Stelth Ulvang in Cape Town: City & Secret Soiree shows

Posted on: June 24, 2015

20 & 22
June
2015

Stelth Ulvang of American folk stars The Lumineers recently completed a tour of Southern Africa that included festivals in Mozambique and Swaziland as well as a bunch of shows around SA. I caught two of his last shows – the City Soiree at the Youngblood Gallery on Saturday and the Secret Soiree at a house in Woodstock on Monday. Both were really lovely – here are some shots from the two nights.

Saturday’s show was my first City Soiree event and featured an impressive array of local artists sharing the stage with the quirky and highly entertaining American – Jon Shaban kicked things off after which Stelth (who oscillated between playing acoustic guitar, accordion and piano) started his really lovely set featuring his songs as well as a few of those by his local bandmates. They included the core rhythm section (who joined on the tour) of drummer Werner von Waltsleben and bassist Ryan McArthur, as well as trumpets by Lee Thomson, electric guitar by Albert Frost and backing vocals by Bonj Mpanza.

Stelth was super entertaining, constantly telling hilarious stories between songs and super dynamic while performing. For all the bizarre humour of his anecdotes there’s a lot of serious emotions and subject matter in his music, including his relationship with his father (whom he met at 21) and a tribute to his friend who died at 23.

I really enjoyed the show and especially the vibe between all the musicians – all the smiles and laughs were contagious and overflowed into the crowd. Super cool.

I enjoyed Saturday’s show so much that I couldn’t wait to do it again on Monday, albeit in a totally different context. Another first for me, the ‘Secret’ Soiree was a super intimate candle-lit (by necessity, due to loadshedding, though the lights were kept off after the power returned) show that took place in someone’s cosy attic.

This time around Stelth was joined by guitarist Julian Redpath and cellist Clare Vandeleur for a few tracks (including one of Julian’s). It was a really lovely evening.