April 28, 2005
By Lucky Sindane
FREEDOM Day was celebrated in joyful style at Johannesburg Water's Music Festival at Zoo Lake. About 8 000 music lovers spent the afternoon of Wednesday, 27 April enjoying the autumn sun, sitting on blankets or camp chairs, surrounded by picnic baskets and braai stands, listening to their favourite musicians.
An appreciative crowd
"This is a huge turn out," said Jameel Chand, Joburg Water's spokesperson. "It is more than we were expecting." The music festival was the grand finale of the second Johannesburg Water Festival, which started on Thursday, 21 April.
Musicians Mafikizolo, Jabu Khanyile, Zamajobe and S'bu wowed the crowds. The day started slowly, with people trickling into the festival. At 1pm Kaya FM DJ Kwena Moabelo made sure the 500 people present were kept busy, tossing water bottles, CDs, T-shirts and caps into the audience.
However, two hours later there was more than 5 000 people and everyone was in the mood to jive. Jabu Khanyile, with his Abafana Bekhehla dancers, stole the show, performing some familiar oldies along with tracks from his latest album.
The Zoo Lake crowd sang and danced along. At the end of his slot, Khanyile was called back for four encores. Fan Glen Nengudza, said, "Abafana Bekhehla and Jabu Khanyile were entertaining, and my daughter and I enjoyed ourselves."
Mafikizolo was the final act of the day and by the time the group took to the stage there was very little room left on the lawns for the audience to show off their dance moves. The band put in another top-rate performance and had the crowd screaming for more.
Jabu Khanyile and dancers on stage
"We have achieved our objectives - not only with the music festival but with all the other programmes we had throughout the festival," Chand said, declaring this year's Water Festival a huge success.
Other programmes that attracted large crowds to the festival included Corporate Day, a day set aside for managers and support staff to take part. More than 1 000 people attended that particular event.
"The exhibition open days attracted about 5 000 people and we had about 4 000 schoolchildren who participated in activities at the two water villages," Chand said. "Next year it is going to be bigger than this."
Johannesburg Water was considering making the festival a national event that would include national departments.
Permission to use web site material
Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as:
- Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website
(www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency
(www.joburg.org.za)";
- If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original
article on this website;
- The name of the article's author is acknowledged;
-
The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill
in this brief online form).
Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 |
