THE black Sunday band comprises several members of the Oro Students Association at the University of Papua New Guinea and other talented Oro musicians in Port Moresby.
The band was started as an avenue for the students to participate in school-organized talent shows and other musical competitions in the nation’s capital.
The band’s founder, Charlie Kigora, took the initiative to look for musically-inclined youth to collaborate on a peer-to-peer basis in music.
During his search, Charlie met Gabriel Katuho, whom he had heard about as being a gifted musician in secondary school.
The duo then managed to interest Napoleon Susub, who was a vocalist and together they took part in several auditions staged in the city.
The band had their break when they took part in a talent show organised by the UPNG Student’s Representative Council during the mid-semester break last year (2022). The show contained different categories for students to showcase their talents and included in the list of the categories was a battle-of-the-bands.
On hearing of the event, Charlie notified his crew and the trio started preparations for the concert.
The band, which had Charlie on the lead/rhythm guitar, Gabriel on keyboards and Napoleon as vocalist, knew they needed two more members to complete the band – a drummer and a bass player.
They then called up David Diau who had played drums alongside Gabriel in secondary school and he agreed to join the quartet.
The group registered their band with the organisers and started rehearsing every afternoon after classes just a week before the show.
But they still lacked that little extra something to geld their music when just two days short of the show, along came Edox, a resident of Hohola and renowned bass guitarist in the area.
With only an afternoon and a night to practice, Edox somehow managed to blend in well with the band’s choice of music, which finally started to sound wholesome.
Despite practising their songs on two acoustic guitars and a small keyboard, while the drummer kept time with his feet, they felt they had a good chance in the battle of the bands – come what may.
The boys crashed together that last night after practice on campus and joined the rest of the students in the event the next day.
The forum square was filled with students from the UPNG Waigani Campus, (Taurama) medical faculty and the neighboring community. It was a packed crowd and the charged atmosphere was filled with loud music, laughter, cheering, shouting and applause.
Then it was Black Sunday’s turn to take the stage. The band wore black as their attire and marched to the stage when they were announced by the master-of-ceremony.
The name Black Sunday had everyone perplexed as the boys took their positions – Edox on the bass guitar, Charlie on lead, David on drums, Napoleon as lead singer and last-minute addition Ian Oriri as backup vocalist.
“The name Black Sunday was given by Woty Oure, a former UPNG Oro student, in remembrance of our Oro Kaiva, who lost their lives during the eruption of Mount Lamington in 1951, which was on a bright Sunday morning that was turned into a black Sunday by the black smoke and ash from the eruption,” Napoleon told the crowd while introducing the band.
This prompted a shift in emotions from suspicion to acceptance as many had previously thought the band was a cult group.
The band did a mashup of two Saugas songs – Everlasting Memory and Sauga Refugee.
The crowd went wild and requested for an encore, which the stage directors allowed, with Black Sunday belting out Mt Lemina by Wame Blood.
To their surprise, the crowd gave them a standing ovation and drowned the speakers with their cheers of jubilation.
As the band left the stage, they were met off-stage and congratulated by their course-mates, who cheered them in amazement.
Black Sunday returned home satisfied that they had performed their best.
To their surprise, they were announced as the third-best performing band at the event.
The band was ecstatic as it was an unexpected achievement, having entered the competition as an outlet for their hidden talents.
This year, 2023, the band was set on building on its success from the previous show, with the boys getting straight into their rehearsals with acoustic guitars and a keyboard.
This time they had a different bass man and backup vocalist, with Joggie (surname?) from the medfac joining as bassist and Ryan (surname?) as backup vocalist. Woty Oure, who named the band, was present during each of their rehearsals.
Black Sunday again won third prize during the 2023 UPNG Talent Show and this convinced the band that it had an edge over its competitors.
Then UPNG Oro Students Association president Sonia Jinga met with the band leader Charlie and suggested that they utilize the boys from Black Sunday as the association was facing difficulties with its fundraising efforts.
The band agreed with Sonia’s idea and started preparing for possible gigs in the city.
Black Sunday then started practicing two months before the Oro students fundraising night (Oro Night), where the band performed before a parochial crowd.
The association helped the band with funds to hire venues for their rehearsals every weekend and the boys helped where necessary.
Joggy left the group due to increasing collisions with school work but the band managed to bring Richard Joba from the Round 21 Band to play bass and Simeon as duo guitarist.
Not unlike its first public performance, the band noted that it required that little extra something and so Josaphat Bobo, a music teacher from Kopkop College, was brought in.
Richard had just returned from the Melanesian Arts Festival in Vanuatu with his previous band and managed to recruit his former schoolmate, Josaphat, who is a pianist.
Black Sunday’s rehearsals started sounding fuller with the addition of the two experienced musicians.
The band then refocused, with the aim of setting tasks and working towards achieving them by listening to their songs played back, getting individual parts right and playing tight and clean.
Black Sunday received many negative comments when rumors started circulating that the amateur band would be providing music for Saugas’ comeback performance in Port Moresby.
The comments made the band wary of making mistakes onstage and also prompted them to work extra hard in order to be ready for their greatest opportunity to shine on stage since debuting a year ago.
Josaphat, being a teacher, coached the individual musicians, while Richard shared his experience from gigs he performed at the Cosmopolitan, where the Saugas gig was scheduled to be played.
“Saugas and Bee Joh sent their playlist and we familiarized ourselves with the songs,” Charlie said.
“Saugas arrived and went through his playlist with the band for three days but never smiled, however encouraged the boys that they would be okay.”
On the last day of rehearsals at KB Stones Studio, Bee Joh and Saugas were full of smiles as Black Sunday fixed all the issues and clocked out early.
The next day, the band got ready and went for a sound check at the Cosmopolitan at 3pm.
It was an anxious moment.
After the sound check, DJ Toxic Mahn recorded the live sound check and played it back; it was like hearing a studio-quality version of the original soundtrack.
Confidence was high as the band left the venue to prepare for the night.
That night Black Sunday was slated to play 20 songs for the visiting artists – five for Bee-Joh and 15 Alan Lee Herove aka Saugas.
The club was jampacked as early as 7pm as the band made its way in.
The stage directors signalled the band to take the stage as the parochial Oro crowd started chanting for the live performance to begin.
Strobe lights started flashing as Bee-Joh made his way onstage, while Black Sunday played a proverbial entrance piece.
Then the crowd went wild as Bee-Joh and Five4one zero crew brought the house down with their five-song playlist.
Then the legendary Saugas approached the stage and the crowd surged forward as people rushed the stage to touch and shake hands with the veteran musician.
Saugas fed on the crowd’s yearning for his 90s classics, delivering hit after hit as the crowd accompanied the singing. Black Sunday delivered its unique blessings to accompany that delivery as the night wore on.
To say that it was only an epic show is an understatement.
It was an exemplary show that has hopefully set the tone for many more amazing performances for amateur band Black Sunday as it finds its space in the PNG music industry.
As the band members said, a few days following the sellout show: “It is the time we will never forget as the time when we took courage to break barriers as a band.”
