Bangers / events

My Thoughts On Kings Of Leon in Cape Town

For some reason there seems to be a huge difference in opinion on last nights show. Explaining mine on Twitter is useless, 140 character just isn’t enough to get it all across. Plus, for some reason, possibly the hangover, I’m starting to get fucking annoyed with people, as I tend to do, because as we know, everyone is an idiot. I have several conflicting opinions on last night, but at the end of the day it was an amazing experience. Let me tell you why.

(my opinion after the jump)

Besides the crowd, which comprised of a multitude of morons, boozed up jock types and girls dressed up, on a chilly Cape Town night, like they we’re hoping We Are Awesome would show up, there was not much to comment on regarding the stadium, and general running of the night. It was done well. The queues were as quick as one would expect and everything seemed to run smoothly. I stayed away from the bars, they looked far too busy. I’d been taking my liquor in the bars of Green Point since 2pm, in places that ice cold bottles were brought to me by waitresses. The stadium bar queues and the inevitable need to urinate keeps me off the booze once the show begins.

Down in Golden Circle we found, much to our annoyance, that the majority of the Top 40 heroes – the kind that list their favourite bands according to their rank on the world charts, have little to no idea how a crowd situation works, and that bringing in fifteen of your friends to join you, in an already packed floor is going to earn you a punch to the face. My experience seem to fit in with most of the crowd comments I’ve seen today. In retrospect, I wish more fights had broken out, perhaps the organiser could have split the crowd into two teams and pitched us in a battle for the prime area in golden circle. The first team comprising of the generally good people, there to take in the music, the crowds, the excitement, and then the second team, comprising of everyone who was there to listen to ‘Sex On Fire’. The good people would most certainly have been outnumbered, but we sure as hell have experience in close quarter crowd combat.

I’m not going to get into the support acts. I missed the first two, only arriving as Die Heuwels Fantasties took the stage. Perhaps it’s because I used to like Die Heuwels, a while back, but started to doubt them after disappointing show after disappointing show, that last nights show was particularly enjoyable. Maybe my judgement was off because I’d written them off. Written them off to a drunkard front man. Maybe it was, but in my opinion, last night I witnessed the best performance from Die Heuwels in a very, very long time. Yes, they had some entertaining support from the likes of Francois Van Coke and Jack Parow, but all in all I really enjoyed it. I have faith in the band again. I want them to live up to their hype.

When it comes to Kings Of Leon I’ve heard just about every conceivable comment, via twitter, on last nights show. Some I don’t agree with, a few sum up the crowd perfectly, some are clearly from people who were not even there. Someone even compared KOL with David Guetta ‘David Guetta was so much better than KOL’. Sorry. What? That person deserves a punch to the face, and is a clear indication of what we were dealing with last night. A large crowd of people who went because there was a concert on. Who was playing was almost beside the point. I think what they were getting at though, was that KOL were not very energetic or engaging. They weren’t. As far as performances go, this show was weak. Few words were said, and they could have been said anywhere. ‘Hello Cape Town!’, ‘This is the most beautiful city we’ve been in’, and ‘ARE YOU HAVIN’ A GOOD TIME!’ are stock fucking standard and not only do we deserve more, they should want to give more.

It was, however, a treat to hear that Southern drawl every now and then, but I know everyone wanted more. We’re starved for current internationals. Of course we want more of a show. All we have are the albums, so when a band comes out and plays a near perfect set, it’s just not enough for us. Which it was, the set that is, near perfect. I have never heard a band play so well. Looking to our perfect performance bands here, like Isochronous, I can say I’ve heard skilful and perfect, but to see it on a scale like last night, and from a band like KOL, was something special. Say what you will of their stage presence, or set list, KOL destroyed last night, and if you’re a fan of their music, a real fan, not some popped collar dick head who prefers Sex On Fire – the dance version, who’s ticket was a reward from mommy for studying hard, they you would have appreciated the music.

Still, was that enough to save the performance from the lack of engagement, or the last ditch, fourth song into the encore, almost obligatory attempt at international showmanship, sparks and fireworks ‘display’? Yes, I think it was. Why? because at the end of the day I didn’t go to KOL to listen to Caleb Followill talk the whole night. If I want to hear what he has to say I’ll watch a documentary. I went to the Kings Of Leon concert to hear one of my favourite bands play the songs I fell in love with all those years back, and I wanted to hear them played well. That is exactly what I got.

Joburg, I fear for you, in terms of your crowd. If our Top 40 heroes are nothing more than annoying imbeciels, your’s are the same, just cranked up on juice. If you can avoid them though, you’re in for a bloody spectacular night. Don’t listen to the haters. Go there for your own reasons and enjoy the music, because good music is what you will get.

Nash…
Out.

Tasche Rating: Bad TascheOK TascheGood Tasche
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