Centrestage teams up with Barnyard Theatre entrepreneur and producer extraordinaire Duck Chowles to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show which kicked things off for the ex-Eastern Cape musician, namely ‘Sticky Fingers – A tribute to the Rolling Stones’.
Chowles himself will front the Centrestage band as the charismatic rocker Mick Jagger for two shows at Old Grey on the weekend of 20 and 21 February, before staging the show in East London at the Guild Theatre on Wednesday 4 March.
Aside from the regular Stones classics, the show will also take in gems such as ‘Gimme Shelter’, ‘You Cant Always Get What You Want’, ‘Angie’, ‘Ruby Tuesday’, ‘Miss You’, ‘Its Only Rock n Roll (But I Like It)’, ‘Time is On My Side’, ‘Miss You’, ‘Get Off My Cloud’, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Paint it Black’, amongst others.
Two members of the original Sticky Fingers lineup will accompany Duck for the show: Gino Fabbri will reprise his role as Charlie Watts on drums and Joe Van Der Linden will play the rock n roll pirate and guitarist Keith Richards. They are joined by Alan Kozak on second guitar in the guise of Ronnie Wood, Andrew Warneke playing the role of Bill Wyman on bass and Fenlin Pietie on keyboards.
‘I listen to the Stones every day of my life’, says long-time aficionado Chowles.
‘We will concentrate on their pre-1980’s repertoire, when they were still a band, before they became a brand’, he explains.
The reunion rekindles the relationship between Duck, Centrestage owner Gary Hemmings and comedian/drummer Gino Fabbri, which spans two and a half decades.
‘We staged the Rolling Stones show together at the Grahamstown Festival many many years ago. After this, Gary arranged us the most cushy gig we have ever done, still to this day!’ laughed Duck.
‘We performed at the pool between 12h00 and 14h00 at the then Formosa Inn in Plettenberg Bay for two weeks over New Year. We were accommodated right there and we had the rest of the time available to party as hard as our youthful selves desired. That is pretty much as rock n roll as it gets!’ he reminisced.
The last time that Duck performed in this area was almost 10 years ago, when he again fronted the Centrestage outfit at the Grahamstown festival.
Chowles, who now lives between Johannesburg and Cape Town, enthused “I am looking forward to returning to my roots with a rocking tribute to the band that I used to dream of - when I was a child - living on a farm - in The Eastern Cape’.
Tickets for ‘Sticky Fingers – A Tribute to the Rolling Stones’ are available through Computicket at R140 each, with bookings of 8 or more costing R130 through Wendy on 082-6616921.
DUCK CHOWLES
Chowles was born in Port Elizabeth and raised on a farm outside Alexandria. He spent his youth time listening to LP records of The Rolling Stones and playing the drums and singing all their songs on the farm.
He started his first band at boarding school in Fort Beaufort, where they played for dances and bop sessions during their holidays. After completing a diploma in agriculture he moved to Port Elizabeth and started planning a music career.
Chowles travelled to Johannesburg where he walked the streets trying to sell his demo tapes to record companies. He was soon signed up by Patrick van Blerk to Priority Records and released a single called HOLD ME BACK, that received air play on Radio Five.
Thereafter he opened a recording studio in Stand Street where he recorded more than 30 albums of township music. Duck then decided to give the recording business a break and launched Sticky Fingers – A Tribute to the Rolling Stones at the Grahamstown Festival in the early nineties, where they performed a riveting tribute.
The following year the show toured the Eastern Cape and also completed a 2 week run at The Baxter Theatre in Cape Town after auditioning for theatre director Fred Abrahamse.
After being asked by Mike McCully to join Sixty Something, Chowles moved to Cape Town where he took up a residency at the newly established Water Front for a 4 year stint at The Waterfront Café.
During this period Duck was signed to record producer Tully McCully and released a rock album through BMG records entitled -Duc the Fox. Several songs on the album received airplay on numerous radio stations and the hit single called Closer, reached the number one spot on Radio 5.
After building a following in Cape Town, Duck decided to start a production company producing his own shows such as Roll Over Beethoven, Glory Days, Rock me Amadeus and many more. During this period Duck toured with an entourage of musicians and performers throughout South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. He also performed a 6 week stint in Auckland, New Zealand.
In 2000 Duck started producing shows for the Barnyard Theatre Group in Johannesburg and Durban and continued his business in Cape Town, also purchasing the Barnyard Theatre in Plettenberg Bay.
In 2003 he joined the Barnyard Theatre group as a share holder and show producer. He now runs 6 theatres in South Africa and also tours his shows abroad. His production called Under African Skies has toured several times to Europe including, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and France.
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