Lying in the cool of the cottage, the sun beating down outside, the turquoise blue of the ocean out of the window, and this playing on my 1995 JVC hi-fi:
The perfect soundtrack. This morning’s spring tide gave us some remarkable rockpooling opportunities, but with a few days more here before we can back to the hullabaloo of city life, there’s no reason to rush to get anything much done. And so, the lazing and the music continue.
Passenger joins a long line of artists who have filmed a video in and around Cape Town while touring out here (see Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Kasabian et al.).
Says Mike:
hello everyone ,
the whispers world tour came to an end on sunday so i thought i’d post a little video that we made over the last few days in CAPE TOWN. i can’t quite believe how beautiful that city is .
SOUTH AFRICA has undoubtedly been one of the highlights and fantastic way to end this adventure !!!!
the whispers tour took me and some of my best friends around the world and i’ll never forget seeing such beautiful things with such incredible people .
the song is called “setting suns” and it felt like a fitting sentiment .
as always , please feel free to hit the share button if you like what you see 🙂
thank you all so so much .
mike xxxx
I know that music people have their stage personae and that we can’t believe everything we see or hear from them, but Mike Rosenberg really does seem to be a very nice, gentle, down-to-earth kinda guy who demonstrates only a mild hint of creepiness when staring into the middle distance on the video.
The video features dolphins, penguins, gannets and seals, Camps Bay, cable cars and er… the setting sun (just one of it, despite the song title) – plus some bonus scenes from the Kirstenbosch concert.
We are freshly returned from the Passenger concert at Kirstenbosch, and it turns out that Mike Rosenberg (for he is it) is a great raconteur as well as a fantastic singer/songwriter. He kept the sold out audience entertained for 90 minutes with jokes, stories and music. A really great show.
Song of the concert was this one though – sung to 5 minutes of utter silence from the 6,000 people present; that’s a massive ask for the generally very disrespectful South African crowds and something I’ve only ever seen once before in SA with James Blunt’s No Bravery. Mike tells the story of meeting a guy near a gas station in Minnesota at 3am one morning, while heading out to buy cigarettes. They strike up a conversation after the man tells him that
This is best cigarette I’ve ever smoked
and from there it transpires that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer, doesn’t know how long he has left and has sold up on the West Coast, bought a motorcycle and is heading to New York to go and spend his remaining days – however many there may be – with his family. Riding to New York is the song that Mike wrote about that meeting and the man’s journey:
It was one of several thoroughly depressing numbers, for which Mike apologised. There were many upbeat moments as well though, some really good banter with the crowd, some singing along and a whole heap of swearing.
Great evening. Make a plan to go and see him (although, as so many Cape Town gigs do, this marked the end of his current tour, so, sorry for you).
Difficult decision, made some days ago, but I’ll doing my own thing today to mark my Uncle‘s funeral.
Stunning rendition. Not perfect lyrically, but enough lines hitting the spot to be right for today.