Bruisin' Music> Ampli5: South African Concert Extravaganza

E365 -- Following hot in the footsteps of the curiously named MyCokeFest came Ampli5. Clever name, and on the whole, super-slick production for a team of organisers whose name means "on a little hill in the Highveld."

If you'd made the Bellville Velodrome on Saturday 11th August, you might have asked the 2pm question: where is everyone? Oh, yes. Cape Town, the most laid-back city on earty. Sure enough, they lazily drifted through the doors for several hours, most of the crowds bottlenecking for the two main attractions of the event: The Violent Femmes and Groove Armada.

Two more diverse acts one couldn't have hoped for. The middle aged, glasses-adorned Femmes are a picture of anything but superstars, but have an authority that Fokofpolisiekar, Love Jones and even whack rappers MaxNormal.tv lacked. Gordon Gano shelved his dominant vocal and guitar duties mid-set, straightened his T-shirt and announced, "we're gonna play you some bluegrass now." Out came the violin, and pretty soon, even the tattooed, face-pierced machineheads were square dancing. Weird.

The Femmes crammed their set so full of activity that a girl made it through security to dance on stage before being forcibly removed by the men in neon (to an avalanche of applause). Versatile bassist Brian Ritchie played three different varieties of his instrument, as well as pulling a playable conch shell out of his party bag. South African brassline players Lee Thompson and Buddy Wells were amongst the band's trademark "Horns of Dilemma" section. Blisterin'.

Groove Armada made their set count, whipping out some of the old school classics that secured their rise to the cornerstone of the London dance scene. By no means flailing under 11 years of groovin' the British duo of Tom Findlay and Andy Cato kept the inebriated crowd on their feet before handing them over to Stanton Warriors for the comedown set.

Local heroes The Parlotones kept their reputed rocksteady performance alive with some new material, but seeing stock-still singer Kahn Morbee carry basically all of the band's stage presence belied the group's recent multinational label signing. Time to wake up, boys.

And lying beyond all the concert had to offer was the Youngblood Brass Band. Man, these guys blew the place up. Composed almost entirely of brass instruments (and lacking the traditional 'rock band' lineup), the YBB got the crowd going with some tasteful, funk-jazz numbers before sole vocalist D.H. Skogen grabbed the mike for an intense blast of rhythm and poetry (rap). This was the sweetest moment of the show to have a golden circle wristband.

Grand stuff from the heart of the Mother City.

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