Band to play in South Africa

A local events company yesterday announced that they had booked a band to come and play some concerts in South Africa early next year. The announcement, which was widely expected and had already been leaked last week, prompted a mixed reaction from twitter users across the country.

Some people immediately rubbished the announcement, saying that the band had not released anything worth listening to for many years. They informed their followers in no uncertain terms that they would not be attending the concerts, although they omitted to tell us what they would be doing instead on each of the evenings in question.

Others were obviously excited by the news, stating that they would certainly be trying to get tickets for the concerts and that they couldn’t wait for the date of the concert to arrive. While only a small percentage of these individuals rated the band’s latest offerings particularly highly, they expressed the hope that some of the band’s bigger hits from earlier on in their career would also be featured on the concert playlist. Additionally, some of this group managed to get tickets through the pre-sale function on the band’s website, which annoyed those who didn’t manage to do so.

Finally, there was a third group who expressed relatively little emotion over the announcement. From this, it could be deduced that they were probably not huge fans of the band in question, but also that they understood that other people probably have different musical tastes to them and that they respected this fact, not feeling the need to mock or belittle those individuals who do actually enjoy the music of the band in question.

All the groups did, however, agree that the ticketing process would probably not go particularly smoothly.

Facebook is expected to hear about the concert later today or early tomorrow morning.

Going Gaga

Big Concerts has come out with a Big Announcement that they are going to make a Big Announcement on Monday morning.
Care should be taken here, since the last Big Announcement by Big Concerts was that Celtic Woman were to play in South Africa. (If you don’t know who Celtic Woman are, then you join the rest of us. Welcome.)

Speculation is unsurprisingly rife that it could be Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, the Foo Fighters, or indeed a return visit from Celtic Woman. And then there’s the Lady Gaga thing.

Let’s have a quick look at how Big Concerts is advertising their Big Announcement:

And let’s compare that with the typography on the Lady Gaga “Born This Way Ball” site:

Similar? Not similar?
Coincidence? Not coincidence?

If it is her, she’d better not wear that meat dress. She’ll get braai’ed.

Red Hot Chili Peppers in South Africa in 2013

Yes, apparently this time the rumours might be true: The Red Hot Chili Peppers are set to tour South Africa (ie. visit Joburg and Cape Town) in 2013.

We’ve all heard that the Chilis will be playing in South Africa in 2010 before the World Cup and in 2010 after the World Cup and that they also are playing in South Africa in 2011 and, of course, who could forget those several times in 2012 that the Red Hot Chili Peppers will be playing in South Africa?

However, this new information (much like all the other information), which pushes the potential concerts back still further to 2013 comes (apparently, allegedly) straight from the horse’s mouth. And the particular equine in question is Attie van Wyk, founder of Big Concerts. This demonstrates the sheer desperation of the social media music scene in getting very excited about a band whose biggest hits wowed us just 21 years ago who may or may not play a concert which may or may not be happening in South Africa in the next 23½ months.

If the tour does happen, they will be supported (ever so ably, I’m sure) by The Parlotones. Tickets – to our great surprise and annoyance – will be available from Computicket, whose website – to our great surprise and annoyance – will crash on the morning that sales open.
The concerts will be well attended, the beer will run out after 20 minutes and the sound at the Cape Town Stadium will be a bit crap.

See you there!