Update with Rants

Hi all, welcome to the latest update of what has happened around gigs and music around town. To start with I have a little rant around people and dance floors. Based on my apparently old school understanding dance floors are actually as the name would imply dance floors. It appears in Johannesburg anyway that is not so, posing and taking up space by holding chat sessions being the order of the day. It must be said that this also applies to live gigs where you can struggle to hear the lyrics above the noise of the inconsiderate who chat all around you drowning out the music. Worst thing is that these same people then claim to support local music for example and yet don’t bother to show any consideration to the artists. Right, enough around the rant bit lets get onto the gigs to be reviewed. Two fell into this time frame, Greenisforturbo and The Privates at a slightly dodgy venue, and then a whole lot of bands at the Uncaged benefit.

Onto the first gig and Greenisforturbo. They had a great set and to me were the better band on the night as the music they play is more my style than the privates. They sound like an amalgamation of Explosions in the Sky, Arcade Fire and basically a bunch of indie bands. Well worth giving a listen to them. The Privates are a more rock oriented band and while they do the indie rock thing well, its a bit formulaic for me. They did go down well with the crowd, and for a change there was actually a decent crowd at a local gig.

Uncaged had a number of bands playing in between animal rights speeches and presentations. All revenue at this concert/event were to go to animal charities so was worth supporting. A good crowd was there, and I got there in time to watch the later bands. Views on the bands were as follows: Us Kids Know were great, no vocals just a guitarist and drummer laying down sounds-capes reminiscent of Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai and the like. They’re worth a listen going forward and their closest local sounding band for comparison is Kid of Doom. Can’t quite recall this bands name but they had a sound dating back to the Pistols, unfortunately not a huge amount of variety so not my favourite. The One Night Stands did a bunch of covers of both old and new alternative classics and while some bands would probably die at the versions trotted out for consumption these guys had a lot of fun and managed to get the crowd going. Devils Cartel were professional and this was the first time I could here them properly. They were actually quite good and sound like a heavier version of Goldfrapp so a good interesting dance band. Vendetta Cartel who closed the concert side of things are a loud
punk band whose vocalist throws in some rap tinged vocals in Spanish every now and then. They are fast and energetic and if you enjoy punk they’re not to bad as they do have some variety.

Well thats all for the moment, next big event being the Cellardoor party on 30 June which should be a blast.