If you go out into Town Tonight

Johannesburg Town is certain to bring an obvious cringe to any caring parent's face. The thought of their young darlings venturing into a land of violent murders and armed robberies makes our providing elders shiver in their arm chairs. However, there seems to be a revival at the corner of Pimm and Carr street, Newtown. Under the control of Adam Lowery, The Woods has once again been attracting many a young socialite to its walls and causing many sleepless nights for concerned parents.

Even with the revived interest in the The Woods, I decided that my Friday night would not take place at the "cool" spot. Instead I decided to venture into to town to watch Hazer at Town Hall, an ideally suited gig venue right next door to Adam Lowery's Night Club. 

Haezer is a Cape Town DJ who has received much praise for his musical efforts. He has collaborated with Francois Van Coke and Peach Van Pletzen on Oorlog Frankenstein's Dans Dans Dans and gained a large indoctrinated following.

Town Hall is literally that, a Hall. Seating and comforts are rare, but who wants to sit down when you can dance the entire night away while chewing off your bottom lip. Drinks are expensive and the threat of your Citi Golf getting stolen is high. However, tonight this was the cool place to be. The attendance of young and trendy individuals confirmed this. 

                   Photo by Liam Lynch

The night started with fairly decent music, Johan from Kidofdoom managed to keep the growing crowd interested with a mixture of dance musical delights. I strolled around the venue trying to look cool or at least not lost, as I have never really been part of the dance scene and recognized very few faces in the crowd. People were now starting to bust out their coolest dance moves and I found my skills were limited to a poor impersonation of the Indi-shuffle. As the night progressed my concern about my dance moves began to fade. I think everyone els didn't care either as we all looked fairly stupid. Some individuals decided to take their dance routine to the stage for all to see, guys doing the disco handshake and girls doing their best stripper impersonations. I guess when everyone is looking stupid you look worse when you are not joining in.

By 12ish I was starting to wonder if Haezer would ever take the stage. However, my typical aloofness got the better of me and apparently Haezer had been on stage for half an hour already. In all respect his beats were good and his samples we cool, but I found my self losing interest within 20 minutes. His set became repetitive and I found myself making fun of the nature of it all. It's not that it was bad, I just found it funny that I didn't notice the change in DJs' until someone pointed it out to me. I continued dancing until the night was over. So in the end, even with my petty complaints he got the desired reaction out of me. 


After spending a while looking for our comrades and rallying up the correct individuals, we made our way home. The police patrolled the streets and were making the lives of the drunken drivers hell as they seemed to be on every main street corner. With our sober driver we all laughed as we drove past. Not a bad Friday night all in all, I should try stop being so dam critical and enjoy the evening a bit more.