After two and a half years on the road, the all-South African cast of hit international tribute concert Queen: It’s a Kinda Magic is bringing the show home for two big arena gigs in Durban and Cape Town this September.
Durban’s The Globe at Suncoast will host one performance on Saturday September 3rd and the 5000-seat Grand Arena at GrandWest Cape Town will play host to another on Saturday September 10th.
These will be the long-running production’s first South African performances in over three years after public events were halted across the country in March 2020 due to government pandemic restrictions, and were only reintroduced at full capacity last month.
The show’s young South African stars – Cape Town’s Warren Vernon-Driscoll who performs as ‘Freddie Mercury’, Durban local Rusty Red on lead guitar as ‘Brian May’, Durbanville’s André van der Merwe as bass guitarist ‘John Deacon’ and Hilton-based drummer Michael Dickens as Roger Taylor – were forced to spend the last two and a half years overseas in a desperate bid to keep their music careers alive.
In order to avoid travel bans in South Africa, the four-piece based themselves in Australia at the Gold Coast Head Office of their promoter Showtime Australia and underwent a veritable roller-coaster ride of tour postponements, lockdowns, quarantine and international ‘red tape’ – and also, believe it or not, some actual concerts.
In the past year the show managed to successfully perform in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and a mammoth 36-show tour through Canada which ended just this month.
“It has been challenging for us not being able to get home… I speak for all of us when I say we are extremely excited to bring what we’ve worked so hard on back home, to show everyone a performance that we are so proud of. Hopefully we can blow away our home audiences, just like we’ve been doing overseas the past few years,” says Vernon-Driscoll about performing to friends and family in Kwazulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
The two large-scale arena venues provide the perfect backdrop for producers to create “the ultimate rock concert experience,” says Director Johnny Van Grinsven. “This is exactly how Queen’s music should be heard – live and loud, in these huge spaces full of people and buzz and atmosphere. It’s going to be incredible, something the audiences will never forget.”
Queen fans will get to hear all the band’s biggest hits - including Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, I Want to Break Free, Somebody to Love, Don’t Stop Me Now, Under Pressure and more – performed live on stage and brought to life with theatrical lighting and effects.
Tickets for both the Durban and Cape Town shows are now on sale. For Durban tickets visit Ticketpros.co.za and for Cape Town tickets visit iTickets.co.za.