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Providing an explosive start to the long weekend, Soulja opened for New Porn at a packed out Mercury Live, in Cape Town, on Thursday evening.

Over two years ago Warren Haviside (vox) and Greg Seller (rhythm guitar/backing vox) started what is today Soulja — a five piece band of energy, soul and angsty rock. Completing the line up are Stuart McLaren (drums), Lee Radmall (lead guitar) and Curve (bass guitar).

With songs like the excellent 'Girl Power' and 'Science', they enthralled their very loyal fans. A favourite for me — 'War' — is rock like it should be: keeping your attention to the last drum beat. Lead singer Warren is absolutely amazing to watch as he clearly puts every ounce of himself into the job at hand.

“Soulja are not fighting for something — but have something to say,” said Stuart McLaren after the gig. And that they do. Through their lyrics they tell of the wars happening in Africa while the world's attention is focused elsewhere. They speak of love. They speak of break ups. It's real life stuff. It's fresh, it's sometimes sexy, sometimes angry and it is — without a doubt — energy driven. It's best listened to loud.

Making a weekend of it, they also appear on the line-up for The Cause at Hangklip over the long weekend. But if you didn’t get a chance to see them at Mercury this weekend — or on Sunday's line up at Hangklip don’t despair — they will be appearing together with Marlowe at Mercury Live on May 23 and although plans are not definite just yet, they have plans for a tour soon.

Besides live gigging, Soulja have also just completed their recording sessions in Cape Town with producer Paris Lucas and 'Sad', an elegantly-penned song about the ultimate feeling of loss after break-up, will be made available as a single to Campus stations countrywide within April/May 2003. Other songs slated for future release include 'Royal Tommy' and 'Infrastructure'.

Keep your eyes peeled for posters for their gigs and your ears tuned to the radio for that Soulja sound.