Travers, rain, abandoned show, UB4O first tour had everything

SUPER group UB40 are coming back to Zimbabwe and there is already a buzz in Harare about the tour.

The UK reggae band is set to perform at Old Hararians on May 25.

They first performed here in May 1982.

Their first show in Bulawayo was hit by rain before they gave their fans a show to remember at the City Sports Centre in Harare.

One founding member of the group, Brian Travers, will sadly not be back for another dance with their local fans.

The saxophonist and songwriter died in August, two years ago, after finally losing his battle with cancer.

He was 62.

Travers provided some of the finest soundbites to the media during their inaugural tour of Zimbabwe.

The band was moments away from appearing on stage when heavy rains forced the stage to collapse in Bulawayo and force organisers to cancel the show.

And, it was Travers who provided the light-hearted comments amid the gloom of the doomed show.

“The whole thing was okay,” he told our sister newspaper, The Herald.

“Just that 150 gallons of water on the microphones stopped it.”

But, in Harare, it was a different thing altogether as the show went ahead without any glitches.

And, The Herald, were there to provide the commentary.

“It had been a long wait particularly after their eagerly-awaited performance in Bulawayo limped to a standstill last Friday when rain caved in a stage canopy, snapped one of the supports and a wind gust brought all the standing water on the electric equipment,” the newspaper reported.

UB40 have recorded 39 UK top 40 singles and 28 top 40 albums, and sold 100 million albums worldwide.

Travers was part of a group of school friends in Birmingham who borrowed the name of the official “Unemployment Benefit Form 40,” to come up with the identity of their group.

“We had just signed on and somebody said ‘UB40’ and we all instantly knew that was the name of the band,” Travers once told The Telegraph.

“Thank God for the dole. We got fed, it paid the rent and it enabled us to concentrate on developing our careers. We commandeered a cellar and started rehearsing every day, nine till five.

“Our first experiences of playing an instrument started together, and we’d humiliate each other over mistakes. But we were very serious about our music.” – H-Metro Reporter/BBC.