Solomon's youth band describes PNG tour as eye opening

New music sensation of Solomon Islands, the Soul Kizs returned yesterday from their month long tour to Papua New Guinea and described it as an eye opener as it was their first overseas tour.

"We never realized that we had followers in PNG until we took the one month trip, putting on shows in Lae, Goroka and the biggest show was staged in Port Moresby," band singer, Rina Fiolo said.

"Another show to be staged in Rabaul had to be cancelled "due to some disagreements between two clans in Rabaul".

"This tour has really helped us to understand music beyond recording in the studio, and we now know expectations from fans, so we are hoping that from experiences learnt, our next tour will be even better" he added.

Another band member, Ezekiel Ramosaea said that the group had missed out on receiving the prestigious "Pacific Band of The Year" award "due to some financial problems".

Asked to clarify on the matter, Mr. Ramosaea explained that the band was nominated for the coveted Pacific music award and "we were supposed to collect it December last year but we didn't make it".

He added that "we had to pay for it, and our budget was fixed for the duration of the tour so we had to give that up because of financial limit".

The two young singers said that their biggest hit songs during their one month tour were 'Laea Long Mi', 'Darling', 'Daiguai' and 'Kekeni'.

The local band's tour was sponsored by two PNG-owned companies, the SP Breweries Company and Club 69 owned by a man from Lae, Mr. Brian Crammer.

Mr. Fiolo told Solomon Times that apart from stage performances, "we visited schools and sick patients in hospital."

"We sang some of our songs to patients in the Children's Ward and gave lolies to them, and it was the same for the schools we visited," he said.

Mr. Fiolo said that the initiative taken to visit the sick in hospital was praised by the people in PNG and even the young scholars.

"Despite our semi-live performances, we received a lot of feedbacks from the crazy fans who really enjoyed our shows," he added.

Mr. Ramosaea said the support from fans of PNG was amazing "and they want us to go back for a second tour".

The Soul Kizs band is hoping to tour other countries "but we would love to go back to PNG", as part of their band strategy to international promotions for the young uprising local musical talents.

Source: Solomon Times