Source: Lamb (www.darkside.co.za)

This was an interesting gig. The interior of the venue makes me expect to see Fake Palm Trees. and fake rocks. I think it’s the lighting or something. Odd. Anyway, first up was Wysidiman, an afrikaans rock band. They started off by doing a really chilled acoustic set, very nice, which allowed their vocalist to really shine. He’s young, but definitely going to develop into an excellent vocalist. The rest of the band did a competent job of doing  what they’re supposed to do. Nothing too flashy, but then it’s not really required in this sort of set up.
Their second set was much more of a rock thing, with the guitarist pulling out an electric, and their vocalist suddenly appearing on stage with red stripes painted on his face. Things suddenly got a lot louder and a lot more chaotic. In fact they do a very good impression of a punk band on the verge of total meltdown, in some ways a lot more authentic than the some much more successful bands out there, with their vocalist truly leaping around like a mad thing, as if possessed by some chaotic punk demon. Very impressive.
However, I feel they need to be careful of that chaos, as it can overwhelm the musicality of their songs, so they degenerate into a group of people banging stuff, while one of them yells a lot.
Another gripe I have, is they almost come across as two different bands, the nice acoustic set up, and the raging punk band. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that they may end up alienating fans, who show up at gigs expecting one thing, and get something else entirely. Overall, though, a most impressive, and highly enjoyable show.

Then, after them was NuL. They were, as usual, excellent. They’ve expanded the visual aspects of their show, so there are now a whole bunch of computer monitors standing around flashing images. They also played a new song which I’ve not heard live, which was great, although, I have to say, a little rough around the edges. I’ve already stated elsewhere that I’m not going to focus on NuL in these reviews, as I’ve already written reviews of NuL. Suffice it to say, that they are an excellent live act on the up and up, and if you haven’t seen them yet, they’re definitely worth the effort. They combine great songs, with an excellent live show, including live VJing and loads of energy. Personally, they’re the best thing to come out of SA that I’ve seen in a long time.

Oh, if you’d like to see them, they’re playing at Cafe Barcelona in Pretoria, along with their guitarist’s other band, Thys Nywerheid, this Saturday, the 15th of September .