I went to a live performance by Freshlyground last night. I won't call it a concert because it was fairly short and was a charity performance by them for the Save Our Seas festival which took place this week. The venue was a large warehouse on the East Pier at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, and despite a raging Southeaster blasting through the city, there was not a breath of wind down next to the sea. The SA Agulhas II, our recently launched Antarctic research ship, was moored alongside, and a busy team prepared (not on the endangered list) fish and chips for the enthusiastic crowd.
When the band took to the stage, we were sitting at a table unfortunately close to a large bank of speakers, and the sound control team were comfortably seated far from the stage. As usual, they had no idea of the real effect of these speakers, which drowned out the voices to a large extent and overamplified the guitars. It never ceases to amaze me how out of touch the sound management seems to be. However, that being said, don't think I wasn't still enjoying it! The solution to the speaker problem was to join the throng in front of the stage and boy, was that the place to be!
It's impossible not to get caught up in the rhythm and exuberance of this band and it wasn't long before the crowd was rocking to the beat and singing along. There is no doubt that the lead singer, Zolani, has great stage personality and really connects with her audience. It seemed as if she was singing to each one personally and they loved it! The other members of the band were all given their chance to shine and show off some energetic moves. If the show had been a little longer, I'm sure I would have joined in the chorus too. There's nothing quite like the anonymity of being in a dancing crowd. It makes you think you are 18 again.
And there's nothing like a live music performance, whether classical or rock. It all comes to life and you can appreciate the courage of the performers to expose their souls to the world.
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