Chameleone fills Kyadondo to the brim

Full house, fans carrying him shoulders-high, girls sobbing after touching him … it’s just another day for Jose Chameleone on stage, a robust and charming performer. That was the case again at the singer’s ‘Valu Valu’ concert at Kyadondo Rugby Club on Friday. The rugby grounds had not hosted a big concert since the devastating Al-Shabab bombings of July 11, 2010 that claimed tens of lives but while all events’ organisers avoided it, Chameleone and his events manager Balam Barugahare upset the odds and attracted a mammoth crowd at Kyadondo.“I would like to dedicate this concert to the beautiful innocent souls who had come here to celebrate like us but instead got killed,” said Chameleone as a sea of his fans greeted his words with rapturous applause. “Everyone has been avoiding Kyadondo but I said ‘this is our country and no one not even terrorists can restrict us on how much we should move around our country’. All artistes feared staging shows here fearing to make losses because they only think about money but me Chameleone, I go where many fear. I love challenges.”Chameleone then led a moment of silence to remember the departed souls.The size of the audience even dwarfed that of Jamaica’s Beenie Man at the same venue in 2009. There were over 20,000 heads (could have been more if it were not for the rain earlier in the day), compared to just above 12,000 when Beenie Man performed.Chameleone made a grand entry; dressed in a paratrooper’s combat gear, the lanky star arrived on stage in darkness at around 11pm on the backdrop of ‘Owakabi’, a song intended to notify everyone that the “best is who you see now” and he went on to stage a delightful one-and-half hours unplugged feat.

Leisure

Chameleone fills Kyadondo to the brim