Cape Town – It’s almost time for US band The Lumineers to visit our shores for the second time, and we absolutely can’t wait!
The band, who performed for the first time in SA in 2014, will be returning for two shows – one in Cape Town on 26 April and one in Johannesburg on 28 April.
As we get excited for their show, we decided to do some digging and bring you some facts about the band that you might not have known.
Check them out here:
1. They started out as a cover band called Free Beer.
When founding members Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites started performing together they were called Free Beer. They apparently wanted people to think it was an open bar gig. Clever! "It wasn’t serious at first," Fraites told the Chicago Tribune. "We were a crappy band doing terrible covers. But we slowly started getting away from covers and writing originals. We were doing everything: Vanilla singer-songwriter stuff, hard rock, electronic music."
2. Searching for Sugar Man inspired their first visit to SA in 2014.
Chatting to Channel24 last year, Wesley explained how their first tour to SA came about: "I had seen that documentary, Searching For Sugar Man and I asked our manager right after I saw it 'Hey, do you think we could see if we could play a couple small shows out there?'
"I just think the people in SA kinda like what they like they don’t get force fed their music, they kinda pick what they want to listen to and make up their own minds and that really turned me on to the idea of playing there."
3. The Lumineers are absolutely in love with South Africa!
It’s true! Wesley told us that they’re super-excited to be returning to SA as they really loved their first visit here. "One of the most incredible experiences we had was, we ended all of our touring of the first album (about three years ago) in South Africa and it was really moving that the amount of people came out and just the connection we felt with those people and the enthusiasm kinda caught us off guard, you know, we’d been touring so long on that material and in the end it felt so fresh and brand new.
"And then also just being kind of blown away by... you know we went on a safari, I stayed an extra week or so and saw a lot more of the countryside and Cape Town so it really blew my mind."
4. The band’s touring member, Stelth Ulvang, is also a solo artist and has performed many shows in SA without The Lumineers.
Stelth played a New Year’s gig at the Smoking Dragon Festival in KwaZulu Natal at the end of 2016. Chatting to Channel24, he let us in on why he keeps returning to SA: "I met so many great musicians, that in the somewhat seclusion of South Africa, are so talented and excited about music, it feels like a community I am really proud to be mixed into - so first of all, the musicians down there bring me back, but the landscape and beauty of the entire country is certainly a plus."
5. Jeremiah’s signature suspenders, which he wears on stage, are actually a superhero costume.
Jeremiah explained his suspenders to Huffington Post: "When I was in high school, my friend’s brother asked him when you go on stage, ‘What kind of superhero are you?’ I had never really played music that much, so I decided to create my own little [superhero] outfit."
The Lumineers SA tour details:
Cape Town
Wednesday 26 April 2017
Green Point Park, Cape Town
Ticket Price: R630
Johannesburg
Friday 28 April 2017
The Dome, Johannesburg
Ticket Price: R405 – R745
Tickets are available from Computicket and Big Concerts.
(Sources: Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post)