Virgin Mobile, along with Seed Experiences, brought out the incredibly talented new artist John Newman to our shores this week. Despite cancelling the Sowing The Seeds festival, John performed at Town Hall in Johannesburg last night and damn does that kid have vocals on him!
John flew out to South Africa straight after his performance at Coachella in LA to play in the Mother City and Johannesburg. As mentioned, the show took place in Town Hall – the heart of Braamfontein, and, if I’m honest, was the worst venue ever for a concert.
I’m not a fan of town at all and parking was the biggest mission in the world, Sure, once you’re inside you feel a little more comfortable, but the stage was in such an awkward position that most of the people behind the 20th row struggled to see. I get it, this happens with many concerts around the country but they at least have screens set up. That was a huge fail and I heard a lot of people complaining about this.
Local musos Beatenberg opened for the pop star and they were actually really rad! The crowd went nuts when the trio performed their smash hit singles ‘Chelsea Blakemore’ and their DJ Clock assisted ‘Pluto (Remember You)’ After their hour-long set, the man of the moment finally arrived on stage.
The star, who wore an all-white suit, started his set with an impressive performance of his album’s title track ‘Tribute’, and the crowd went insane. I was really impressed at how well John performed live as well as just how different his singing voice is to the way he speaks. He totally reminded me of my Geordie friends with that accent of his!
John played an hour set which makes sense seeing he has only released one record but that hour was packed with smash hit singles such as ‘Cheating’, ‘Out of My Head’, ‘Losing Sleep’ and, of course, ‘Love Me Again’. What a solid performance from a solid musician. I would go watch him again in a heartbeat.
Check out the highlights from the show:
Image by: DUSTIN VAN ZYL / Courtesy of One-Eyed Jack
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