{"id":17148,"date":"2015-08-03T11:52:52","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T09:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lauramccullagh.com\/blog\/?p=17148"},"modified":"2015-08-03T11:54:32","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T09:54:32","slug":"ben-howard-at-the-grand-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lauramccullagh.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/ben-howard-at-the-grand-arena\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Howard at the Grand Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"
Wednesday 22 July 2015<\/div>\n

It was freezing outside on Wednesday night\u00a0–\u00a0luckily the queue outside GrandWest, though very\u00a0long, was moving pretty swiftly. Inside it was equally full – it was still early Cape Town had shown up in its\u00a0masses for Ben Howard.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"Ben<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Joburg’s Bye Beneco kicked off the night’s performances and I spent their set mildly struggling to decide how I felt about them. First off, I should mention that I always feel a bit bad for opening acts for internationals at big shows\u00a0as opening is\u00a0a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one had it’s a great opportunity and they\u00a0get to play a nice venue, expose their\u00a0music to a large audience and hopefully win-over some new fans. On the other hand, no-one’s really there to see them\u00a0and some people choose to spend the opening set in the traffic or the beer queue.<\/p>\n

As Bye Beneco started up there was a decent\u00a0crowd and they were watching but with what felt more like mild curiosity than undivided attention. I confess though I enjoyed the band musically I found their live performance\u00a0couldn’t hold my interest. The combination of the huge stage\/venue and the general apathy toward opening acts (both in terms of the audience and the technical crew – the lighting wasn’t varied at all during the set from what I saw) unfortunately go the better of them this time around.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"MC<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Bye<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\t