Gear up to rock with legends’ best in Bay
Bay city rollers who loved the Led Zeppelin tribute last month will be stoked to hear more rock legends’ greats come alive in Port Elizabeth this week. Nathan Smith is presenting his new show Guitar Legends at the Savoy Theatre in Perridgevale on Friday at 7.30pm, paying tribute to names such as Jimi Hendrix, Gary Moore, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, John Mayer and more.
“You can expect to hear the singing greats, a mix of the biggies, as well as a whole acoustic section,” he said from his home in Pretoria last week.
Smith promises to give rock fans big, fat, famous hits such as Layla, Money for Nothing and Sultans of Swing, alongside softer acoustic songs such as Romeo and Juliet.
Smith is one of the more versatile guitarists around: his Gary Moore tribute show, Wild Frontier, was popular and he also played in the production Riders From The Storm with six of South Africa’s best guitar artists, touring South Africa and Namibia.
He has also worked on numerous television shows including Skouspel, Gospel Skouspel, Strictly Come Dancing and Noot Vir Noot.
Smith counts his highlights as playing at the Soccer World Cup events in 2010, and also with Joseph Clark in The Music of Queen.
This show, in turn, mushroomed into countrywide and European tours including a sold-out stadium show for 35 000 in Holland in 2012.
This led to him collaborating with a host of South African household names stretching across the scale from Afrikaans to isiXhosa, gospel to rock, jazz to classical, and more.
Smith has spent a lifetime learning his finger skills as he first picked up a guitar when only 11 and played his first public performance just three months later. He went on to perform on live television at 13 and then started a rock band by the name of Dead Sea Surfers, which later played alongside well- known names such as the Springbok Nude Girls and Just Jinger, among others.
Tickets for Friday’s show are R120 (R100 for students, pupils and pensioners), on sale at Computicket.
