An Evening with Amanda Palmer - Fox Junction Johannesburg - Presented by Bassline Live - 23rd of February 2018 Review/Rant

So this is the second time Amanda "Fucking" Palmer has played shows in Cape Town and Johannesburg and hopefully will not be the last... hopefully...

See we kinda fucked up guys... I don't know how the Cape Town show went but the Joburg one was just balls. Last time she played Joburg it was pretty much the same venue but the whole vibe was different. Maybe due to it being much less promoted and somewhat of a last minute surprise show, THAT WAS FREE!!! The only thing shit about it was the price of drinks. See 1 Fox street is a hub of hipster yuppie nauseum that truly only homicidal thoughts can render bearable... However this time round there were tables and chairs in  the way of people packing in close to the stage and the sound was terrible, as if any time they tried to amplify the sound from her grand piano they just cut it again due to how it wobbled and fell. Her voice was also barely comprehensive from the sides of the warehouse that the tables pushed people who were standing to. She performed superbly of-course and rightfully shat on us for being stupid inconsiderate ass holes because the volume of people talking and ordering drinks practically overpowered her at times and was at it's least still a major distraction and imposition on her and her listeners.

This is pretty upsetting and more so offensive to someone who comes from a music culture where it is common place for people to shut up and listen or freak the fuck out / shout back the lyrics. We don't really have a music culture. We don't really have an art culture. We have some shape shifting Frankenstein monster that was flung into motion as soon as apartheid broke down and some people were like "Fuck yeah! Now we can have cool shit" and for isolated moments there arguably has been cool shit but most of the time this creature is just tumbling face first into the floor and when observed closely this creature seems to be constructed out of people who sadly just don't get it... and really... how could they?

Amanda Palmer playing Drowning In The Sound with a fitting improvisation about her performance being drowned out by sound.

Amanda Palmer busting out Sing and getting upset and angry at us worthless South African pond scum that just don't know how to enjoy a show without talking about ourselves until everyone wants to vomit a kill themselves <3

People treating the show as background music is a very common thing here. Local diy punk and folk shows have it a lot worse naturally since the people playing are not Amanda Fucking Palmer. One of our projects called Folk The Park no longer happens with one of the reasons being that artists were just being spoken over to the point that only the louder Folk-Punk acts were actually at all audible. Metal gigs even with a die hard legion of metal heads tend to suffer the fated plague of people not really giving a fuck about the show itself and a lot of the time I personally do not want to play shows due to not caring to attempt to fill the space of background music... Maybe it's DJ culture? Maybe white people here suck more than white people usually suck?

This seems to have worsened of late and it seems to be that most of the shows I have gone to lately has seen bands playing to an empty floor while everyone is either outside, at the bar or sitting. Needless to say this has all been loads of no fun at all and so i present to you all an instructional video on how to act at a show and have fun!

Want to have fun at a show? Study this closely!

Here is and instructional video of how to act at a shows with Erik Petersen (RIP) and Pat The Bunny. Do as above. Alternatively just paying attention is also acceptable.

Thanks for reading this mess!

Post by: Shaun Richards