Seems there’s been a surge of international indie bands playing smaller shows in interesting venues around SA lately, something that’s super exciting and pretty damn awesome. Our most recent visitors were American group Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who performed at the Wittebome Civic Centre in Wynberg along with Spoek Mathambo and Beach Party.

While I thought the venue was a little obscure, I’m told it’s been host to a few international bands over the years; it certainly is a pretty big space, with a bit of a school-hall vibe about it. Apparently it’s mainly used to host muslim weddings.

The decor was really great: the four corners of the main space were surrounded by large white boxes which spelled out ‘clap your hands say’ (‘yeah’ was on the roof outside) and lit up in varying colours throughout the night.

DJ Sideshow filled in the gaps which was a joy as always, and included some unexpected (and refreshing) tracks from the likes of The Knife and Amadou & Miriam among others.

Beach Party were up first. I confess, when I first heard they were on the bill I was a little surprised but they were entertaining. Their set did start dragging for me after a while though…

I think a lot of people were excited to see Spoek Mathambo as he’s been pretty busy overseas and hasn’t played in SA in a while. I know I was looking forward to his performance, which turned out to have a much rockier feel than the last time I saw him; I suppose the reshuffled band line-up contributed to this, with one noteable new addition being Bateleur‘s Nicolaas van Renen on guitar.

My only complaint about their set was that it wasn’t nearly long enough. I think they’d gotten through 4 songs before announcing they were out of time (I saw the sound crew’s ‘hurry up’ motions off to the side of the stage) to which the crowd responded with fierce cries for an encore. These intensified when the curtains reopened for what the band promised would be a really quick last song, their Joy Division rework, Control. They’d barely finished the last chord before practically being dragged off the stage…

I think everyone’s experienced music’s ability to transport us back in time; personally I arrange and store all my music in chronological order (according to when I first heard it) so have strong associations between specific months and years and songs and albums;  watching Feeder play at Synergy Live in 2010 took me back to 2002/3, the time when I first heard the band, and the same thing happened with BRMC last year at Synergy – I was back in 2003/4.

While I’ve never been a huge fan of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (unlike the insanely annoying chick behind me, who professed her undying love for the band through a continued assault of unearthly shrieks until she fell over), in my mind they are quintessentially 2005, a year which holds a lot of musicial  significance for me. They put on a good show and played a lot of the newer material, but it was the old stuff from their eponymous debut that I really welcomed: Heavy Metal, Gimme some Salt and the innevitable second encore and set-closer Upon this tidal wave of young blood.

Ultimately though, I really enjoyed watching them more for the nostalgia factor than anything else…

This event was part 1 of 4, and I can’t wait to see what the other three will be…

– – –

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah  |  Spoek Mathambo  |  Beach Party  |  We-Are-Awesome Events