Music: Hell and High Water, My/Epic/Vice and The City is the Desert (In Disguise)

The Bohemian (The Bo) is apparently the third oldest (still operational) pub in Jo'burg. It's surprising, since it is only 27 years old, and not longer in a country that ranks very high up in alcohol consumption. I have seen a number of gigs advertised at The Bo, but Saturday night was my first time there. The neighborhood is on the dark and dingy side; but it is a welcoming venue; and has a fairly laid back atmosphere. There was not much of a crowd though.

Hell and High Water is a young, new 4 piece band; which played mostly covers from various rock bands - local and international. The band members are fairly accomplished musicians with a solid vocalist; so it was a good first band. They had one or two original songs - which were not very memorable - but not horrible either :)

Last time I saw My/Epic/Vice, was at Seether's concert two years back - and they were horrible. This time around, their music was actually quite good, and looking at their website, it seems that they played most of the songs out of their album. The band was suffering from the lack of drummer (broken wrist) though they got round this quite well by playing back the drum tracks through an iPod. They were also missing a guitarist - but the reason was not very clear. They delayed the start of their gig, and the missing guitarist ended up as the sound man - not sure of the rationalles there.

The last band, The City is the Desert (In Disguise), inevitably raises the question - what is the most well known band with more than 5 words in their name. The longest I could come up with on Saturday night was 4 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience; while Bob Marley and The Wailers would give 5 words - but 7? So while their name is a memory tester, their music and performance definitely makes it worthwhile to remember their name. The music genre is difficult to describe - part Jazzy, part Rock, part pop and a combination of a whole lot more - it was really just great music, good song writing and a great performance. I was pleasantly surprised, and this is certainly a band worth watching out for.