Welcome to the Dangerfields, Uncle Mothers - by Tsar André
Dangerfields @ Uncle Mothers.
2019 was a fantastic year for South African music. I won't pick a favorite release, so don't make me.
One local album that did manage to absolutely blow me away however, was Dangerfields's "Echoes and Pulses".
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| © Photography by Breniann Labuschagne |
The Cape Town bred shoegaze outfit seemingly also caught the attention of Uncle Mothers, who brought them up to our neck of the woods for their first events of 2020. I went to both shows, and this was what I saw there.
First up was a night at The Irish, a venue which never fails to impress me, and it maintained that trend this time around too.
I
have long been a Bye Beneco superfan, and seeing one of their last SA
shows for a while was a goddamn pleasure to behold. Ever-trippy vocals
and synthesizer noise made for one of the best shows I've seen from the
group yet. All in all, a fantastic start to the weekend.
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| Bye Beneco © Photography by Breniann Labuschagne |
I decided to have to bites at the cake for this weekend, and went through to the Aandklas show the next day too. Aandklas PTA hasn't always been my favorite venue. AK's sound quality has, in the past, been somewhat inconsistent. I assume that Uncle Mothers played their hand in this, because since they started hosting shows here I've seen a marked improvement in quality. Big, big ups to them and AK.
First
up at AK was a band that I knew very little about, to be honest. The
Great Yawn's name had been mentioned to me a few times as a band to look
out for, and I wasn't disappointed. Their stage presence light up the
darkest of AK's corners, and their psych-pop like sound fit perfectly
with the lineup of the night. I would definitely recommend that you take
a look at this band, they might just turn out to be next in a long line
of fantastic SA bands in their style. Think Sannie Fox meets Bye
Beneco, and I don't say that about everyone.
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| The Great Yawn © Photography by Breniann Labuschagne |
Now for the main event. Dangerfields.
At
both venues, Dangerfields enthralled the crowds. This might seem like
an obvious requirement of a headlining band, especially one touring up
from the infamous Cape Town scene, but the real interesting thing about
this was that the crowds at The Irish and at AK couldn't have been more
different.
Dangerfields
have a very distinctive sound, if you know psych and shoegaze you will
already know this. But, for the layperson, imagine a mix between Nick
Cave and Joy Division, and add a little of that famous Cape Town Noise
into it, and what you end up with is Dangerfields. Now, that doesn't
exactly scream Saturday night headliner at a venue famous for it's sold
out student nights and Fokof shows, does it? Somehow however, it worked
perfectly. The, perhaps slightly more psych rock inclined, JHB crowds at
The Irish met their match with the student crowds of Hatfield. It takes
something special to manage that, and that is the perfect way to
describe this band I think.
Dangerfields is a very special band.
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| Dangerfields © Photography by Breniann Labuschagne |
A few years ago, PTA saw some of the country's best Psych bands come up regularly. A lot of us up north fell in love with these bands, but I struggle to remember those shows garnering the level of excitement and crowd diversity that this show did. That, I think, is a spectacularly good sign for the growth of our little scene here at the butt-end of Africa. In a big way, Uncle Mothers played a part in this growth. So too did bands like Bye Beneco and Dangerfields, and so will bands such as The Great Yawn continue to do I hope.
That
being said, the next Uncle Mothers events are happening this weekend.
The 6th of March at The Irish with Retro Dizzy, Yndian Mynah (Sploosh,
am I right?) and the 7th of March at Aandklas Hatfield with the above 2
bands plus the 012's own The Klubs!
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| © Photography by Breniann Labuschagne |
Come and see the magic happen once again, folks. Something special is brewing in the local scene in 2020, I can feel it. Come be a part of it, with us.
Bye Beneco
The Great Yawn
Dangerfields
Uncle Mothers
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