Keith Henderson : Live in Johannesburg
The queue for the Springbok Nude Girls outside the Roxy Rhythm Bar, Melville, was the kind which makes you feel it would be a lot easier to turn around and go home. There was probably at least one thing on television last Saturday that you could’ve fooled yourself into watching and, no doubt, a large proportion of the crowd did exactly that, because a couple of minutes later we heard that the night was already sold out.
Which begs the question: why, in the largest city in South Africa, does one of the most popular bands in South Africa play such a small venue? No offence to the Roxy, which happens to be good as far as venues go, but when the Nude Girls are pulling crowds between 1E500 and 2E000 in Durban, surely they could expect to double that number up here?
Surely there are a vast number of boy scout halls standing empty on a Saturday night? Hell, forget boy scout halls. We know this band’s track record. They shouldn’t be messing around.
But on with the show. Those lucky enough to get into the Roxy had already staked out their positions and latecomers like myself were relegated to the back of the back where the only option is to find a railing to stand on. This provides great luxury while waiting for the band but proved to be quite challenging as far as balancing goes once the Nudies began their performance.
Arriving on stage, the band were hailed as the heroes they have become, having reached that place where it is rewarding to perform for an audience who have at least a copy of your album, if not the album itself.
Having already performed once that day at the Gift to the Nation Concert, the Nude Girls were surprisingly awake and impressively energetic.
They screeched into their performance, with Arno Carstens testing his vocal range over the crushing sounds of the band. The tell- tale signs were all there – the Nude Girls would take no prisoners that night. Although squeezed onto a relatively thin stage and squashed up considerably tighter than they must have been at Johannesburg Stadium, the band traded electricity with the crowd at the alarming rate that only they can. Carstens twisted around the mike and sang with the it above his mouth, a distinctive trademark.
Small spaces also allowed for effective crowd surfing and this was the only thing I saw clearly the entire evening – the Roxy crowd has an affection for wearing takkies and their up-ended legs spend a large proportion of the time in the air just in front of the band.
Just being at a Nude Girls performance is worth its weight in gold. The band shares its collective energy with the audience and at many stages in the evening, Carstens could easily have stopped singing and let the crowd take over. Tracks such as Genie, Keith, Baby Murdered Me and Bubblegum on my Boots are screamed back at the band with great affection. There must be no better high than to hear your songs sung back at you.
The band has never been at a better place and injects its own formula into a performance which see-saws between the raw energy of the most hardcore of their works and the sweetness of the most sublime.
We leave the Nudies after they end with their ska-infected ILove You, comfortably happy except for one thing -Ethe entire band could have been playing naked and we wouldn’t have known – we couldn’t see them, you see.
The Springbok Nude Girls will be performing at Roxy on Friday August 7 and on the Martell Main Stage at Oppikoppi on Sunday August 9
At one stage during the performance a hand holding a shoe sticks straight up into the air, a casualty of not tying those laces tight enough.