You need a lot of documentation to see Ed Sheeran

Going to see Ed Sheeran at one of his upcoming concerts in Johannesbeagle or Cape Town?

Think you can turn up with just a ticket and walk right in?

Think again.

There are several (or more) documents that you might need to provide on the night if you’re going to be allowed in to see and hear the ginger crooner. I found this out quite by chance – Big Concerts hasn’t yet been in touch to tell me about it. That’s why I’m sharing it with you.
Because I bought tickets for Mrs 6000 and The Scoop and they wouldn’t have got in if I hadn’t seen this page, featuring this information:

There’s a similar one for Joburg too.

And yes, it’ll be a mess and they’ll end up not checking everyone’s documents and people will complain that they brought them along for nothing. And yes, some people who do get checked will not have the documentation and there will be some shouting and a fight.

It’s even a bit vague about what you actually need to bring, and given that this is an event in South Africa, so the security probably won’t have been suitably briefed anyway, I’d bring everything on the list. And lots of other things too.
Smile nicely, be polite throughout, baffle with bullshit, gain entry.
Standard practice.

As usual, I would wholeheartedly advise parking in the P1 parking at the CTICC for a quick getaway once you’ve shuttled (free) into town from the stadium.

Please share this information so no-one gets locked out. Ed might not be your cup of tea (he’s certainly not mine), but imagine missing a concert you had bought tickets for, simply because you didn’t have a printed A4 PDF with someone’s name on it. Madness.

Meanwhile, at 31 Junction Road

Well, this is awkward.

Google Streetview has spotted many interesting things in its time – see Aaron Hobson’s art here, for example – but few things could be more Gauteng than this apparent hijacking caught live in February this year:

31 Junction Rd - Google Maps - Google Chrome 2015-07-23 084627 AM.bmp

Here in SA, where crime is often problematic, the private security industry is booming. Generally, they are quite good at keeping things in check, but the system does seem to be struggling a bit in the image above.

Link

Loadshedding Schedules – November 2014

Latest information and schedules for:

Areas directly supplied by Eskom  

Cape Town Loadshedding Region Map
Cape Town Loadshedding Schedule (from November 2014)

Ekurheleni Metro

Ethekwini Metro

Nelson Mandela Bay Metro

Tshwane

Band to play in South Africa

A local events company yesterday announced that they had booked a band to come and play some concerts in South Africa early next year. The announcement, which was widely expected and had already been leaked last week, prompted a mixed reaction from twitter users across the country.

Some people immediately rubbished the announcement, saying that the band had not released anything worth listening to for many years. They informed their followers in no uncertain terms that they would not be attending the concerts, although they omitted to tell us what they would be doing instead on each of the evenings in question.

Others were obviously excited by the news, stating that they would certainly be trying to get tickets for the concerts and that they couldn’t wait for the date of the concert to arrive. While only a small percentage of these individuals rated the band’s latest offerings particularly highly, they expressed the hope that some of the band’s bigger hits from earlier on in their career would also be featured on the concert playlist. Additionally, some of this group managed to get tickets through the pre-sale function on the band’s website, which annoyed those who didn’t manage to do so.

Finally, there was a third group who expressed relatively little emotion over the announcement. From this, it could be deduced that they were probably not huge fans of the band in question, but also that they understood that other people probably have different musical tastes to them and that they respected this fact, not feeling the need to mock or belittle those individuals who do actually enjoy the music of the band in question.

All the groups did, however, agree that the ticketing process would probably not go particularly smoothly.

Facebook is expected to hear about the concert later today or early tomorrow morning.

Tori Amos in Cape Town, Joburg – November 2011

Much excitement last night as someone (@frantaljaard?) while (presumably) searching “Tori Amos” and “Concert” and “South Africa” and “November” on Google, discovered that Tori Amos is due to perform some concerts in South Africa in November as part of her Night Of Hunters tour.
Isn’t Google amazing?

The dates currently held are Saturday and Sunday 12th & 13th November at Emperor’s Palace in Gauteng and Thursday 17th November at the Grand West Arena in Cape Town.
Tickets are R390 – R765 for Gauteng and R395 – R695 for Cape Town and are being sold through Computicket.

This flame-haired, modern-day Kate Bush has been around for a while: I saw her in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the first night of her Under The Pink tour in February 1994 and never thought that I’d get the chance to see her in Cape Town almost 17 years later. Or any other city, to be honest. Well, it’s not the kind of thing you do think about, is it?

The iconic, platinum-selling singer-songwriter continues her legacy of ground-breaking recordings with this 21st century song cycle inspired by select classical pieces spanning the last 400 years. This is, quite literally, vintage Tori Amos, in scope and in sound.
With Night of Hunters, Amos carries on the classical tradition of variations on a theme: taking inspiration from classical forms to create a bold new work while paying tribute to the mastery of the original compositions.

So classical piano music with a contemporary twist? We’ve been here before, haven’t we?

To celebrate, here is her wonderful live cover of Radiohead’s Karma Police (which does eventually get going after a whole lot of whooping fans) which is fully downloadable via janovlk on Soundcloud:

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/janovlk/tori-amos-radiohead[/soundcloud]

I’ll let you know when the tickets are being released (once I’ve got mine) 9am, Thursday 8th September and I’m sure that there will be some stuff from the new album available to post on here in the very near future.