Sunday we had a full day planned. Glad it was sunny and warm again.
Our first show was a gospel concert at St. Aidan’s chapel which wasn’t too far from the guest house. On our way there I got hungry (of course) so we stopped at a place called the Highlander. I’d say it was part pub, sports club, restaurant and a b&b. We ended up back there three times on Sunday – for breakfast on the porch overlooking a sports field, for a quick dinner between shows and a concert in the damp basement bar called the Lowlander.
The 11:00am gospel concert was cancelled because noone but us showed up. We had plenty of time to catch our other shows and to buy some tickets for other shows.
We saw Paige Mac in an afternoon show. According to the internet she is considered indie-rock. Loved her music and was sorry I didn’t get up to the stage quick enough to buy a CD before they were sold out.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBe-dTERyI]
We decided to give the Gospel show another try for their evening performance at St. Adrian’s Chapel. What fun. This was a small gospel group from East London. We were two of only four whites in the audience. Everyone, well all but a few, were singing and dancing. The acoustics were terrible and the dancing was a little contrived but their enthusiasm was great.
One man approached me because I was taking pictures and asked for my contact info. Apparently the lead singer for the group is a social worker in Eastern Cape and runs an orphanage. I think he’s looking for donations as I’ve aleady gotten an email.
Anyways, towards the end of the performance, they asked the ladies in the audience to come up and dance and show these folks how the Xhosa women dance. They were a little slow but eventually a group of middle aged and older women snaked up to the front of the audience, shaking their hips and waving their arms. It was great. I do have a good video I’ll upload when I can.
After the gospel performance we had one hour to walk back to Highlander and have a drink and a plate of hot food from the “festival” buffet before heading back to St. Aidan’s for another rocking performance. The name of the show was “Sing, Ping and Sting”. It was a combined performance by CH2, an amazing guitar duo, and a children’s chorus from Johannesburg.
We saw Nibs van der Spuy again playing with Guy Battery – supposedly a guitar legend at the Lowlander. This was around 9:00pm. After seeing two prior rousing shows their low key performance was a bit of a let down so we went home mid-show.
We even squeeze in a couple of visual art exhibits during the day. One artist had some beautiful paintings of the winelands landscapes. We ended up with a small oil painting that would fit a suitcase.
One of the things that amused us in Grahamstown is how we kept running into the same people throughout the weekend. First of all everyone in SA is friendly – people greet you and make eye contact on the streets, chat while waiting in line, offer help and smile. And its color transparent from what I’ve seen. So we happened to chat with two women in parking lot after walking out of horrible Opera for Fools. Turns out they are staying at our guest house and we chatted with them at Highlander on Sunday night. A couple of other women we met, we saw again – sharing opinions on shows to see and what to avoid.
Today would have been the 68th wedding anniversary for Grammy and Grampy!
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