Stories from the city, stories from the sea

I know that the holiday season is never a good way to judge a city. If I was to look around Jo’burg for something to do over the festive season, I would probably come up with very little, as many music venues, galleries and theatres shut down. It’s understandable, given the mass exodus that takes place every year, and the fact that there is no real end-of-year tourist rush to entertain.

But a city like Durban should be different. Every year it is invaded by thousands of people hell-bent on the idea of feeling sand between their toes and tasting salt on their lips. At night, tourists who are staying in the smaller towns up and down the coast also make an appearance, generally sunburnt and dehydrated and looking for something to do until they can get back to the beaches. It should be a time when the city wakes up and shows off what it has to offer, not only in terms of big-budget, corporate style events at places like casinos and other obvious tourist destinations, but in terms of smaller, more interesting venues taking the opportunity to catch the attention of people other than the weekly regulars. Not all tourists are after razzle-dazzle and fun for the family.

After a few nights of lounging around in laid-back cafes I was itching to go to a decent gig, so I was thrilled that Desmond and the Tutus were playing their first Durban show while I was there. They’re Jozi regulars, and are gaining a following in Cape Town, and, despite the fact that they are shameless scenesters, I really like them and I was interested to see what a Durban audience would make of them. The only thing that bothered me was the venue. Society is a restaurant and lounge situated in a beautiful old house, complete with plush furniture and creaky floorboards. While it’s a great place to stand around posing with cocktails, it’s not really the best venue for a gig, as the rooms are too small and awkwardly shaped to accommodate an audience (inevitably some poor audience member ends up behind a pillar or stuck in an awkward corner), and the overall atmosphere is too uptight and formal for the audience to relax and enjoy the show. I remember when Lark played their first Durban gig here, Inge Beckmann commented on how quiet and self conscious the audience was (and, given the response the band received, I’m surprised that they’ve been back). Watching a band play here feels like watching a band play in your grandmother’s lounge with all the lights on, and only the most intimate, acoustic gigs ever really work.

With these concerns in mind, I arrived at a rather empty Society on a Friday night with a few friends. We ordered drinks from the bar and waited … and waited … and waited. I never expect gigs to start on time, but normally I hardly notice the wait, especially if the venue is a club where people are dancing and drinking and having a good time. I’m a firm believer in the notion that the best gigs take place in venues that the audience would enjoy going to anyway, but if getting down and dirty to live music is your idea of fun, Society is probably not the place you want to be hanging out. Eventually we noticed someone fiddling about with sound levels, so we went through to where the stage was set up, and waited around some more.

Eventually the band did play, and, despite the small crowd, mostly made up of people that wandered in from the bar to see what all the noise was about, and the sound system that gave non-stop feedback throughout the set, the guys put on a really good show. I was worried that, given the apathy of the crowd, they wouldn’t make an effort, but I was really impressed with their professionalism. I assume that next time they play in Durban they will play at Burn, which is a much better venue in terms of sound and atmosphere. It will probably be easier to win over the fluffy-bunny punks and drunken students there than it was to elicit some response from the Society crowd. At any rate, I hope that they do give it another go.