My mom likes Jesse Clegg – which isn’t meant an insult, as she has great music taste (for the most part) – so when I told her he was playing in Cape Town and I was keen to go, she didn’t need much convincing to come watch too.
It was a dark and stormy night, and Cape Town either had other places to be or had decided to stay in bed, because Mercury was really quiet when we arrived. McCree were already playing as we came upstairs; the crowd was pretty tiny and standing some 3m away from the stage, something I always find really uncomfortable. An older woman was standing next to us watching intently. My mom asked me if I thought she was someone’s mum and we had a little laugh until Mr McCree gave a shoutout to ‘a very special person in the audience’ – his mum…a smile flashed on our neighbour’s face and on mine; it’s a great thing when your hunches are confirmed.
He joked that he was on his best behaviour because of her presence, so when he said something like ‘find us online and listen to our shit’ there was a mocking murmur of disapproval from the crowd and he smiled apologetically. I’ve seen musicians’ parents at shows every now and again and always think it’s really cool, so bonus points to McCree for that.
Musically, they reminded me in places of a couple of artists I like (Matthew Good mostly) but I found their sound pretty heavy after a few songs. The word my mom used was ‘dirge-like’ and I’d say that’s pretty accurate…there were some songs I quite liked (Was it me is cool, can’t remember if they performed it or not but I’ve listened to their recording online) but one after another, they were just a bit too much.
Up next were Dance, You’re on Fire. I hadn’t seen them before but had heard a few of their tracks, including the super catchy and evident crowd favourite, Boxes of Tigers, which I really like (and think is awesomely named).
Their current album’s title track Secret Chiefs is cool too, though I went off it a bit after the 3min mark…as for the rest of their material, their sound is a little too on the emo side for my liking (which I think is due mostly to the sound of the vocals) but they had some nice energy, a decent amount of audience interaction (searching for and finding a Michelle to whom they could dedicate their song of the same name, coaxing the crowd a bit closer to the stage and dishing out Jagermeister to all who were keen) and their occasional quips were amusing.
Plus, the music video for Boxes of Tigers came on MK as they were packing up which was a cool little coincidence.
It was sad that the size of the crowd hadn’t visibly increased at all by the time Jesse Clegg and his band took to the stage, and that the row of people on the bench who’d been sitting all night remained so during their performance, because I thought they were really good.
Each of the musicians on the stage looked like they were feeling every note with every fibre of themselves – it was quite something, I don’t remember the last time I saw everyone on stage so focused on and into what they were doing. Maybe as a result, there was a kind of urgency, even to the slower numbers and their energy was infectuous. Even the songs I wasn’t blown away by on his first album sounded really good.
I enjoyed them a lot.
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Jesse Clegg on Facebook | Dance, You’re on Fire | McCree
