Goddess On The Mountaintop
It’s official. I’m not getting any older. Much.
Despite looking at 28 squarely in the eye, I can still manage to outboogey a couple of hundred screaming teenagers at a concert. And all without the aid of Tequila (yes, really! S’true).
Last night was the Unite Of The Stars concert at the Dome in Northgate, which I think is a kick-ass venue cos’ the people who get the seating tickets are all right at the back. Mhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuha!
Anywho, the line-up for the event included SA Poep Idols finalist Jacque Terr’Blanche flashing his (admittedly impressive) abdominals as the opening ‘act’ in a bid to wow the crowd. The floppy-haired horror was soon followed by Marco Hernandez (or something suitably Spanish-sounding, although I’m told he’s from George-Bushville, Texas), Rene Olsted (sp?), Bananarama, Shane Ward, Will Young and Ronan Keating. There was a vicious rumour that SA has-been band Mango Groove were going to play, a rumour which I got needlessly psyched up over. Still, at R230 (NT1150 for those in Taiwanarnia), it was a pretty impressive billing.
Highlights of the evening included: the Spanish guy’s biceps, Rene Olsted’s base guitarist (who can pluck my strings any time) and Will Young tanking - big time - in front of a gazillion screeching teenagers, aged grannies and cyncial but-daaaaahling-we-hate-Will fags. The Dome, for those residing but not limited to, Scotland, England, Australia, parts of the US that shall remain nameless (including Canada), oh and Taiwan, is situated slap-bang on the other side of the Bible Belt of Joburg - Randburg. Which might have explained the large quantity of butch Afrikaans skuffknuckles (to drag an insult out of the linguistic closet, dust it off and say Voila!) who were clearly, um, ja, like there “to see that American chick sing hey” cos’ their girlfriends dragged them to a concert which was probably the gayest concert in the history of concerts. And I’ve seen Westlife perform.
Crossing the Bible Belt also immediately means the suspicious lack of Tequila, which is replaced by South African beer (ugh!, but then again I like Taiwan Beer) and Bacardi Breezers for the ladies. And the *laaaaaaadies*…
The low-down is as follows:
Jacques Terr’Blanche was kinda okay, but he didn’t get much of a rise from the crowd. Possibly because he was on at about 7:00 and The Horde Of Screaming Teenagers (who deafened us aged queens when Shane Ward hit the stage) were still at the local Spur having their burgers, chips and shakes.
Rene Olsted (sp?) was wonderful. I’m a big fan of female vocalists (cos’ I’m a closet drag queen, and thanks to a year of karaoke in Taiwan, have perfected my lip-synching skills). She’s got a huge, powerful voice that’s kinda jazzy, like her music. When she sang My Baby Just Cares For Me ala Nina Simone, I was moved.
Shane Ward’s cute. His songs are total pop cheese, which would explain their high likeability to his royal Orlin Blogness.
Will Young was crap. Crappy crap crap. He sang slow, down beat, boring songs. And whereas everyone else did about 5 songs in their set, he had to do about 9, including one where his introduced his band to the words of some lame-ass song with lyrics like, “This is Fred. He plays the base. I like his face. Give it up for Freeeeeeeed.” Even his rendition of Evergreen was poop.
Ronan Keating just doesn’t translate well into a stage act for some reason. He had energy, he sang good songs (good of course being relative to whether you think Irish boybands are *the* shit or just shit) but his voice was kinda crapolah. We left two songs in. The homos were getting tired and needed their beauty rest.
Two things stand out about the concert. The first was Bananarama, who were kick-ass awesome, topping the event without a doubt. It was all downhill after them. We were bouncing around like maniacs, and I went particularly ‘bos’ over Venus. Still unsure over the lyrics. I’ve been singing “God is on the mountaintop” ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Byron insisted it was “Goddess on the mountaintop” and he’s probably right.
The second started when we got chatting to the two girls behind us. The boys were saying they liked Bananarama but couldn’t stand Will Young, and these two ladies disagreed on Will but agreed on the Bananas. I said that Will was a big prima donna with a bad attitude. The one lady told us that he’d responded to a letter her mom had written him some years ago and he’d said the sweetest things in it. Apparently her mom, who is big fan, had been mugged and wrote to Will after that. Then, strangeness of strangenesses, when Will came on, he said he wanted to tell a story about a lady named Pat Jameson, who had written him a letter 4 years ago after being mugged for her ring (they cut her finger off to get the ring, how awful!) and he wanted to say that if she was watching, he said hi and wondered how she was doing. Our little friend started crying. Her mom, now aged 74, was there, in the audience, and had heard the whole thing. They tried to get a message through to Will but no luck. Still it made their night and I’m sure mom was deeply touched that Will remembered her after all that time.
Anyway I thought it was sweet.
Despite looking at 28 squarely in the eye, I can still manage to outboogey a couple of hundred screaming teenagers at a concert. And all without the aid of Tequila (yes, really! S’true).
Last night was the Unite Of The Stars concert at the Dome in Northgate, which I think is a kick-ass venue cos’ the people who get the seating tickets are all right at the back. Mhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuha!
Anywho, the line-up for the event included SA Poep Idols finalist Jacque Terr’Blanche flashing his (admittedly impressive) abdominals as the opening ‘act’ in a bid to wow the crowd. The floppy-haired horror was soon followed by Marco Hernandez (or something suitably Spanish-sounding, although I’m told he’s from George-Bushville, Texas), Rene Olsted (sp?), Bananarama, Shane Ward, Will Young and Ronan Keating. There was a vicious rumour that SA has-been band Mango Groove were going to play, a rumour which I got needlessly psyched up over. Still, at R230 (NT1150 for those in Taiwanarnia), it was a pretty impressive billing.
Highlights of the evening included: the Spanish guy’s biceps, Rene Olsted’s base guitarist (who can pluck my strings any time) and Will Young tanking - big time - in front of a gazillion screeching teenagers, aged grannies and cyncial but-daaaaahling-we-hate-Will fags. The Dome, for those residing but not limited to, Scotland, England, Australia, parts of the US that shall remain nameless (including Canada), oh and Taiwan, is situated slap-bang on the other side of the Bible Belt of Joburg - Randburg. Which might have explained the large quantity of butch Afrikaans skuffknuckles (to drag an insult out of the linguistic closet, dust it off and say Voila!) who were clearly, um, ja, like there “to see that American chick sing hey” cos’ their girlfriends dragged them to a concert which was probably the gayest concert in the history of concerts. And I’ve seen Westlife perform.
Crossing the Bible Belt also immediately means the suspicious lack of Tequila, which is replaced by South African beer (ugh!, but then again I like Taiwan Beer) and Bacardi Breezers for the ladies. And the *laaaaaaadies*…
The low-down is as follows:
Jacques Terr’Blanche was kinda okay, but he didn’t get much of a rise from the crowd. Possibly because he was on at about 7:00 and The Horde Of Screaming Teenagers (who deafened us aged queens when Shane Ward hit the stage) were still at the local Spur having their burgers, chips and shakes.
Rene Olsted (sp?) was wonderful. I’m a big fan of female vocalists (cos’ I’m a closet drag queen, and thanks to a year of karaoke in Taiwan, have perfected my lip-synching skills). She’s got a huge, powerful voice that’s kinda jazzy, like her music. When she sang My Baby Just Cares For Me ala Nina Simone, I was moved.
Shane Ward’s cute. His songs are total pop cheese, which would explain their high likeability to his royal Orlin Blogness.
Will Young was crap. Crappy crap crap. He sang slow, down beat, boring songs. And whereas everyone else did about 5 songs in their set, he had to do about 9, including one where his introduced his band to the words of some lame-ass song with lyrics like, “This is Fred. He plays the base. I like his face. Give it up for Freeeeeeeed.” Even his rendition of Evergreen was poop.
Ronan Keating just doesn’t translate well into a stage act for some reason. He had energy, he sang good songs (good of course being relative to whether you think Irish boybands are *the* shit or just shit) but his voice was kinda crapolah. We left two songs in. The homos were getting tired and needed their beauty rest.
Two things stand out about the concert. The first was Bananarama, who were kick-ass awesome, topping the event without a doubt. It was all downhill after them. We were bouncing around like maniacs, and I went particularly ‘bos’ over Venus. Still unsure over the lyrics. I’ve been singing “God is on the mountaintop” ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Byron insisted it was “Goddess on the mountaintop” and he’s probably right.
The second started when we got chatting to the two girls behind us. The boys were saying they liked Bananarama but couldn’t stand Will Young, and these two ladies disagreed on Will but agreed on the Bananas. I said that Will was a big prima donna with a bad attitude. The one lady told us that he’d responded to a letter her mom had written him some years ago and he’d said the sweetest things in it. Apparently her mom, who is big fan, had been mugged and wrote to Will after that. Then, strangeness of strangenesses, when Will came on, he said he wanted to tell a story about a lady named Pat Jameson, who had written him a letter 4 years ago after being mugged for her ring (they cut her finger off to get the ring, how awful!) and he wanted to say that if she was watching, he said hi and wondered how she was doing. Our little friend started crying. Her mom, now aged 74, was there, in the audience, and had heard the whole thing. They tried to get a message through to Will but no luck. Still it made their night and I’m sure mom was deeply touched that Will remembered her after all that time.
Anyway I thought it was sweet.