Tag: grand west

Cigarettes After Sex: gentle, monochrome joy

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I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure what to expect from last night’s concert at Grand West.

Texas band Cigarettes After Sex were in town (and they are again tonight), and while I love their music, I’m far from their target audience.

Except, do they actually have a target audience? Because it seemed to all intents and purposes that they were just there last night to enjoy playing their music. And maybe that’s it: the age of the audience stretched from 12 to 70, and so while there might be some demographic or other to whom their music appeals more than another (it’s white, mainly female, teenage and 20-somethings, if you want to know), I don’t think that the band really cares at all.

And that’s fine.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a concert that’s had less band interaction with the audience. Literally “This is our first concert in Cape Town. We really appreciate you all coming along”, halfway through the set, and “Thank you, Cape Town. We love each and every one of you”, at the end. And that was it.

But that was also fine.

It left more room for the music – which is what I was there for – and (as I mentioned above), clearly what they were there for, too.

No flashy lights, no colour. Just a lot of spots, white LEDs and all of the CO2 that they could muster. They began playing in a light “tank”, with dry ice walls lit between them and the audience, but those came down early on, leaving light beams picking out the band members in front of a huge screen full of monochromatic images and videos of moonrises, sunsets, grasses, clouds, rain and snow.

This was very simple stuff, done simply.

And then for the big finale – Apocalypse – a couple of MASSIVE glitter balls which filled the place with dancing, shimmering stars for a couple of breathtaking, spine tingling minutes.

Randall and Jacob never moved from their respective stations, while lead singer Greg Gonzalez occasionally marched down to the front or out to the wings of the stage and offered up his guitar to the audience like some sort of subservient soul looking for praise or recognition, as he delivered the final riff of a song.

It might all have seemed rather emotionless, and yet it was weirdly, deeply spiritual at the same time. Outwardly cold, and yet completely captivating. I was entranced, and I could have spent literally hours just listening to their music. And I think that they could have spent hours just playing it for us.

Tejano Blue and Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby were memorable, while Dreaming Of You was surprisingly rocky and upbeat, before Apocalypse brought the house down (as much as something that slow, gentle and profoundly beautiful could break anything other than hearts). And then Opera House as a single track encore was just gorgeous.

So, after all my wondering before the evening began, am I now more sure of what I got?
Yes, I suppose so.

All in all a rather odd, but really incredible performance that will live long in the memory.

An upgrade

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World Tour time. But on this occasion, we actually get a visit!

And the Cape Town Cigarettes After Sex gig sold out much more quickly than I expected. Especially given that it’s a whole year away. I actually initially thought that it was going to be in May, which seemed much more reasonable, but I had fallen foul of the American dating system, and it was 5/3 rather than 3/5.

Or whatever.

So yes, we’ve still got 50 weeks to wait for the concert. And I didn’t get very good tickets, because I was a bit slow off the mark, because I genuinely thought that it would be a real slow burner.

What a muppet.

But here’s the thing: because it sold out so quickly, they’ve added another date! And I was much quicker off the mark this time, booking some really awesome seats: right next to the people who are spending far too much money on concert tickets, but only spending a fraction of what they did despite only being 50cm further from the action.

Now all I need to do is get my previous tickets refunded (thankfully, the promoter specifically allows for this “second date” situation on their website) and we’re golden.

Oh. And then just hang about for 11½ months until the gig actually happens…

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.

BZN concert

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I have been receiving SO MANY EMAILS this week about Dutch band BZN’s upcoming concerts in South Africa. They arrived in Cape Town this morning and they play here tomorrow evening, and then up in Johannesbeagle over the weekend. And I’m not saying that ticket sales have not been going well, but:

1. The tickets are now buy one get one free, and
2. They’re emailing me about it.

I had never heard of BZN, and now I know why.

Target audience be damned.

But what could have gone wrong, when they’re being supported by Nadine, Manie Jackson (no relation) and Christo & Cobus*? And when BZN have given us such hits as Love’s Like A River:

and Amore:

Sweet Baby Cheeses. It’s like a really bad ABBA.
And ABBA are really bad already.

If this is your idea of great music, get yourself (and your freebie +1) along to one of their gigs. That way, the clearly desperate promoters might stop emailing me about them.

* Interestingly, the other three support acts are Juanita du Plessis, Franja… er… du Plessis and… erm… Ruan Josh (whose full name is Ruan Josh du Plessis). Truly a family full of sh… owmanship. 

Bastille Cape Town review (2017)

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That date in the title just to differentiate this post from a similar one 3 years ago.

Right, let’s get on with this: brief and to the point can like to be my style this morning. (UPDATE from end of post: this didn’t happen, sorry.)

First off, this was a birthday gift for our 9 year old daughter, so standing tickets were out of the question: she’d get really tired and be staring at several or more student bums for 3 hours. So we were sitting right up at the back – a position which has both its advantages (comfy seats, better view, fewer bums) and disadvantages (bit distant from the action, not quite the same atmosphere).

We arrived just in time for the first support act, Opposite The Other. Local boys done good. Not my sort of music, but there’s clearly a great deal of talent here. There was a bit of a dearth of character and stage presence though. But then, this was a first act, playing to a half empty arena some 2½ hours before the main event, and South African audiences are notoriously disrespectful anyway, so I’m not sure that anyone noticed or cared.
I’ll give them a solid 6/10. Not bad, could do better.

But then after their exit, came the MC. I missed his name, but basically he was a late middle aged American gentleman; a balding and somewhat portly chap with zero personality. Good choice for the job. And here let me digress a bit: look, I’m not sure that I could MC a concert. But that’s why I don’t MC concerts. In much the same way, I’m pretty sure I can’t do open heart surgery so I go out of my way to avoid putting myself in situations where I might find myself having to do open heart surgery.

Play to your strengths, innit?

I don’t know much about the MC last night, but I have a feeling that he might be better at open heart surgery than MCing concerts.
It sounded like he was going to be doing the Durban (Friday) and Joburg (Saturday) concerts too. You guys are in for a treat. Eish.

Fortunately, the fun sponge and his monotone verbal stumbling eventually made way for Matthew Mole (who is not actually a mole) (private joke, sorry) and even more fortunately, he was very good. Tight, professional, engaging, and clearly and rightfully proud of what he was doing. One drummer, one synth and varying sizes of strummable instrumentation, plus some well-placed confidence and that voice: a really simple combination which worked really well. Let the music do the talking, as it were. The audience was also more receptive – probably aided by some Castle Lite and some better-known songs – and the performance finished with our temporary protagonist standing on the fence at the front of the crowd and banging a big drum, yielding almost iconic imagery like this (nabbed from his Facebook page):

Good work, Matthew. 9/10. Maybe even a 9½.

Time for Mr Boring to come on again and try to evaporate any excitement or atmosphere, but amusingly, this  ime around  is  icrophone was ‘t  orking pro erly and so we were spared from much of his “witty” “banter”.

There may actually be a god, after all.

Bastille time. Volume up a notch or two. Lighting up several more. And a huge welcome as the band took to the stage, introduced by a video of their strange newcaster, who resurfaced again and again during the evening. We began with Send Them Off! and from the get go, the huge energy was evident. The familiarity of Laura Palmer – a beautiful, almost orchestral version with soaring strings reminiscent of The Sun Always Shines On TV – really got the crowd going and we were away. Even more so when Dan wandered out into the crowd while performing Flaws. And then memories of Kirstenbosch 3 years ago were stirred as the audience talked right through a beautiful rendition of Overjoyed. You rude bastards. All of you.

A good setlist of stuff followed with songs from Bad Blood and Wild World cleverly combined to not stray too far from the familiar, nor lose the energy while also showcasing their slower “massively depressing” (Dan’s words, not mine) music.

We got an emotional Durban Skies dedicated to Dan’s family (and notably only ever performed live in SA) and then an acoustic Two Evils from the balcony just down in front of us, before a really weird ending to the set, with Things We Lost To The Fire and then Pompei and then… nothing. Even though the newsreader on the big screen told us “That’s all!”, it took the house lights coming up and the roadies dismantling the drum kit before the rather confused audience started to leave.

But this oddity aside, it was a brilliant performance. Energetic, loud, entertaining and captivating. And all so hugely professional. Really amazing. About 20 songs, about 90 minutes on stage. Great value for money. They’ll be joining Matthew on a high quality 9½. (Don’t be sad. I don’t give out 10s easily.)

Oh, and before we go: a shout out to Grand West. They really do do concerts well there. Extra exits, well lit temporary pathways to the car park, helpful staff, prepaid parking tickets, brilliant traffic control. Each bit saves just a few seconds, but add that up across 7,000 strong crowd and it makes a big difference. There’s a lot that other venues could learn from them.