The Last of the Centurion Playboys

9 October 2008

Commodore 64

Greenisforturbo

Sassquatch

Data Takashi

Sunningdale Hotel


The end of greensiforturbo is upon us. This is a sad moment. Having only seen them live twice, at Shut Up I'm Dancing parties, I'd forgotten just how good they were. They're really good. No, they were really good. They made the Gummy Bears' theme better that the original material. They took everything I like about Grandaddy and the Flaming Lips and added their own splash of pop-post-punk to it and ran with it. They ran so far and fast I even forgot they were from Centurion.

That was a brief epitaph.

Now, on with the show.

For those of you who do not know, all of you, I live near the venue. I walk on the otherside of the street when I need to pass. There are ladies of the night near the doors. The Sirloin special seems special for all the wrong reasons. Also, I'm a pussy. The bar-restaurant area was specially imported from 1972 Bloemfontein. It smelled of vomit and moldy carpeting. It smelled of the old and sickly. This was ok, I guess, because Commodore 64 was busting out some old favourites (Tokyo Police Club, Peter Bjorn & John, Modest Mouse et al.) and slowly people moved from the benched eating area toward the makeshift dancefloor. I like hearing old-ish indie songs. They make me happy and warm with recognition and nostalgia.

But soon, draped in a green glow and ironic t-shirts, arrived GIFT. Such an acronym has never been more accurate. Starting with the crowd pleasing Gummy Bears theme tune, warped into something completely different, soaked in synths and reverb, it gave the song some strange sense of pathos. Yes. Stitching together the pop-sense of Grandaddy and Lips recordings, plus the wistfulness of late-90s Death cab (you know, when they were good and not creepy) GIFT worked their way through a really good set. The keyboards and some inventive drumming set their sound apart from other indie-pop acts that we've seen recently. Sadly, however, the band is no more. Drummer Rod Roodt is leaving our shores, and the band (quite honourably) have decided not to attempt to replace him. So that's it. I'm glad I saw them one last time, and hope you've had your experience well documented too. If you weren't here, however, you would have missed all three DJs storm the modest stage and rock out with the band for the last time. It was truly heart-warming stuff. As is Rumba.


As people milled about after the show, Sassquatch moved things up a gear, with more electro-indie, with new remixes of song we know - which is also like the warm feeling we got before, just with added "wow, that's funky" in the mix.

And, as the candied cherry on top of an wicked-awesome chocolate sundae, Data Takashi rounded things off. Swinging from Beach Boys sing-a-longs to the awesome blending of "Crying " off the new TV on the Radio to "No Diggity" by Blackstreet (my personal favourite moment of the night, thank you).

It was a fitting goodbye.