Sunday, September 17, 2006
She Band rocks Santam
Lenny and I have been working with FCB Cape Town on a Santam 5-city roadshow for the past 4-months. These kinds of events always take lots of meetings, proposals, presentations and negotiating before the client makes their choice, long before the first event happens.Santam settled on She Band; with Abbey Artico on keyboards, sax & vocals, Kerry Hiles on lead vocals & bass guitar, Erika Strydom on guitar & vocals and the very sassy Sonnet LeGrange on drums. They're one of Johannesburg & South Africa's only all-girl cover bands, and as we had a very successful gig with them last year in Port Elizabeth, where they really rocked one of our clients, we were looking forward to the gig.
We flew to Johannesburg on Thursday, leaving my boys for the second time in the week, to make sure everything ran smoothly and that our artists were well looked after. It's part of our service, and for our own peace of mind to - we want the best performance all round!
We had a very frustrating incident at Oliver Tambo International Airport (that's Johannesburg) and I hate bitching about service, but we need to get things right in this country before 2010. Like having a car be available at the time you book it for.
We got the run around with Tempest Car Hire where we had to wait for more than an hour because they just didn't have our car ready. We tried going to other companies, but couldn't come right, and so insisted that Tempest make a plan. They finally plucked one out of thing air, and very apologetically gave it at no cost for inconvenience caused. Whew!
My 'huff & puff' subsided, and we thanked Minau Wegner from Sure Travel for her intervention and getting them to jack-up their service!
Then we arrived at our accommodation. I was feeling calm. We had pre-booked the honeymoon suite at a B&B... But I was shown a little room with one small window, no pictures on the walls and a bathroom where the door almost scraped past the toilet and basin, and so I walked straight out again. Websites can be deceiving. (UPDATE: Just as a warning - they have also refused to pay back our deposits, so be sure to check out places such as this before paying!)
We ended up back at the airport, at the Intercontinental Airport Sun Johannesburg, booked ourselves into an executive suite and 'said bugger it'! It was hot, and we had a gig to worry about, so a little pampering was needed and deserved! And Emperor's Palace being 5-minutes away was a perfect excuseAnyway - the gig was great! She Band rocked the house, which made Tahra Sergeant & Elize Schoeman from FCB smile alot, and we got to spend some time chatting to Abbey during the breaks. She has such an infectious laugh, and 'grinning' outlook on life, that she is very easy to work with.
Sonnet the drummer had us totally amazed! She's this petite little lady, and only when we heard that she dances, sings and plays in a few other groups, did we understand how she can beat the drums the way she does - she's tiny!I also made a small video to give a sample of some of their tracks - it never does 'live' justice, but as can be seen by the end of the vid, they got the dance-floor going!
Oh, and we were also sent a basket of chocolates by Tempest Car Hire, to apologise about our 'experience' and so at the end of it all I can say that I am impressed. They stuffed it up, then made it right again, AND apologised! That's humble, and I admire that. At least I feel more assured there won't be any more incidents at the other 3cities on the tour!
Labels: Johannesburg, She Band
