WILL singers Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson actually arrive at Jan Smuts Airport this afternoon? At the time of going to press on Thursday, Cape Town promoters Farrid H Promotions insisted they were on their way.
It was a tale they had told once or twice earlier in the week.
The first estimated arrival date was Sunday; it was rumoured Winnie Mandela would be there to meet them. In the event, Flack and Bryson stayed home. They also didn’t arrive on Monday. Nor did they arrive on Wednesday, in time for a Cape Town concert which had to be cancelled.
Yesterday, Computicket was offering ticket holders refunds for any of the three concerts scheduled — in Cape Town on Wednesday, Johannesburg on Saturday and Pretoria on Sunday. Booking had been suspended on Wednesday. “I really can’t put the tickets back on sale until I get some proof that (Flack and Bryson) are on a plane,” said Computicket entertainment director Bernard Jay.
The promoters moved quickly, announcing the tour hadn’t been cancelled, just postponed. The weekend concerts would go ahead, and the Cape Town concert would too, a week later than scheduled.
It was, said a spokesman for the promoter, a question of fees: the two had not yet been paid in full, nor had airline tickets been paid for on time. But all was well, said Farrid H Promotions. The Wednesday concert had been “officially postponed” to September 7, and the weekend performances “will be delivered as scheduled”.
The last time this much tension surrounded a purported tour by an overseas star, the performer was megastar Michael Jackson — and he didn’t make it.
But his sister came instead. LaToya Jackson arrived in November last year, several weeks after her brother’s non-appearance, with a backing tape, two dancers, an excellent supporting act called Def Dames Dope and a husband who insisted on several thousand rands for an interview. She was booked into inappropriate venues, like the huge Saambou Arena in Pretoria, and attracted tiny audiences.
Her promoter? The then little-known Farrid H Promotions.
If Flack and Bryson do make it here, South Africans will see, in Flack, one of the great black American soul artists of all time, whose refined jazz and gospel-rooted soul have been built on the foundation of classical training.