Events

F*ROCK at Ratanga Junction

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Etienne Janse Van Rensburg - bassist for CrashCarBurn
We spent an awesome Saturday night taking photos of some of South Africa's most talented musicians performing at F*ROCK, an indoor rock festival held at Ratanga Junction. I had a really hard time choosing just one shot for the main post (we ended up with 253 photos of 8 bands, which you can see in our F*ROCK photo albums), and I even enlisted the help of my Twitter friends to help me choose at one point.

I eventually settled on this shot of Etienne Janse van Rensburg, the bass guitarist for the hugely popular CrashCarBurn. It was the first time I'd seen them perform live, and I was pretty impressed - in addition to their own original material, they played a medley of cover versions, which the crowd absolutely loved, and to make it all even more fun, they tossed out a flock of giant (no, really, GIANT) balloons for all of us to play with while they performed. Too cool for words, that was.

Check out all our photos from F*ROCK here (and visit the bands' websites to have a listen to their music):

By the way, if you have any interest in web culture and digital marketing, or if you'd just like to hear what I sound like, download a couple of episodes of The Digital Edge podcast, hosted by Saul Kropman and Jarred Cinman. My job is to sound like a girl in the news section each week, which I think I'm managing to do fairly well so far... and I promise you that the rest of the podcast is really worth a listen. ;-)

FRock! Local bands at Ratanga

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Music Concert on Saturday
Local bands The Parlotones, aKing, CrashCarBurn, The Dirty Skirts and Taxi Violence will be rocking our world at Ratanga Junction (Cape Town's Theme Park) on Saturday night. And - we're going!

The next time that Kerry-Anne and I are on holiday in some other country (perhaps your country) we're going to make a plan to attend some kind of music concert. It's the norm to visit the tourist spots (after all, they're tourist spots because they're cool, right?), but if one's wanting to experience the locals, perhaps one of the more interesting ways is to attend a music concert.

Many week days, and on every weekend, you'll find one or more well-known local bands playing somewhere, and a horde of largely unknown (but still pretty good) bands playing from Hout Bay to Durbanville. You'll generally be able to find and book for live concerts at CompuTicket, or WebTickets (just make sure that the concert isn't in some other part of the country).

Check the FRock FaceBook Group, or Premier Attraction's site, for more concert details. For now, just to mention, gates open at 5pm and the music starts at 6pm (and oh, it's an indoor event ;) ).

Snow Patrol at Coke Zero Fest

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Snow Patrol at Coke Zero Fest

First, let me say that Marshall Music (myspace, facebook) is my new favourite music equipment store. But wait, read further to see why I'm so excited!

Each year Coke and 5FM put together a 10 to 12 hour outdoor music concert in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The music festival normally includes several local bands, along with a few international acts. This year we saw local bands Die Heuwels Fantasties, Foto na Dans, aKING, Cassette, Zebra and Giraffe, and (our clear favourite) The Dirty Skirts all put on super-rocking, super-professional acts.

The international acts that followed as the heat of day started to fade were the fantastically popular Panic! At the Disco, the Kerry-Anne-thinks-they're-awesome-and-very-cute Snow Patrol, and the strangely-legendary if-that-says-anything-about-their-performance Oasis. ;)

If I were to judge which band was best, I'd have to declare a tie between Snow Patrol and The Dirty Skirts... seriously, TDS were that good!

Now, aside from the beautiful day at Lourensford Estate, the superbly organised and smoothly run event, the beautiful people and the rocking music, it would seem as though the guitar gods were indeed smiling on me. Kerry-Anne and I arrived at the concert during Foto Na Dans's set. While walking through to the golden circle area we heard that Marshall Music had sponsored a PRS electric guitar as a prize to be given out during the Foto Na Dans set. I never win competitions, but I guess Le-Roi Nel (the lead singer) must have taken pity on me, as today I'm in possession of the finest guitar I've ever owned! Flippin' fantastic Marshall Music - thanks!

The organisers didn't get back to us in time for media passes, so I wasn't able to take my "proper" camera into the venue. Nevertheless, I managed to snap copious shots with Kerry-Anne's baby point-n-shoot camera - check them out here.

You really can enjoy sushi

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Tao Yuan Restaurant

Before a vocal part of the Cape Town geek community point it out, let me admit that this photo is a week old. It was taken at the last GeekDinner, codename Majestic Mandarin, which Kerry-Anne and I attended on 31 March.

Tao Yuan, is (kinda obviously) a Chinese restaurant, and they provided our group of roughly 60 people with a set menu consisting of sushi, chicken, sweet-and-sour fish, calamari, peppered beef, and many more delicacies (for a phenomenally good price of R100). Now the reason for bringing up sushi in the title of this post is because I normally don't enjoy this apparently addictive treat. The strange thing however was that I found the few pieces of sushi that I did try pretty darn good, actually... and in fact not as distasteful as I had expected them to be.

To be fair, I avoided any treats containing seaweed and stuck to the ones with mainly fish and rice. What I think made the difference with Tao Yuan's sushi is that the rice was the best I'd had yet. Normally I find that sushi rice contains far too much vinegar to make it appetising. Yet, that night's sushi was just perfect - even for a self-confessed sushi-shrugger like myself. :)

Oh, by the way, thanks to Perdeberg Winery for sponsoring enough wine to make us happy and yet keep us safe on the road. Thanks, guys!

SA Blog Awards: the results

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SA Blog Awards party

So we got all dressed up last night and went off to join about 200 other party people at Chevelle, to find out who the winners were in this year's SA Blog Awards. If you're a regular reader, then you'll probably know that we were nominated in three categories again this year. And if you're somewhere in this photo, then you'll probably know that we didn't win anything this time around. :)

We came second in the Photographic Blog category (the winner was I Wrote This For You) and second in the Travel Blog category (the winner was the Portfolio Collection blog). Strangely, we're not particularly disappointed about not winning - the thing that's meant the most to us throughout the process has been the constant stream of people telling us either in person, or via email or Twitter, or right here on our blog, that they'd voted for us and that they really enjoy and value our photos and our commentary each day.

(We've also had a whole lot of compliments on the new design, by the way, but those compliments must go entirely to Max Kaizen, the creative brain behind this beautiful layout.)

So, from the bottom of my heart, a huge thank you to all of you. Winning awards is not what makes this worthwhile. Knowing that we regularly brighten your day, teach you something, persuade you to get out there and do things, rekindle your memories, or make you want to visit our fabulous city - those are the things that count, and I sincerely hope that we can keep on doing them for a long, long time.

You can see all the results here: SA Blog Awards 2009. And to Chris, Miguel and Tyler, you did a fantastic job in pulling this together - thank you.

The 2009 UCT RAG float parade

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UCT RAG Float Parade

Remember and Give, RAG for short, is an 84-year-old tradition of raising money for charity. At the beginning of each year students from the University of Cape Town publish and sell a student magazine called SAX Appeal, and then towards the end of March they gather for a float parade in Cape Town's Adderley Street.

All profits from the sale of the magazines and all donations collected at the float parade are given to SHAWCO, a student-run organisation whose mission is to improve the lives of developing communities in the Cape Town area. Approximately 1,200 volunteers make up SHAWCO, and they run 15 health and education projects in the area.

We drove through to the city centre today to snap some shots of the parading students. It was a colourful and entertaining affair, as always, with hundreds of dressed-up and decorated students walking, dancing and singing through the streets. Take a browse through today's photo album, but I have to warn you, ladies, that in addition to the one above you will come across several more photos of topless young students. :D

If this is your first visit to our blog, and you think it's actually pretty cool or awesome or sick or rad or [insert favourable slang word of your choice], please (a) subscribe (b) leave us a comment and (c) consider voting for us in the SA Blog Awards - we've been nominated for Best Travel Blog, Best Photography Blog and Best Group Blog. There are only a few days left to vote (voting closes on 1 April). To vote, click on the big golden tag in the sidebar - this will take you to the voting page, where you can have a look at all the finalists in the other categories and submit your votes. Don't forget to click on the link in the confirmation email you'll receive, or else your vote won't be counted. And a huge thank-you to all those who've let us know that they've already voted for us!

Not everyone gets excited about cricket

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Reading the news

I can so relate to Mr Newspaper Reader in this photo (taken at Newlands yesterday). The vibe at Newlands is energetic. Cricket is interesting once very few hours. Still, I can't say that you would ever find me at the edge of my seat whilst watching a match - especially a test-match - painfully unfolding.

As I'm sure you gathered from yesterday's post, Kerry-Anne visited Newlands to watch South Africa battle it out with Australia. I, on the other hand, took the opportunity to stay home and catch up on an ever-growing and unrelenting task-list. I believe that the weather was perfect - although it could have been storming and raining for all I knew. I spent the day hidden behind this same screen I'm looking at now. How sad. :(

Bakers Mini Cricket at Newlands

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Bakers Mini Cricket at Newlands

Bakers Mini Cricket is a development programme aimed at introducing South African boys and girls of all races and economic groups to the game of cricket at a very young age (as you can see in today's photo - look at the size of some of those shirts compared to the size of their occupants!).

Bakers Mini Cricket is apparently the longest-running sports development sponsorship in South Africa - they celebrated a quarter-century last year. Cricket South Africa says that over two million children have been involved in the Bakers Mini Cricket programme so far, including some of our top professional players, like Mark Boucher and Makhaya Ntini. You can read more about the history of the programme on the Bakers Mini Cricket website.

I spent a few hours at Newlands today, watching the Australian cricketers taking a bit of a pounding from the Proteas. During the lunch break the field was occupied by a whole bunch of Bakers Mini Cricketers, who entertained us with some of the most adorable cricket I've seen in a long time. We'll be uploading more photos just as soon as we can finish processing them - and there'll be a few of the bigger cricketers too, not just these teeny-tiny ones. (In the meantime, our photos of The Dirty Skirts in concert at Kirstenbosch are up - have a look and let us know if you spot yourself in the crowd!)

In case, you missed yesterday's post, Cape Town Daily Photo has been selected as a finalist in the SA Blog Awards in three categories. If you think that CTDP is the best contender in any of its nominated categories, please do cast a vote for us: just click the big gold tag in the sidebar - it will take you straight to the voting page, where you can have a look at all the other finalists and submit your vote.

David Newton cleverly combines comedy and cancer

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On Broadway

David Newton is a brave guy. Fortunately, he's also very, very funny. You see, David is a Cape Town-based stand-up comedian who has taken on the tough job of raising awareness around the very unglamorous topic of... wait for it... ... Colorectal Cancer.

I was invited to attend the launch event for Colorectal Cancer Awareness, which took the form of dinner, drinks and a 2-hour comedy show at On Broadway in the city centre. Following this, I have three recommendations for you:

1. If you're in Cape Town, get yourself a ticket for David Newton's next show, which will be held on 4 May at On Broadway. Unless you have some sort of old sports injury that makes laughing very uncomfortable, or something like that, of course, because he WILL make you laugh. About everything. Everything.
2. If you can't make it to David's show, book for one of the other shows at On Broadway - it's a beautiful venue, with excellent service, and the portions of food are HUGE. Trust me on this. I couldn't even finish half of my meal - and I'd arrived hungry! Their prices are really reasonable too. Oh, and the restrooms... well, have a look at today's photo and judge for yourself. Pretty, innit?
3. Take five minutes to read through the information on the Colorectal Cancer Awareness site - this kind of cancer is treatable if caught early, but can become very aggressive if it's not. And for the sake of those who love you, if you think you might have any of the symptoms, don't ignore them. Make an appointment with your doctor, and get it checked out.

The Dirty Skirts: Summer Sunset Concert at Kirstenbosch

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The Dirty Skirts at Kirstenbosch

Summer Sunset concerts at Kirstenbosch are always great, and this week's concert was no exception - the weather was perfect, our picnic was yummy, and The Dirty Skirts played an awesome set. These guys are amazingly talented: they have a really original sound, and, as a bit of bonus for the girls, they make for good eye-candy too. :)

This was the band's first time playing at Kirstenbosch, and I sure hope it won't be their last. If you've never been to one of the Summer Sunset concerts at Kirstenbosch, you should really fix that. There are still a few concerts this season; you can have a look at the schedule here.

We'll be posting more photos of the concert later in the week (of the crowd too, so even if you're not actually one of The Dirty Skirts, you might see yourself here...), so do check back then. And if you really can't wait until then, you can have a look at some photos we took of The Dirty Skirts in concert late last year.

Dirtopia – hiking and biking

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Dirtopia Trail Centre
Since our last two posts were about the Argus Cycle Tour I hope that you're just itching to get out into nature, away from all the traditional tourist spots. If you're keen, then read on.

Dirtopia is a mountain bike event and hiking trail construction company. While we haven't yet attended one of their hiking or biking events, I've known about them for ages. I happened to notice that they've organised a full-moon hike from DelVera (near Stellenbosch) for tomorrow night, 11 March! We'd love to go, but unfortunately won't be able to make it tomorrow - but if you're free and want to get out, meet people, and experience hiking at night, I'm certain that you'll have a truck-load of fun.

The cost is R40 per person, they leave the Delvera Trail Centre at 18h00, and you can call 021 884 4752 to make a booking.

We haven't been in contact with the Dirtopia guys yet, so if you do go, please be sure to report back on the experience. Kerry-Anne and I will tag along on a hike some time and let you know what it's like. Heading in the direction of Stellenbosch, DelVera is located about 10KM from the N1 highway, along the R44 towards Stellenbosch.

Matt Damon riding in the Cape Argus Cycle Tour!

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Matt Damon riding in the Cape Argus Cycle Tour
As I was working through my photos from yesterday's Cape Argus Cycle Tour, I discovered that I'd quite unwittingly managed to snap a photo of Matt Damon! That's him, on the back of the tandem, just to the right of the motorbike. (His brother Kyle, an experienced athlete, was apparently occupying the front saddle of the tandem.)

Matt is here in Cape Town to film The Human Factor, a Clint Eastwood film about the 1995 Rugby World Cup. And it turns out he's a brave guy - he took part in the race despite having suffered a sprained ankle during a rugby practice session on Thursday. (He'll be playing the role of former Springbok rugby captain Francois Pienaar in the film, by the way.)

In case you missed yesterday's post, you can see more photos of the Cycle Tour in our 2009 Cape Argus Cycle Tour album.

Cape Argus Cycle Tour 2009

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Western Province Rugby Cyclist

Given the look on this cyclist's face, you'd never guess that today's Cape Argus Pick 'n Pay Cycle Tour was one of the most challenging (possibly THE most challenging) races ever. Winds of 60 to 90km/hour, of which 70% were apparently headwinds, made race conditions incredibly difficult, and resulted in delayed start times for most groups, and longer race times for pretty much everyone.

Well done to all those who braved the gale-force winds (which were so strong near the start that they knocked a number of cyclists off their bikes), and congratulations to 23-year-old Arran Brown, who crossed the line just before Robbie Hunter to claim his first Cape Argus title. You can see more photos of all these determined and resilient cyclists in our 2009 Cape Argus Cycle Tour album.

Guitar Hero – okay, we sucked

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Guitar Hero

Microsoft's marketing team came along to 27Dinner this evening to try and turn a bunch of geeks into rock stars. Unfortunately it was not to be... to be perfectly honest, we sucked. To be fair to all the "musicians", not a whole lot of instruction was given to get the band started, so in all fairness I guess we didn't do too badly. :)

My little taste of Guitar Hero left me with two feelings. The one was, "hey, this can be huge amounts of fun" and the other was, "hey, this cheapens what real musos are able to do". Watching Guitar Hero players strum over the intricate riffs played by the likes of Richie Sambora and Jimi Hendrix highlighted for me why guitar heroes are in fact, guitar heroes.

I guess that the fact remains, Guitar Hero can be loads of fun, especially for those who aren't musically inclined or don't have the time to get a band together and practise with real instruments.

If you need a party or conference venue in Stellenbosch…

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Lovane Wine Estate

If you've been reading Cape Town Daily Photo for a while, then you might recall us mentioning something called a GeekDinner once or twice before. Normally these dinners happen at a restaurant in the city or the southern suburbs, but last night we held the very first Stellenbosch GeekDinner at Lovane Boutique Wine Estate, located just outside Stellenbosch on the M12.

Please don't read on if you're hungry right now, because you'll just end up hating me. Don't say I didn't warn you. ;-)

Dinner was a-ma-zing. For starters we had fresh beetroot slices filled with goat's cheese; the main course was a buffet of sirloin steak, creamy mushroom sauce, potato slices, baby marrows, carrots, butternut ravioli and walnut salad; and the dessert was an unbelievably moreish helping of homemade toffee/fudge/vanilla ice-cream. The steak had been cooked on an open fire, with some sort of lemongrass basting, and it was done to absolute perfection. I actually don't have enough adjectives to tell you just how good this meal was.

Lovane is a really beautiful place too, both inside and out. We even got taken on a tour of the cellar (which is where this photo was taken, of course), where we learnt a little bit about the process of winemaking.

If you're looking for a party or conference venue in the winelands, I can certainly suggest Lovane. Great service, a really lovely setting, and excellent food... what more could you want?

Cape Cobras: 2009 Standard Bank Pro20 champions!

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Cape Cobras win the Pro20 Cricket Series

Yes, it's true! The Cape Cobras are the Standard Bank Pro20 cricketing champions at last! More than 16,000 Capetonians packed Sahara Park Newlands this evening to cheer their team to victory as they played the Gestetner Diamond Eagles (that's Bloemfontein's team) in the Pro20 final. As one of the Standard Bank live-bloggers, I got to watch the final from the very swanky Achiever Box at Newlands - think chic decor, beautiful waitresses, a full bar, comfy couches, a party atmosphere, and a perfect view of the cricket...

More Pro20 goodies:

It was quite a weekend for Cape Town sports fans, by the way. Not only did the Cobras take the Pro20 series, but our local rugby team, the Stormers, managed to eke out a very welcome victory over the Queensland Reds on Friday night, in their Super14 match played at Newlands Rugby Stadium.

Cricket fans – the post-match stampede

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Cricket fans at Sahara Park Newlands

The past weekend saw our province's cricket team, the Cape Cobras, play two matches against KwaZulu-Natal's Nashua Dolphins, with each side winning one of the matches.

I can't say that I'm the hugest cricket fan, but there is something to be said for the atmosphere generated at cricket and rugby games held at Newlands. If you're ever in Cape Town around the time of a cricket or rugby match it's a worthwhile outing to attend one - even if only for an hour. Tickets are pretty cheap and can be bought online at Computicket - although you'll have to collect them beforehand at one of the Computicket outlets (see the website for details).

Tickets can also be bought at the gates, but depending on the particular match tickets might get sold out quickly - so online is generally the best option.

Twestival at Cape Town’s Doppio Zero

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Twestival in Cape Town

At short notice, several members of the Cape Town Twitter community pulled together and organised an event at Doppio Zero, allowing Cape Town to be part of the worldwide Twestival (it's a silly word, I know ;-) ). "Twestival" (yup, it's still a silly word) involved Twitter members gathering together in 186 cities across the world, on the same evening, to raise funds for charity: water, a non-profit initiative working to provide safe and clean drinking water in developing nations.

Guests at Cape Town's Doppio Zero were entertained by the beautiful and inspiring singer Verity, central African musician Sylvestre Kabassidi, Marcel (hands-down the best magician and close-up entertainer I've met), and the energetic entrepreneur Eran Eyal, who co-founded Springleap with Eric Edelstein.

I've been a bit of a link pimp in this post, but I think that the kind people who made this event possible deserve credit for a job well done on extremely short notice. Thanks to you all!

Pro20 cricket at Newlands

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Newlands Cricket Ground

Kerry-Anne was asked to live-blog for the local Standard Bank Pro20 cricket matches at Sahara Park in Newlands. She asked me to tag along to... well, drive her, carry her bags, and take photos.

Today's photo was taken from "The Oaks" lawn area - possibly the best seats in the grounds when it comes to atmosphere. It was so packed tonight that we ended up on the (also packed) far lawn, just to the right of the scoreboard (which can be seen heralding the latest 6 to have been batted).

The Cape Cobras managed to beat the Warriors by just 5 runs tonight. The Warriors needed 6 runs off the last ball, after losing a wicket on the previous ball. However, it wasn't to be, and the Nashua Cape Cobras went home victorious.