It was my 7th time seeing The Parlotones live. Yeah yeah, I may be a tad obsessed with them...
So the boys and I arrived at Grand West that evening at about 18:45. The show was scheduled for 20:00. There were massive long lines out the door. I have never seen Grand West so crowded!
We managed to get in and went to get big slush puppies for the boys to sip on and moved on with the crowd towards the Grand Arena, where I just had enough time to get a beer before heading in to find a good spot to stand. We managed to find a place right against the fencing separating the Golden Circle from the main pleb standing area, where we were.
The support bands were Spirits from Cananda. They were ok, but not great. Then came Crash Car Burn, who I quite enjoyed. In Quinn's words though 'Crash Car Burn kind of sucks, Spirits sucks a lot!'. So there you have it.
It was nearly 10pm by the time the support acts finished and the boys were starting to fade, despite me spiking their slush puppies with a Red Bull (in a bottle - which we bought back from Thailand last year). Yeah yeah bite me! Send the parenting police over if you like. It was a once off (OK twice off) thing, to give them 'wings' when they needed it. I was starting to wonder whether it really had been a good idea to take them to a huge music concert like that.
I mean check out the crowd, there were more than 5000 people....
This is reportedly the biggest crowd pulled by a local SA band ever. WooHoo go Parlotones!
Anyway once the Parlotones started the boys perked up and got a second-wind and raged along with me to the awesome awesome set. They played a lot of songs and carried on for about 2 hours! Pretty much all the favourites were played from the first 2 albums and a whole bunch of songs off the new album too.
We all sang along loudly. By the time we got to the very end we were yelling along to 'Here comes a man' which Quinn LOVES.
Us at the concert:
The boys thoroughly enjoyed the evening, and chatted happily afterwards about the show when we went to get a literal midnight snack at the food court and then home where they got into bed after 12:45. Sleepy but happy little boys.
Then we saw the concert at Grand West which was 10 days ago now. The boys heard about 4 or 5 of the new album's songs. They had never heard these ones before. Except for 'Push Me To The Floor'.
One of the new tracks played was Stardust Galaxies, and the lead singer from Gang of Instrumentals (Tumi Masemola) joined them on stage to sing the female part.
I finally got the CD yesterday. We listened for 5-10 mins on the way home in the car yesterday and then again this morning. I put Stardust Galaxies on just as we pulled up at school this morning. I asked Quinn if he remembered it from the show? He said yes. He then said, 'The lady from Gang of Instrumentals came on and sang it with them.' Sjoe, I was impressed that he remembered. He then went on... 'But this doesn't sound like her, it sounds more like the lady from Freshly Ground.' * I listened and honestly I was not at all sure. I told him I'd check.
Well blow me down with a feather if he was not right!
Flippen hell on the CD it is in fact Zolani Mahola from Freshly Ground who recorded the song with them. I am astounded! I mean she DOES have a very distinctive voice, but in this song you can't really hear it as obviously her's (well I can't anyway). He has an incredible ear and memory for this kind of thing hey!?
(* Note we have seen all 3 bands live.)
I loved reading this post. Your boys are the best! Such entertainers and Q certainly does have the ear!
ReplyDeleteSounds like so much fun, glad the boys enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteMy oath that's seriously impressive!
ReplyDeleteLooks like great fun.
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