POP MAN: The Parlotones front man, Kahn Morbee stunned East London audience with their performance. Picture: ALAN EASON
SOUTH African pop-rock group The Parlotones bid farewell to East London on Monday night following their final Eastern Cape show before their departure for the United States, where they will be based for the next few years.
Hosted at Hemingways Casino’s new facility, The Venue@Hemingways, the group were welcomed by the loud cheers of their fans.
The Daily Dispatch caught up with the group before their show for one last interview.
The band is made up of Kahn Morbee on lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Glen Hodgson on bass guitar, piano and backing vocals; Paul Hodgson on lead guitar and keyboard; and Neil Pauw on drums. They reassured fans that despite their move to Los Angeles, South Africa would always be home to them.
“We will obviously miss the people close to us, our families, friends, girlfriends and wives, but home is home and it’s something that’s in you.
“No place we go to can compare with home,” Morbee said.
“Home is the place of family, love and you kind of become comfortable in your space, despite its flaws … there’s not one thing I can pinpoint that we’ll miss most about home. I guess it’s just a kind of energy and atmosphere.”
The Parlotones received a healthy dose of that energy and atmosphere at their concert on Monday night with fans cheering, crying and dancing the night away to hits including Push Me To The Floor, Giant Mistake and Beautiful.
Parlotones fan Gail Khats was bubbling over with excitement and absolutely thrilled at the performance, describing her experience as “fantastic”.
“It was really awesome … I’ll definitely come back when they’re here again,” she said.
Hemingways Casino marketing manager Neville Austin said the decision to host the popular band at their new venue was to set a standard for the quality of events and acts to come to The Venue@Hemingways.
“This is a whole new venue and we wanted to start off with a great band. It just so happened they were doing their final farewell tour and we saw this as an opportunity for them to get on board with Hemingways,” said Austin.
“We wanted to start with what could be considered as an ‘international’ act and set a standard and it’s pleasing to know how greatly East Londoners have come out to show their support.”
Austin said the 600 tickets which went on sale at Computicket were sold out in five hours and an additional 120 tickets were made available which sold in 20 minutes.
The Parlotones are set to leave for Los Angeles on January 15 next year where they plan on cracking the international market. — shanaazp@dispatch.co.za
