A couple of weeks ago it was announced that 5 Gum SA were bringing Two Door Cinema Club to SA as part of their next 5 Gum Experience.
The only catch was, tickets weren't going to be on sale. The only way to get a ticket was to win one! So a couple of friends and I entered on 5 Gum's facebook page hoping to win a set of 2 tickets. Alas, I was not as lucky as my friends were. No worries, there were still plenty of tickets being given away by bloggers all over the country. After entering about 10 different places, and spamming the social media with my begging and pleading, the wonderful people at Zero31 came to my rescue and gave me a ticket!
AWESOMNESS!
In keeping with the theme of being a 'concert experience', 5 Gum kept the location of the concert a secret. In true 'Amazing Race' style, we were given directions as to where to drive to park our car, which was somewhere near the airport. From there we were instructed to catch a shuttle that would take us to the secret concert location.
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| Our "shuttles" |
Because we were near the airport, I suspected we were heading somewhere towards Stellenbosch. Open fields... no residences nearby... Perfect conditions for a loud evening, right? So when the driver headed in the opposite direction, towards Nyanga, it's safe to say we were all stumped as to where the heck we were being driven to. The biggest surprise was when we came to park & were told to jump out somewhere in PHILIPPI!
Here, in this apparent 'Hipsters Paradise', some comments like "make sure you don't walk passed those security gates tonight", were thrown around. Whereas others thought it was very cool and different to have a concert in the middle of Philippi, in what turned out to be an old abandoned factory of some sort. Nevertheless, we were there and ready to party! But first, food.
Oops. Problem. The only place to buy anything to eat was one little van selling pizzas. Out of the entire evening, that's the one complaint I know I, and probably most other people, had. The lack of food available put an unfortunate damper on an otherwise very well organised evening..
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| The abandoned factory venue |
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| COOL location, bro. |
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| The ridiculous 3 & a half hour pizza queue |
Whilst queuing for food, the first opening act, The Plastics, had already started performing. Midway through their set I gave my money and my order to my (starving) friend so that I could at least go an catch a bit of the guys performing, which the crowd seemed to enjoy.
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| Karl & his hair of course :) |
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| Arjuno reminding me SO much of Matthew from the Kings of Leon right here |
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| Nice top! |
After they ended, I went to meet up with my friends and found that they were STILL queuing for food!
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| 'Sup random New Yorker? |
After 3 and a half hours of queuing, we finally got something to eat, and we made our way to check out the next opening act, Ashtray Electric.
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| Ashtray Electric |
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| NICE PANTS. |
As great as the opening acts were, including some music by Tommy Gun, we were all just happy to FINALLY see Two Door Cinema Club hit the stage in all their smoke-machine & flashing lights glory.
The main act opened up with 'Cigarettes In The Theatre', their first track off their album Tourist History, and continued to play most of their album along with a few new tracks from their upcoming record.
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| @mixtapelovebaby looking perrty in them red lips! |
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| @leRibbet being totes adorable. |
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| That is one cute Ginger. |
The crowd sang along loudly to nearly every song, much to the surprise of the band who expressed gratitude at the overwhelming response from a country they've been "wanting to come to for so long", as Alex the lead singer said (in his adorable Irish accent!).
After performing their encore, the guys closed the show with their first single, the crowd pleaser 'I Can Talk'.
Quick-thinking allowed me to escape the masses, and I caught a shuttle back to the parking zone, and was on my way home in less than an hour.
Although the food problem killed the buzz for a lot of people, I walked away from that night feeling like I truly had an amazing experience, and forever grateful to 5 Gum SA for bringing Two Door Cinema Club to our shores, but especially to Zero31 for giving me a ticket to see them!
grt
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