The Banjo Boys

Madalitso band blog

USA 2022 Tour Cancelled

It was when we performed at HIFA in Zimbabwe back in 2018 that the idea to do a tour of the USA first came to us.

The organiser of the festival, Manuel Bagorro, held a directorial position at that time at The World Music Institute of New York, and he wanted to organise a concert there with us and some other band that had started their journey as street musicians. By 2019 our name had been thrown around a lot in USA world music circles and we received several offers but weren’t able to pull it all together. By 2020 the first USA tour was on - and then just as we were about to submit visas, off - due to reasons we all know.

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In 2020 we were due to have our biggest European gig too, at the number one world music market - WOMEX. Instead of completely cancelling the event, they decided to do a virtual showcase, and although it wasn’t as rewarding as it could have been in the flesh, we did make one good contact, a booking agent in the US called Alison Loarke. Over the whole of 2021 we were talking and with things opening up this year decided to go for the tour again. 

By 2020 the first USA tour was on - and then just as we were about to submit visas, off - due to reasons we all know.

This time we had fifteen concerts all over the country, including Joshua Tree Festival, Chicago World Music Festival, Boston Global and Globalquerque in New Mexico. We were excited indeed, while at the same time extremely tired after our 53 concert European tour. When we discovered that the USA visa system was in a massive backlog due to two years’ worth of cancelled trips we held our breath and crossed our fingers but in the end our visas didn’t arrive in time and we had to cancel the tour. We’re glad that everyone understands and now the dream is to make it happen in 2023 - and film it all to go in the documentary!