This Friday’s Gig At The Bohemian Is The Most Important Party This Month

The last few years’ worth of partying in Jo’burg have offered a vast transformation in the way things worked around this city. It used to be that events and parties spread out across the entire metropolis, from the Best Rand to the East, from one side of the city to another, from old forgotten buildings to every shitty live music venue Melville had to offer. For a while there it felt like the city centre and its immediate surrounds were more like an estate of opportunity. Oh, how shit can flip turn upside down.

The positive power of the internet is that it democratizes our ability to communicate in a way no medium before it has done. Segregation was a lot easier to pull off, or to make excuses about, in an era where most people legitimately couldn’t tell where other people were hanging out unless they were notified by word of mouth. Today word of mouth rests in the hands of the majority of people. Before you couldn’t easily tell people you didn’t know where you were or when. Today your endless self-generated media stream tells people who you’re with and where they should be if they want to have a good time as you’re having that good time. They may think they’re safe from all your photos but all the algorithms social networks have in place to predict your secret lusts will force feed you the information you didn’t know you wanted in no time flat. There can be no other explanation for why Facebook thinks I want to date Muslim women.

Social media also gives you a pretty solid idea of where people aren’t going to be in a few weeks. The sheer volume of people trying to sell Foo Fighters tickets on my Facebook feed makes me wonder about the soundness of Big Concerts’ original decision to hold the band’s show in Jo’burg during December, when everyone knows everybody in this city leaves to seek the carnal entertainment only rubbing up against thousands of other people from Jo’burg can provide on the streets of Cape Town. Of course, Big Concerts does this on a semi-professional basis so, for all their flaws, I have to assume they know what they’re doing and expect the stadium will be packed with guys with leather wrist guards and a determined interest in making tired cultural statements that haven’t been relevant since the late 70s.

The other gig that people are purging tickets for all over social media is Sounds Wild, the Bombay Bicycle Club show. On one hand that is a real shame. That band is great and deserve a strong reception. They make good music and will likely be a lot of fun to watch live. I also think that the lineup, while a series of extremely safe choices, is appropriate enough for a gig trying to be as inoffensive as possible. Bombay have been around long enough that those guys who come to events and do weird little toe-to-toe hopping dances while drunkenly mouthing chorus lines know and love them.

Sounds Wild represents all those good times, sure, but also remains a significant representation of the lack of integration that’s prominent in the South African music scene. It’s less a problem in Jo’burg but it’s not completely gone either. The event doesn’t make any attempt to try and present a more diverse lineup or offer anything for a wider taste. It does this even while operating under the moniker of a “festival”, which is usually bent on gathering a large and diverse audience to take in a wide array of music. Compare and contrast the lineup for this event with the strange and wonderful mix of artists you’ll find at the average Park Acoustics event, which do a nice job of balancing out complimentary sounds with a mix of just plain great music that you need to hear whether you’re ready for it or not. A truly admirable festival organizer makes an attempt to both placate the people whose tastes remain ‘safe’ and include an audience with a wider interest or a taste for something different. That I saw Spoek Mathambo‘s Fantasma play at the same show as John Wizards, BCUC and Desmond & the Tutus says wonders for what a good festival lineup can look like. All those artists are both popular and talented, and yet their sounds are completely unlike one another’s.

You might argue that an event or festival isn’t the place to make some kind of play at diversification. You’d be wrong. Parties, events and festivals are ultimately about making money for the organizers, no matter what they say. Drawing as wide a net as possible from your audience means selling lots of tickets, and perhaps making a lot of money at the bar while overwhelming the toilet facilities. It’s a win-win-win for the audience, the artists and the organizers.

And yet it’s not happening. Or not enough. The reason why is that organizers are still afraid to diversify lineups and risk alienating anyone. In their attempt to play it safe though, they tend to choose who they are alienating very specifically, sustaining an event clique of the same crowds who gravitate toward the same kinds of bands and artists again and again. If you rarely light a fire it becomes very difficult to argue that it might burn something down. Event organizers – more the small-time ones than any larger company in South Africa – believe they can do this because of the result of any announcement they make is often a resounding cheer of support from the echo chamber they’ve helped create for themselves. It’s the response from an audience that is excited to see the acts they see on a monthly (or even weekly) basis without any change to the status quo. It’s an audience that still gets excited at the words “international act”, belying a certain embarrassment over their geographic location, but fails to demand more from the artists on stage. It’s dangerously complacent, like milking a dying cow out of habit.

This is where The Bohemian‘s birthday gig comes in. Please do yourself a favor and take note of this event’s lineup, which includes an instrumental surf rock band, a progressive beat poetry theatrical ensemble, and an all-female rock & roll band. That may sound like a stunt to you but to me it has the ring of the future of South African live entertainment. Better yet, this is the present, and what should remain the standard for South African events, parties and festivals all around.

This gig is also happening at The Bohemian (the “new” one in Westdene), which is also significant. A few years ago, around the big shift in partying in Braamfontein specifically, I remember writing about how there was a lot of potential for new venues and events taking place in the city. Unfortunately what we’ve seen instead is the same limited party infrastructure that mostly provides the same experiences, one on top of the other, and half a dozen venues essentially throwing the same party at the same time for the same audience. And despite the increasing popularity of live music, I still don’t see too many live music venues being put to good use on a regular enough basis in the city, limiting our band experiences to large stages at overwhelmingly large events that have all begun to blur into one endless streak of the same drunken party.

The Bohemian may not be perfect but it provides a much needed intimate band experience. The sort of experience that sustains smaller bands and cultivates new audiences. It’s not that these sorts of gigs don’t happen often at places like The Boh and Rumours, but there’s a certain degree to which these vital venues spread throughout the city don’t receive the same love and attention they used to from a wider audience.

If all that seems like it’s too complex a reason to check out this Friday’s gig (which kicks off at 21:30 and costs just 50ZAR), consider that they didn’t even consider booking Jeremy Loops, which automatically makes them successful. Also, there’s another sick flyer with The Moths’ name on it.

For more info on this gig, head on over to here. Thinks kick off at 9:30 and cost 50ZAR so go-go-go.