Live At The Elephant With KIU and Juliani; Event Review
Once a month, Eric Wainina opens the gates of his home and lets you come in and sample live music scene, Live At The Elephant is what these special nights are known as. The June edition went down on the 26th and featured Girl group KIU and Juliani. KIU is made up of Rosa, Tracy and Pauline and were the first on stage at the show which begun at around ten minutes after 9pm. The elephant is keeping it African as far timing goes since the event poster said the gig was to start at 8pm. However, less than half of the audience was there by quarter past eight so this delay in the evening’s program cannot be fully cast on the organizers.
KIU started off by playing a rendition whose original we cannot place, but after they did the their opening speech and jumped into their second song ‘The City’ Which happens to be their first single, at least half of the audience was on their feet. The intro of the city was acoustic before the band joined in halfway; the result was lovely!
From their little known song into their biggest hit yet, ‘Mwanake’ three ladies were no disappointment. They kept it that way with the rest of their set, sampling Madtraxx’s ‘Ka-chinese’ jam, going old school with a rendition of Jackson Five’s ‘I want You Back’ before getting back to their own compositions with ‘The Little Song That Could’. It sounds like a mouthful? Well, truth is that the three-chords that jam is carried all the feelings of the evening. ‘Leo Kuna Shughuli’ brought all the groove that the evening needed, so much so that the crowd had KIU perform it twice, and to think ‘Leo Kuna Shughli’ is yet to be officially released!
Andrew Wambua, the night’s MC’s saw us transition from the sultry ladies to the hiphop head that is Juliani. Different, yet still divine, Juliani’s set begun with electric instrumentals before moving on to sampling one of his biggest hits, ‘Barua Ya Ocampo’. His dreadlocks took on to a dance of their own, as he jumped, floated in the air and found his way into 4X6.
But Juliani isn’t just about beds so at some point he got into ‘Biceps’, yes skinny men can be inspiring in their talk about muscles, especially when they do it on a reggae beat!
If you are going to tease, be sure to deliver the goods at the end of the day and that is what Juliani did by following up ‘Biceps’ with ‘Barua ya Ocampo’ then moving on to ‘Samaki Baharini’ a track off his new and third album, #ExponetialPotential and because a Juliani show isn’t much of a Juliani show if there is no activism involved, the man performed ‘Utawala’ then went on to occupy the stage for fifteen more minutes thanks to public demand.
Live At The Elephant, June edition, saw us freeze and get pricked by haystacks but it also saw us dance and have a good time. If you are looking to attend a live gig, you might want to check out their next edition, just remember to carry a blanket with you.
Images courtesy of Kyansimire Oroni, you might want to check out his Tumblr
