I Was There When...
on Anthony Lovat in Bolgatanga (Ghana), 28/Sep/2010 10:31, 34 days ago
With every successful band, there are always stories of pioneering gigs in rough bars and pubs in dirty areas of town or in muddy fields. I knew someone at work once who recounted with misty eyes his memories of seeing The Rolling Stones at some tiny venue in the sixties, before they got big. I knew someone who saw Oasis play at the City of Manchester Stadium in the mid-90s. I remember talking to a drunken man in a pub many years ago who told me about seeing Jimi Hendrix play one of his first UK gigs at York University. The dancing was so enthusiastic, he told me, that the venue started sinking into the ground and had to be evacuated.These stories have become legends– told by devotees and fans to their children and grandchildren. Books and films are created to document and mythologise these histories. This is both the beauty and the curse of music as an art form – it is a social event, a congregation that can only be truly understood by those who have “been there when...” It is an ephemeral art form, something enjoyed for an instant before fading like mist. Whereas painting is in two dimensions and sculpture is in three dimensions, music is art in the fourth dimension – time. In the modern age (the past hundred years or so), an impression of music can be invoked in recordings but listening to a musical recording or even watching a concert on TV is like trying to catch a cloud – it is the fragility of music, the way, like a sandcastle on the beach or an ice sculpture, it is doomed to be lost in time that makes it so beautiful. Live musichas the ability to tap and control the atmosphere of a crowd – it is a shared experience for those participants present. It is something that bonds the crowd with a shared emotion and a shared love – hence the delight to randomly meet someone else who had “been there when...” Only they understand how exciting it was to hear that emotion being created and nurtured at that instant – that shared moment in time.In the years to come, when TangaCulture are strutting the boards of international superstardom, the two gigs we played over the past weekend will enter the pantheon of rock-and-roll legend.The first was our Tamale debut– at a bar called ‘Sparkles’. We were due to play at nine o’clock on Friday evening. By midday, we still had no idea how to get there and no one was answering their phones. By two o’clock, we had chartered a tro-tro (a clapped out old minibus) from a mate of Kwesi. By four o’clock, we were drifting in to the social centre and were loading the tro-tro with instruments. The guitars, djembis, xylophone and speakers went on the seats and the drums went on the roof. By five o’clock we’d left Bolga – ten of us including myself, Kwesi, Culture, Joe, Donatus, Labran, Tijani, Old Boy,Francis and Bayetta were all piled into the back of the tro-tro, excitedly laughing and chatting, amazed that we’d actually been able to organise ourselves so well. By seven thirty, we’d arrived at Sparkles, had unloaded the tro-tro and were checking our instruments. By eight o’clock, we wereable to sit down and relax before we were due to play at nine. In the history of TangaCulture and, indeed, in the history of Ghana, rarely has any operation been executed with such military precision. We were rightfully pleased with ourselves just for being there on time.‘Sparkles’ is a popular bar in the centre of Tamale – just off the main road near the central Barclays bank. Owned by a Dutchman called Afe, it is tastefully designed and popular with backpackers and short-term volunteers, often young and attractive Danish and Dutch girls whose long conditioned blond hair glistens like gold and so baits the young men who try desperately to attract their attention by mimicking American gangsters. They have the baseball caps, the basketball vests and the phraseology down to a tee but, according to Afe, they rarely buy any drinks – they are all bark and no bling.Nonetheless, Sparkles is far more sophisticated than anywhere you might find in Bolga. The sprinkling of foreigners lends it an exotic international edge. The band was very excited about playing in such a place so we all bought some Alomo sachets to calm our nerves.Alomo Bitter, at 42%, is a reliable way to take alcohol. At the equivalent of 10p per sachet (about 35ml) or£2 for a 750ml bottle, it is also fairly cheap. It tastes very much like Hungarian ‘Unicum’ and, like Unicum, it markets itself as a health drink containing herbs and vitamins. As the label states:“Alomo Bitter is prepared from carefully chosen plant extracts. It is the best and most reliable restorative provided by nature... This original bitter is a great appetiser and promotes vitality ESPECIALLY in men.”We drank four or five each and were soon ready to play. Culture announced that“good spirits are with us tonight”.The area we were to play was in front of a party of backpackers who arrived in a huge air-conditioned coach with“Eco-tours” emblazoned down the side. Nine grumpy-looking teenagers, most with their blond hair braided, emerged and were eagerly ushered to their seats by Afe. We started playing. It was our first gig played with our new ‘combo’ amp and speaker so the sound came gratifyingly loud and clear.Tijani and Old Boy had been practicing their dancing. We were all dressed in our costumes – smocks, trousers and straw hats. We thought the music was good and certainly the passers by who stopped to watch and smile agreed but the moody teenagers didn’t appreciate our efforts at all. They sat attheir table huddled over their bottles of expensive beer and sneered at us. A couple of them even put their fingers in their ears. Perhaps it wasn’t what they had come to Africa to experience. The good spirits were not with them and it affected my mood.After thirty minutes or so, Afe told us that our food was ready and so we took a break. I was happy to watch the moody backpackers leave in their eco-tour module. They weren’t to witness history being made. They won’t be telling their grandchildren that they had “been there when...”We came out to play again and immediately launched into our better rehearsed numbers. The warm evening, our bellies full of yam and beans, the lack of eco-touring brats and the Alomo Bitter all started to combine. Our music rose higher, our spirits grew and we started feeling the love of the audience. They were all watching, tapping, smiling, singing, and dancing. We controlled the atmosphere of Sparkles and yet were caught up in the emotion ourselves. It was the audience leading us as much as us leading the audience. Perhaps that is what makes live music so powerful– to be present is to participate in the music itself. Music is nothing without an audience – like a tree crashing silently in a forest.Culture is a man who understands the significance of music. As a kologo player, it is believed he has the ability to communicate with the spirits of the ancestors. A Guruni musician is like a priest– a spiritual leader. Where Culture was leading, the rest of the band and the audience were following. We were taken down a frenetic road with pounding rhythms and strong eager vocals – never mind that you don’t understand the language, you can understand the emotion. The audience understood clearly and responded through, for the more reserved, rapt attention and enthusiastic applause and, for the more gregarious and lubricated, animated dancing. The time flew. It was nearly midnight when, through exhaustion, we slowed our performance and eventually stopped.We received the praise and admiration of everyone. Afe thanked us with a big grin and invited us to play for the big New-Year’s party that he is planning. A geeky looking Dutchman with long hair, a big nose and glasses sidled up to me and told me how wonderful the guitar playing was. He plays a little himself, he explained, but is too shy to perform. Several of the American gangster wannabes loped up to us with loose limbs and held their fists out to touch mine. “Respect”, they articulated in what was a combination of shyness and bravado. We wearily loaded the tro-tro up and started on the road back to Bolga. By three o’clock, we were unloading the instruments again. By four o’clock, I was crawling into bed, trying not to wake Laura.It’s not the biggest gig we’ve played and the tro-tro cost us more to hire than we made from Afe but, despite this, TangaCulture’s Tamale debut was another step on the road to greatness, another chapter in our legend, another story that will be told to our children.For every band that makes it big, there is always a conflict between remaining faithful to your roots and selling yourself out to the bright lights of, in TangaCulture’s case, Tamale. In my case, I am rooted in the pub music of the British Isles. In Culture’s case, he is rooted in the Fra-Fra funeral scene. I know this sounds strange but it is impossible to over-estimate the cultural significance of funerals. They are what links families and communities together around food, drink, gossip, art, craft and, most importantly, music. Music is as important to the festival that surrounds a Fra Fra funeral as it is to the Glastonbury festival. Central to a funeral is the music. It is the sacrament that is performed, the communication with God for the deliverance of the deceased soul. This is the culture of music in which the other members of TangaCulture are rooted. It is a strong culture with a strong heritage and one that I’m still learning to appreciate.Culture appeared genuinely upset that his friend’s mother had died. He was a close friend, he explained, a brother in fact. His wife is the younger sister of the friend’s wife. The woman who died was kind to Culture when he was young. Being effectively orphaned, the friend’s mother acted as his own mother. I asked if she was old when she died. Culture told me that she had lived a long life and was quite old – at least fifty, he said.There was no question about Culture playing at the funeral– it was his duty in the same way a priest might feel obliged to perform the funeral service of a close friend or relative. The question was whether I would play with him. I would be delighted and honoured, I told him.This was to be the fresh funeral– a relatively small affair to bury the body with the full funeral postponed for a few months (the funeral season being roughly November to January) to give the family time to find the money.I picked Culture up in the afternoon from Bolga. He sat on the back of the motorbike carrying the guitar and the kologo. He directed me off down a track I’d never seen before. As it is coming towards the end of the rainy season, the state of the roads is as bad as it gets. To call it a ‘track’ is generous. Culture led me through fields of mud. After some distance, we reached the bank of a river, startling some women washing clothes in the water.“What do we do now?” I asked Culture.“Go straight,” Culture replied.I hesitated.“Are you sure? Isn’t the river quite wide?”“It is fine,” Culture told me with confidence. “You just go.”The washerwomen also started encouraging me, beckoning with their hands for me to cross. I revved the motorbike and, keeping in a low gear, plunged into the river. The water came up to my knees and the wheels were almost submerged. I’d only had the bike for a couple of days after pestering VSO for months about the problem. I really didn’t want to call Baba in the office and tell him my new motorbike had been washed down a river. I was so thankful to have made it through the water that I didn’t take note of how steep the opposite bank was. I tried to power up the high slope but, half way up, the engine cut. I braked quickly but because I was pulling on the front brake and the bike was tipping backwards, I still found myself slipping back towards the water. Culture jumped off to push and I nearly ran him down whilst falling backwards. Battling my instincts, I forced my right foot to leave the ground and press the back wheel brake. After a small creaking topple, the bike stopped. I caught my breath before kicking the engine into life and, nervously keeping the revs unnecessarily high, jerked my way ungracefully back up the eroded slope. We rode on into the wilderness.After a very long time, we arrived at a mud compound dwarfed by enormous dying stalks of corn and clusters of people swaying in the drunken haze. After some short initial greetings, during which I established that nobody spoke English, we took our instruments, sat on two plastic chairs facing each other, tuned up and started to play.I have no illusions about Culture’s motivations for inviting me. Part of the reason, I am sure, was to be seen in the company of a foreigner. It would be like attending a rare family gathering in a new suit or driving a new car. To be seen in the company of a foreigner is a status symbol – a chance to show off to your extendedfamily.I was like an alien in their land, both physically and culturally a long long way from cosmopolitan Bolga. Language divided us, culture divided us, education divided us and money divided us. We can talk of a shared humanity but this concept is too woolly– it needs to manifest itself in some way, otherwise human beings just stare at each other like animals in a zoo, not recognising what they share.Culture and I share an understanding of music and, before long, we had a heaving crowd of witnesses. Nodding old men craned their skinny necks and smiled toothlessly. They opened their eyes wide at me, trying to communicate without a shared language their understanding and appreciation. Clusters of women stood, some with babies tied to their backs, brazenly trying to catch my eye so they could smile shyly and giggle with their friends. Young men gathered in groups, some nodding like the old men, others pretending they knew me and Culture. Some danced, trying to catch the women’s attention. They were batted out of the way by tiny old women who shoved their way to the front, shaking their booty. Always, everywhere, there were children. For every adult there must have been five or six children. They watched – their little faces awestruck. They mouthed the words Culturewas singing – laughing when I sang along to the choruses. It is children that give a Fra-Fra funeral its atmosphere – how can something be morbid when it is populated with so many children, so much hope in the future?We played for some time. We played with feeling. We played well.‘Thankyou’ was one of the few English words that the people knew. I heard it many times that afternoon from many different people – far more times than I’ve ever heard it trying to improve science teaching.Lightning could be seen flashing like camera bulbs in the distance. The rainy season is not quite over and a storm was brewing in the sky. We were starting back towards the motorbike when the wind descended. The spires of corn bowed in spasmodic waves. Wind before a storm is enormously powerful. It can whip up sudden clouds of dust, leaves, branches and plastic chairs. We couldn’t ride the motorbike so we sheltered in the mud house. Someone brought us pito so I sat with the group, drinking the warm millet beer, listening to the sounds of their language but, once again, divided by it. By the time the rain had passed, night was rapidly approaching. The area was not connected to any electricity so, as darkness fell outside, it fell inside as well. I was eager to get back home and was worried about the river swelling.“Shall we go?” I asked Culture.“We can’t leave yet,” Culture told me. “My brother must bring us a fowl for the music we played.”“Look, Culture, it’s getting dark and the road back to Bolga is terrible. I’m not that bothered about the fowl. Shouldn’t we get going? Otherwise we might get stuck.”“Let’s get the fowl. It’s important.” Culture said before smiling craftily. “We can roast the fowl some day soon and enjoy the meat.”“But I didn’t come to the funeral to get paid,” I said. “This man has just lost his mother. He doesn’t need to give us a fowl. We can play for free.”“It is fine. It has been arranged. I helped him with the funeral. I gave him two fowls. He must give us something for the music. It is our tradition.”So we sat in the growing darkness, waiting for the man to give Culture back one of his chickens. After half an hour or so, we went in search of the man. He apologised for not being able to supply us with a chicken but either it had escaped or one of the funeral-goers must have stolen it. I told him, quite sincerely, not to worry.I don’t really believe that TangaCulture will ever be international musical superstars – the world isn’t quite ready for us yet. Perhaps, though, in the years to come, there will be an old man sat in a pito spot near Bolga telling a youngster that he “was there when...”