Throwback: eVoid's 'Taximan' & 'Shadows'

Get ready to get down with the boys from Brakpan. éVoid was a three-piece rock band made up of brothers Lucien and Erik Windrich, and various drummers including Wonderboom’s Danny de Wet. While they’re best known (at least by people in their mid-20s) for the two singles Taximan and Shadows, the band was probably made up of the most popular bunch of white guys in the country back when apartheid was in full swing.

If there’s anything South Africa has going for it at the moment, it’s a strong live music scene. If there’s something we’re missing, I’d say it’s strong songwriting to back that up. Sure people show up in droves to watch everyone play live, but there’s often a disparity between the high energy performers and the longevity of the tracks being performed. This is what got me thinking about éVoid in the first place.

There’s an obvious nod to the musical arrangements and vocals of The Police in their sound, but with more of that familiar South African kwela vibe hiding in there. While it remains suuuuuuper-uncomfortable to watch a bunch of guys run around on stage in what is essentially tribal ‘blackface’ and refer to their sound as “ethnotronics”, it’s quite interesting to see thousands of people show up to watch them perform live.

Praise where praise is due: their sound is more than on point for the decade in which they debuted, something that seems rare in even today’s South African music scene. It’s probably why they were so popular, and also why they have the longest wikipedia entry of any local act.