Friday night, 11 pm. It’s just the moon, Monique and me. Plus a bottle of aged litchi-flavored rum we got from Vovo (see Feb. 26). When we arrived at the house accompanied by a convoy of clapped-out-but-cute Citroen taxis crammed with musical equipment, nieces and nephews we found a power cut. While everyone else rummages around for candles inside, Monique and I sit in the garden in the balmy night air under a searchlight full moon. Buzzing with sleep deprivation, I gaze up at the unfamiliar southern constellations.

We had just finished our first concert at the CGM. It must have been a success. The enthusiastic crowd in the small, sold-out theater cheered wildly. Friends and family swarmed backstage to congratulate us. The Center’s director for the past 30 years leapt onstage at show’s end to exclaim in German-accented French that this was the best concert the venue had ever hosted, and hailed Monique the Queen of Malagasy music.

But pouring out another glass of rum I feel uncomfortably aware of all the onstage fuck-ups, major and minor, that occurred – my own included. Fortunately, most went unnoticed by the public.

A few hours ago, crowded together in an improvised dressing room as a stench wafted in from the toilets, the band – a dozen of us plus nieces on hair and make-up – waited for curtain time (a surprisingly early 7 pm here). Nerves were tauter than usual among the highly experienced musicians. The more I talk to people – musicians, media, family, fans – the more I realize what an exceptional project this is. The air thick with superlatives. The cream of the country’s musicians vying to be in the band. Radio, TV and newspapers clamoring for interviews and appearances. There’s a lot at stake.

* * *

The day before the concert, March 8, Monique left the house early in the morning to attend an IWD event at the culture ministry. Among the couple of hundred invitees were government grandees, representatives of all the various art forms and, of course, the media.

Dressed in sober black and white, speaking on behalf of the country’s female musical artists, Monique harangued the great and the good about the ubiquitous and pernicious system of payola that determines what music videos get broadcast. Not only on private stations but on government ones too. In her view it encourages production of the lascivious booty-on-the-beach clips that are the staple of Malagasy TV. This in turn, she warned, contributes to the island’s reputation as a prime sex tourism destination. (Cue applause.)

Surgi

Beby

Jimmy

Fanja