I discovered Yoav by chance when he played at the Assembly at the beginning of 2010 and have been catching him most times he’s played in Cape Town since then. Since this isn’t very frequent, his recent visit to The Assembly was something I was looking forward to for the whole week – and he didn’t disappoint.
It was a quiet night and started off especially so, unfortunately for Jon Savage, the first of the performers. I know a couple of Cassette songs and think they’re pretty cool, and though I don’t listen to the radio, I enjoy his show on 5fm whenever I do manage to hear it, so I was pretty curious about how his solo stuff would sound.
It was his first solo acoustic set and he seemed pretty nervous but did pretty well I thought, even managing a respectable degree of audience participation in his reworking of Cassette’s ‘gorilla’ song, Gogogo (I think it was that one, it may have been another, but it was a self-described non-sense song that was rather odd).
There was a large semi-circular gap for about 2m in front of the stage and the few people that were at the venue where standing around it; at one point during Jon Savage’s set, I was tapped on the shoulder and so turned around. The sour-faced lady who tapped me was leaning against a pillar and scowling at me; she leaned in and drawled ‘could you please move a bit that way? I literally can’t see anything.’ I stared at the vast open space surrounding her and contemplated giving her a piece of my mind, but it’s never satisfying arguing with people like that so I humoured her and spent the next half hour looking forward to blocking her view later in the night…
Up next was Ard Matthews – I’d never seen Just Jinjer and couldn’t hum one of their songs if you paid me, so I had no idea what to expect from their frontman, but I didn’t have high expectations…his outfit was a little like what I’d imagine Jack Parow to wear if he was trying to get into Tiger, and he claimed to have only prepared 3 songs and called for requests for the others. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, though he did seem to be taking requests (Sugar man for example).
He has a nice voice and was amusing and quite charming in that cocky sort-of-way, so had won me over after a few tracks but lost me a bit towards the end, and when he hit that ‘peace love tolerance’ song (the only one I recognised) that brought to mind those adverts for like Spar or whatever else it was used in, I wasn’t screaming for an encore…
Given the amount of support for Ard Matthews, I was wondering if he had more fans there than Yoav, but the die-hards were there, and started making their way to the front at the first sighting of him. One lady loudly declared her love of his toes (and later expressed dismay when someone said they thought he was married) and another was pointing excitedly at the box of pedals he was wiring up and screaming ‘it’s The Beast!’ to everyone nearby.
I joked that the three glasses Yoav had placed next to his setlist were vodkas…turned out I was right…he lifted the first as he introduced himself and said he had to get through all three, after which he’d stop from drinking on stage at shows – and he downed them all by the end of the set too.
Inspite of the alcohol (or maybe because of it…) his performance was as great as ever, always a treat to be at one of his shows.
Normally I don’t hang around for the DJ but VGA was impossible to ignore. He looked like he was having the time of his life and he was playing some great tracks, so we had no choice but to stay on and dance a while…
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If Yoav’s playing near you, go see him, you will not be disappointed. If you can’t see him live, dedicate some time to Youtubing him. Facebook | music video for Easy Chair, a favourite of mine
VGA’s artist profile at The Assembly (written by his mom – d’awww)
Photos on my facebook page over here
“VGA was impossible to ignore. He looked like he was having the time of his life and he was playing some great tracks, so we had no choice but to stay on and dance a while…” hahaha so true – VGA’s the best!