Durban music lovers can look forward to an incredible line-up of top local, South African and international musicians as the Parklive Music Festival returns to the city’s Botanic Gardens on August 27.
Headlining the bill is JP Cooper from the UK, backed by Cape Town-based GoodLuck, which has a strong Durban fan base, Joburg’s Matthew Mole, and locals Veranda Panda and Tanner Wareham
The acclaimed British singer and songwriter heads to Durban as part of his South African tour. His soulful voice has graced two of the biggest Top 5 singles of the last few years: Jonas Blue’s “Perfect Strangers”, which Cooper co-wrote, and his enduring radio hit “September Song” (which has racked up more than 850 million streams worldwide). The Manchester born Cooper has an incredible 1.5 million ADJ Global album sales and an extraordinary 5.5 billion global streams.
The Independent on Saturday spoke to Juliet “Jules” Harding of GoodLuck, which started 12 years ago as a live electronic project. “We would make music that could translate into nightclubs, something people could dance to but still offered something to watch.
“After a year we started writing and producing our own music. Our first album produced three No1 hits and catapulted us from just having fun into a serious career very fast. Then came the touring, spreading our love of music and storytelling in the electric genre,” said Harding.
The band is currently working on their fifth studio album. “We’re getting back into a touring schedule. We’re working very hard but doing what we love. There are tours this year to South East Asia, Europe and the UK. We are so blessed we have such a broad and dynamic fan base that keeps us going. We have fans from 4 to 84,” she said.
The band survived the Covid lockdown through its “extraordinarily creative” team.
“We had just built a multimillion-rand studio, so we were stressing and had to make it work. We started thinking out the box and recorded an unplugged acoustic album which we toured successfully.”
The studio facility live-streamed a number of other Cape Town bands, like Jack Parow and the Kiffness.
“It gave them an opportunity to stream to their fans. I didn’t see Covid as a poor me event, but as an opportunity. We just had to work harder,” she said.
The band consists of Ben Peters as producer and live electronic percussion, Tim Welsh on sax and keys, and Harding as singer and lyricist who “sometimes play the tambourine, badly”.
“I try to write honest songs and a lot of the time they are about self reflection or personal experience or something I've learnt from others. There’s always a message somewhere in a GoodLuck song, usually a deeper message.”
For Harding, nature and climate is a strong theme.
“I’ve grown up in this beautiful country. I try to get outdoors as much as possible. It’s one of the issues I’m concerned about.”
When she’s not in the studio she likes doing outdoorsy things, like “downhill mountain biking, or surfing, or, if you want a holiday it’s at home with my cats reading stuff”.
The band will preview a lot of new music and songs from the new album for the Durban audience: “I like to test drive these songs. You get a lot of insight when we play a song live, of how the energy feels. Durban was also one of the first markets that embraced us, So it’s kind of cool testing new songs out on our original fans.”
She said the concert would bring a really high calibre of musicians to the city.
“Parklive events are always well run. But this is a really nice mixture of SA and local KZN bands. Verandah Panda are really cool, they’re really fun.” She’s also looking forward to meeting JP Cooper. “While I don't know his work well, I’m curious to see what he’s all about.”
Festival-goers are welcome to bring picnic baskets, camping chairs and blankets, and enjoy a day out with family and friends.
The Parklive Festival is at Durban’s Botanic Gardens on August 27 with gates opening at noon. Tickets from www.parklive.co.za are Phase 1 R295; Phase 2: R395; Children 6-17: R195. Children 5 are under free.
The Independent on Saturday