Maccabees Make the Most of Malawi Adventure

Posted on Nov 4th 2009 11:43AM by Stephen Dowling
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The Maccabees might have spent the summer trawling Europe playing festival after festival, but it appears the Brighton-based band saved the best outdoor experience until last.

The band were the only UK act to play the Lake of Stars festival in Malawi this year -- an event trying to boost the African state's tourism industry through music as well as drawing attention to some of the problems Malawians are facing.

And, as guitarist Felix White told Spinner in an exclusive interview, the band made the most of it.

The five-piece band played on the Sunday night (Oct. 16) and were the only UK act invited to play the festival, which included an array of African talent.

"We were pretty apprehensive about the situation. It was just African musicians, African artists, and a completely different context to any other festival we do," he tells Spinner. "Even though bands aren't really like that, there is still that kind of competition, people base themselves on 'we had a bigger crowd than you.' You realise when you get somewhere like this that's completely stupid behaviour. There are much more important things in life."

The Maccabees -- who had days before played the biggest headlining gig of their career so far at London's O2 Academy -- found themselves having to adapt pretty quickly...

"All the reggae bands have choreographed dancers who come on and do their little bit as part of the show. And obviously we don't have anything like that. So Orlando [Weeks, lead singer] took it upon himself to suggest that people should come on stage, and of course it ends up with a lot of people doing the worm, it wasn't even organised chaos. It was just chaos. But it was fun.

"The gig was fantastic. There were lots of locals there and they really took to it. I think we did it in the right spirit."

The band -- none of whom had visited Africa before – were in the country for five days and were shown some of the projects the festival was helping to fund, something which they may support further in the future . "We got taken to a couple of villages where while communities welcomed us there. Some of the money from the festival goes to wards loaning money to women in these places so they can start businesses.

"I've been thinking about it since we got back. It's one of those things when you think 'Will I just get home and forget about this?' I really don't think we will. And I hope we do align ourselves with something."

And if they do come back next time, they may very well have an enthusiastic new chapter of the Maccabees fan club.

"We didn't even bring any records out there, but I've got the names and addresses of all these Malawian people asking me to send records out to them. So I'm going to do that and I hope we go back next year. It might be one of those amazing things where you end up building a fanbase in Malawi."

It wasn't all work though. The band did get time to go out on safari, just like regular tourists.

"The reality of crocodiles," White continues. "Nasty ittle f-----. They just sit there. You wouldn't notice them, and then a ripple in the water. And they're proper sinister creatures. It was amazing seeing it all unfold in front of you, baboons drinking by the lake and the crocodile waiting for them. You don't see that in Hackney anywhere."