Hardwell Live in Cape Town, 6th Dec 2013: I’m really glad I took the time to research who Hardwell was so that I could continue to learn something new every day. There have been a lot of mixed responses to him coming to South Africa. There’s a battle between those playing electronic music and keeping it alive in South Africa and those who only support big brand internationals. There seems to be a disconnect there. Because I try to support as many art forms that I can, at least once, I was happy to go and see Hardwell. After all, he is the world’s number 1 DJ according to DJ mag.
So off I trotted to the Bellville Velodrome and check him out. I wasn’t too stoked to be missioning out there (over town) but I was interested to see the infrastructure of the show- and, it didn’t disappoint.
Hardwell was a big explosion of commercial, cheesy happiness! Yes, it was very contemporary, light focussed electronic music with a lot of cheesy gimmicks (think hearts, terrible cheesy narration, for eg. “Dear Dreamers…you are now a part of the dream…” type stuff) but hey, I love chicks flicks! What’s wrong with a little cheesy happiness every now and again?
The show was fantastic but some of the people – oh my. I must comment on this new Jersey Shore culture where men have turned into, what I like to call, “bro-robots” (men who MUST be consuming steroids at some point because their heads are now in disproportionate to their bodies). I really hope that this crazy lifestyle trend passes quickly and regular men return to the planet.
Apart from the bro-bots, the audience was loving life and the party absolutely pumped as the crowd jumped like they were on pogo sticks for the duration of the show.
There were also numerous bars to service the audience, the Velodrome is a huge venue so there was enough space to find your way around. In terms of the show, the start of the show begun like the end of a show. Things were shot out into the air, smoke was propelled over the audience, lights pumped, it was a big start to a big show and Cape Town lapped it up.
These were my competition winners!
