Tag: Cape Town

Great gig, bizarre encore: David Gray in Cape Town, 2022

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I mean, you knew that the evening was going to be a belter when you get escorted right across the local casino, drinks and all, into the VIP room with free beer, bubbly and gourmet pizza before the concert has even begun. [Thanks, Andrew 😉 ].

And then, when it did begin, it was just a lot of fun with some great music. Ten songs in the first half, starting with You’re The World To Me and Fugitive before finally getting the audience involved in Be Mine, and bewitching us all into silence (incredible for a South African crowd) with a raw, emotional performance of Alibi. Hospital Food rolled neatly into the catchy Nemesis to end off a tight, professional set by a clearly accomplished band and singer.

Twenty minutes later – beating most of the bar-queuing audience back – he returned with a new drummer (the one and only Craig McClune) and a bang, for the main event, and Please Forgive Me and Babylon got the crowd – and the band – bouncing.
Running on through the album, he remarked on his two favourite songs that “took him back like a time machine to that tiny bedsit in Stoke Newington, N16”: Nightblindness and Silver Lining. And then after those two poignant, introspective numbers during which he seemed strangely distant, it was like a switch was flicked and he back to engaging the now slightly less reluctant audience with the now seemingly obligatory cellphone waving to This Year’s Love: “Come on, I know you’ve all got phones. And I know you’ve all got arms!”.
Sail Away and a really beautiful Say Hello, Wave Goodbye completed the album set and then there was… the encore.

Right.

Back on then, and having just given us one Marc Almond number (from the album), he went straight into another song that Soft Cell made famous: Tainted Love. A real poppy, swingy, almost silly version though. It was fun, but it didn’t quite fit. And then he sat at the piano and told us the story of the day in June 2000 that White Ladder and David Gray finally made it into the big time. A tale of a father on chemotherapy, a lucky break of a near headline slot at Glastonbury, and a chance backstage meeting with an apparently bewildered David Bowie, complete with pictures of the whole thing. It was more what I had expected from the whole evening: a bit of background, some anecdotes etc. But this was the only window we got into the story of the album. And then – using the somewhat tenuous Bowie link – the rest of the encore: Life On Mars and Oh! You Pretty Things. And it was great, but it wasn’t David Gray, it was David Bowie, and it wasn’t what the audience had come for. I’m sorry to say that we watched a fair percentage leave during these two songs. Bit disrespectful, but then that’s sadly par for the SA audience: we’ve been here before (more than once).

When you’re playing your biggest album in full, you can’t save your biggest hit for the end of the encore. Still, we thought there would be a rousing repeat of Babylon or something, because why not? But the second Bowie song was segued really awkwardly into the last few (admittedly energetic) bars of Please Forgive Me. But only the last few bars. It was just weird to finish off a concert with 4 cover versions (from three different artists) and then the false ending reprise of one of your songs.

It was still really good, but it was also really odd.

Anyway… overall, an altogether lovely evening and (even before the encore) we’d been treated to a lot of genuinely great music and some amazing vocals. It’s been 16 years since we last saw him here, but if he does come back again, I’ll definitely be there.

White Ladder

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My first “proper” concert since this one way back when, this evening.

Part of Mrs 6000’s birthday gift this year was a couple of tickets to see David Gray and his delayed (but more on that below) Cape Town concert. Yes, a world tour that’s actually a world tour. (Although Djibouti misses out again.)

This looks good. David presents some of his new and “other” material, then runs through the famous White Ladder album in full, and in order. Rather than just a live set of his songs, this is a piece of work being played as he always intended it to be heard – no shuffle button here – and I love the idea.

There is one issue, namely that White Ladder was actually first released 24 years ago, and so this 20th anniversary is a little delayed. You could blame Covid (after all, why not?), but he still had a good 18 months to get around the globe through 2018 and 2019 before the virus told him he couldn’t.
But maybe that tour took the same route as the original release and… well… flopped.

Yes, because it was actually the re-release of the album on the 1st May 2000 that was his big step along the road to Successville. Since then it has sold over 3,000,000 copies in the UK, and over 7,000,000 copies worldwide. And that tour was delayed by Covid. Quite reasonably.

This won’t be the first time we’ve seen David Gray in concert. Step back to Bellville Velodrome on 9th June 2006, where much younger versions of myself and Mrs 6000 enjoyed his concert from the front row.

We’re a bit further back (and a lot older) this time around, but still looking forward to a great evening.

No-vine

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MBCC dinner last night and we were tempted into trying a new venue, that being Bo-Vine in Camps Bay. Alarm bells ringing at the location already, but let’s overlook that and give the place a fair chance, shall we?
Bovine, because it’s steak, Bo-Vine because it’s wine as well.

Sometimes the local marketing wizardry just makes your head explode, doesn’t it? Sheer genius.

It’s going to have to be good. Firstly, you don’t take a place on the Camps Bay strip without some degree of restaurant know-how. It’s not for sissies down there. High risk, high turnover, short leases, high reward.

And secondly, a quick glance at the menu did seem to suggest that a 300g fillet was going for R380.

Wow. It’s going to have to be spectacular to justify that.

To put you in the picture, our regular steak haunt – Picanha in Newlands – isn’t cheap, but their 300g fillet comes in at R240. So was Bo-vine going to be able to offer something special for that extra, eye-watering 60%?

Well, it has Pete Goffe-Wood, local celebrity chef and well-versed restaurateur, who was doing the rounds and chatting to all the tables about the aging processes (for the meat: we’re all aware that we’re getting older, thanks) and suggesting the best cuts of the day. And you can tell that he knows his stuff and he loves sharing his knowledge and his food.

The service was very good. The ambience was pretty good as well, for a room with one open side onto a busy road (and the beach, obviously). The Stella Artois on tap was a joy (yes, with chalices), and the chips and the onion rings both excellent. Might seem like a small thing, but when you’re having steak and chips, it’s an important thing, too.

But the meat… Well, one of our six steaks (4 x picanha, 1 x ribeye, 1 x prime rib) was rather poor, and the rest were just… really good.
But not incredible. Not spectacular. Just really good South African fare. And certainly not worth the extra mark-up added on for the tourists with their pounds and dollars.

But I can totally see the appeal for those visitors. A decent steak, a local wine and that view out over Camps Bay after a hard day’s sightseeing. Affordable, too, when you convert it back from our Toytown money to your solid home currency.

It seems unfair in a way, to put any restaurant up against our favourites. They are our favourites for a reason, and putting it simply, it’s because their food is fantastic and the overall experience is repeatedly faultless. So it’s a hard act to follow. I get that.

But sadly – despite being a good night out – for us local boys, Bo-Vine just couldn’t match up on price or quality.

So it’s just the three stars. Sorry, Pete.

Out and about

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Morning all.

You join me at one of the local Traffic Departments, because my driving licence needs renewing. This process is slow, laborious, irritating and archaic, but it does make the government plenty of money, given that everyone has to do it every five years. Nice.

So it’s not going away any time soon.

It’s a filthy Cape Town morning: grey, wet, blustery and dark, and no-one wants to be here. The clients, the staff, the security – no-one. And thus, it is a picture of misery which surrounds me.

I wanted to postpone my visit and come next week, but the inclement weather and the fact that it’s Friday and I’m in a predominantly Muslim area tempted me into heading out today to avoid the queues.

I have no idea if it worked, because I don’t have a control day for comparison, but I’m in 11th place, having arrived a half hour before the place opened, and I’m waiting outside, but UNDER COVER, as the rain batters down on those beyond 15th.
Sorry for you. Maybe arrive earlier next time: don’t you know that the system is hopelessly dysfunctional and overloaded?

Tomorrow’s post may be on a completely different subject, or I may still be here, depending on how things go, given that the place was supposed to open 10 minutes ago now, but… hasn’t.

Pray for me.

Stage 4 and up in Cape Town – what does it look like?

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Much alarm, but no real surprise, as the message came through that we can expect Stage 6 (six) loadshedding this evening.

Loadshedding – or rolling blackouts – is the process by which the country cuts off power to different areas at different times because there isn’t enough electricity to go around. The alternative would be not cutting areas off and literally overloading the grid, leading to uncontrolled blackouts and general Armageddon. You can’t just switch the grid back on after an uncontrolled blackout. We could be down for days or weeks.
Oh, and each stage represents 1000MW that we’re short of what we require. So to be missing 6000MW is quite something.

It’s not a good scenario.

In Cape Town’s 23 loadshedding areas, each loadshedding period lasts for 2 hours, plus an additional half hour during which the power is restored. You might get one loadshedding block per area in a Stage 1 or 2 day, and up to three blocks per area in a Stage 3 or 4 day. But once you get beyond that, it gets a bit different.

So what does life in Cape Town beyond Stage 4 look like?

Yes, it’s complicated, but there are plenty of timetables readily available. If you have electricity to be able to access them, of course. It pays to be prepared.

And it pays to cut your electricity usage when you have it. If we were all to do that, we might be able to reduce demand. But even then, it’s all very much out of our hands.

Fugly situation.