A great evening out at Cafe Roux last night watching Craig Hinds playing acoustic versions of Watershed songs, plus some really decent cover versions as well. (Look, the hints were here.)
Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen and John Legend were amongst the artists he covered, but it was just a really chilled Friday evening (he only worked out it was Friday 5 minutes before the gig – what a way to live) and a lovely intimate show, with plenty of chat and anecdotes from the man on stage.
Of course, different versions of all the “big” hits were there, too: Indigo Girl, Letters and Close My Eyes, and where they may lack a little in the lyrical sense, the soul, feeling and the gentle passion are really all there. And because of the nature of their tracks, they really lend themselves to acoustic adaptation.
But to be honest, the song that was really the highlight of the evening for me was Watch The Rain. Absolutely beautiful. Mesmerising and goosebump-inducing.
This being Cafe Roux, the audience were generally very well behaved, which was really great. A breath of fresh air. Well, save for Macbeth’s three witches at Table 2, that is. Never, ever underestimate the privilege of a group of white, middle-aged women to ignore the “Ssshhh – please let’s enjoy the music” signs on their (and every other) table, even at R300 a ticket for an acoustic gig, nogal. Honestly – just fuck off literally ANYWHERE else and talk – it’s really not hard.
But let’s (try to) not let that take away from a really great night out.
More of this sort of thing, please.