After 7 years of success, 800 concerts in 17 countries, Boo!’s cult followers were devastated in 2004 when band members Ampie Omo and Leon Retief announced their resignation from Boo! The monkipunk band that loved to hear their fans boo-ing them, fell silent.
But it was not all bad. Boo!’s frontman, Chris Chameleon, took the opportunity to surprise his punk pundits by breaking into the Afrikaans music landscape, notching up 17 national awards in four years, including this year’s Best Adult Contemporary Ambum SAMA for his album “Kyk Hoe Lyk Ons Nou”. He was also nominated in the prestigious Best Male Solo Artist category for the third consecutive year.
Despite Chris’s success, there were still thousands of Boo! followers out there – and here – who continued to miss Boo!’s self-styled punk genre. And now the miracle that was bred in 1997 in the backstreets of dirty old Brixton, Joburg, will return to London. It’s a new Boo! like you have never seen before as attested by Chris who told SA Promo: It’s been six years since Boo! played in the UK en we have been itching to come back. No, we haven’t been dead, we’ve merely been in hiBoo!rnation!”
Ampie Omo is back too: “The monki punkers are back to play and this time there’s no stopping.”
Drumming duties have been taken over by Riaan van Rensburg who replaces Leon Retief, better known as Princess Leonie under the Boo! groupies. But the new Boo! has already impressed at their debut at the Ramfest festivals in both Johannesburg and Worchester where fans have been boo-ing their hearts out.
