Sunday, April 26, 2009

Why'd You Want To Live Here?

I hate Tollies. It’s up there with guinea fowl and casinos on my ‘pet hates’ list. But I like 3rd World Spectator, I like The Beams and so I braved jock central…
Now, when I say jock central, I mean it. This place is jockville on steroids, in Afrikaans. Play Kurt Darren or Lady Gaga and you will be popular. Speak Afrikaans, pop your collar, try start a fight and make a ‘joke’ about the AWB and you’ll fit right in. I do not. And neither, really, do these two cool local bands. But somehow we pulled it off…
3rd World Spectator has been a little quieter of late, but their sound remains the same. If anything, frontman Peter Crafford’s voice has strengthened, with an almost slightly darker feel to it, which matches their music perfectly. The Beams were as groovy as ever, and on this voting day people loved quirky frontman Paul with or without knowing he is Helen Zille’s son.
Really there is not much to say about the bands themselves; I like them and have reviewed them both more than once. From where they were standing, the sound was apparently kak [seeing as we are in Tollies]. From where we were, it was pretty good. The cheerleaders danced [like sluts, but danced nonetheless] and all-round there was a good show of appreciation. It’s good to see two bands good enough for even a monkey with horrible taste in music to have to admit that they are good.
I was asked on a number of occasions to take pictures of drunk people I had never met before. I think I was quite rude about it, but what about me says ‘thunda.com’? The girls were snobs, the guys were drunk. Forward, and convinced that trying to feel you up as you brush past en-route to le WC would do the trick. There were too many people, music between sets made my ears bleed and eventually I could no longer breathe in the mindless air so thick with pretense. So I left, and made sweet love to my Black Label in Bohemia.
Each to his own, I guess. But wowee, do I love my places, and my people, my music and my fingerless gloves in winter. For now, we’re 20-somethings and for most people that means drinking all night, having random meaningless hook-ups, waking up late and hungover with little money and even less of an idea where it all went, scraping through university and each day to do it all over again. And we need that. Otherwise I would have no people to judge, we would have no model to which to refer when saying ‘I am so glad I am not one of those people who…’, cartoonists would have no situations to ridicule and absurdists have nothing to write about. So thank you for the music, and thank you for feeding the snobbish cynic in me. What would I do without you guys?
The vessel keeps pumping us through this zentropic place
In the belly of the beast that is this place,
I drank from a faucet and I kept my receipts
For when they weigh me on my way out
(Here nothing is free).
The greyhounds keep coming
Dumping locusts into the street
Until the gutters overflow
And this place thinks,
"I might explode someday soon."
It's a lovely summer's day
And I can almost see a skyline through a thickening shroud of egos.
Here the names are what remain...
Stars encapsulate the gold lame
And they need constant cleaning for when the tourists begin salivatin
g
-Death Cab For Cutie, Why You'd Want To Live Here

2 comments:

Simon said...

You should write more misanthropic posts. You make it sound so justified. :D

Niel de la Rouviere said...

Cool blog post!
While Aandklas is my favourite kuier plek in Stellies, Tollies and like most kuier plekke depends on who you go with. I tend to enjoy a party nonetheless.

Damnit, I didn't know they played in Tollies. :( Really wanted to see 3rd World Spectator.