What to do on New Year's Eve? This is a difficult question for non-Party-goers like me, so I was delighted to see that the Jamaican duo Chaka Demus and Pliers were playing at the Speke Resort in Munyonyo, just round the corner from my Ggaba home. This passed my various tests for an enjoyable evening out: nearby (therefore little risk of Kampala traffic jams); outdoors (slightly lower noise levels combined with fresh air and easy escape routes); and professional musicians playing real music (rather than the lip-synching that passes for live music at many Ugandan shows).
Chaka Demus and Pliers had a string of hits in the 1990s. My personal favourite was their reggae/rock n'roll rendition of Twist and Shout, but Tease Me, Murder She Wrote and She Don't Let Nobody were all great songs. So, for a mere 50,000 shillings (about $20 at current exchange rates) for the VIP enclosure, plus a fireworks display and a string of curtain raiser performances from up and coming Ugandan musicians, it sounded like good value. The key words here are, of course, "sounded like". I had forgotten that Ugandan promoters are at least as unreliable as promoters everywhere else in the world. This show was promoted by Moses Ssali (pictured above) a.k.a. Bebe Cool, one of Uganda's best-known and most popular musicians and son to the politician Bidandi Ssali, who stood unsuccessfully for the Ugandan Presidency last year. Bidandi's campaign slogan was "Trust Me": the electorate responded with less than 1% of the popular vote.
After spending an hour negotiating the three kilometres from home to Munyonyo (due entirely to rigorous searching of every vehicle entering the Speke Resort), we arrived shortly after 9 pm, by which time a few acts had started to appear on stage. The MCs for the show were two appallingly unfunny comedians, whose main joke line in between acts focused on the ways in which women from different Ugandan tribes behave during - how shall I put it? - moments of intimacy. Enough said! The intervening music wasn't much better, ranging from moderate to abysmal. But to their great credit, Ugandan audiences are in general very forgiving, and this one was no exception: happy enough with the entertainment on show and why not? Plenty of alcohol was flowing, the evening was warm and dry, with the promise of better things to come.........
As the clock approached midnight, and there was no sign of Chaka Demus and Pliers, I felt the first twinges of anxiety. Were they actually going to perform? The fireworks came and went, the old year was gone and the new year started, the MCs continued to heckle the audience, the audience gradually became more irritable at the delay, until Bebe Cool himself turned up and performed a few songs. It took until a little after 2 am for Pliers, or (at the risk of being excessively suspicious) someone claiming to be Pliers, to come on stage and announce that in fact Chaka Demus hadn't actually turned up. Pliers (or the man who claimed to be Pliers) then played four or five songs - which notably did not include any of the duo's most well-known hits - before finishing up at around 3 am. And was there any apology from the MCs or the promoter? Silly question, really. After all, apologies require respect for others, and respect for others is, on the whole, a commodity in short supply among Uganda's elite.
Being conned is hardly an auspicious start to the New Year. Oh well, at least Bebe Cool's still laughing. We all came, paid for our tickets, and he didn't need to pay the main act. Nice work if you can get it.
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