are some of the highlights from the night!

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