Upon hearing news earlier in the afternoon that the place was already packed to the brim, I hurried through the usual bumper-to-bumper traffic to get a decent seat for Al Bairre’s final performance. Friendly, although uneasy faces across the field greeted me. Although accompanied by the ever-so-charismatic Shortstraw, the show’s undercurrent was very evidently centred on Al Bairre’s tlast curtain call. And what a setting to culminate the band’s career: surrounding the sizeable stage covered with multicoloured paper mache doves, a devout, unwavering home-town audience.
Believe it or not, Shortstraw actually opened the show, disregarding the stigma that opening bands are generally considered a warm-up or of a worse quality than the headliner. The notably successful indie outfit somewhat expectedly discarded any of these assumptions and pretences and in essence, paid tribute. In between performing classic ‘Bikini Weather’ and one of their latests ‘T-shirt’ at their fourth Kirstenbosch performance, frontman Alistair Thomas confronted the mournful elephant in the room: “Al Bairre have done nought but make the music industry a much, much better place.”
The first sighting of the band emerging on stage had their audience in a frenzy, their presence alone provoking most of Kirstenbosch to get up and stay on their feet for the whole performance. Even though Al Bairre’s finale yielded the expectedly quirky dances moves and frontman Nic Preen’s infamous handstands, the band still managed to surprise their audience with infectiously-jubilant new tracks ‘Over and Over’ and ‘Don’t Say / Go Away’ – a pleasure to hear for the first, and last time.
In between their basket of hits ‘When I Was Tall’, ‘Bungalow’ and ‘Right Here in July’, the band acknowledged what being in the band has meant to them, how they’ve all grown so much because of it and expressed their heartfelt gratitude. “Al Bairre showed me that sometimes your actions can have a greater impact than you think and that it is important to stay humble and to be kind always,” expressed celloist/vocalist Tessa Johnson. “I treasure it all and I’ll remember it forever.”
An encore of ‘Let’s Fall in Love Some More’ was effortlessly provoked by fans alike screaming in unison “We love Al Bairre! We love Al Bairre!” Obviously unbearable, this final sentiment caused a severe amount of emotion on and off stage. After throwing out drum sticks, paper mache birds and an abundance of blown kisses, the band, proving difficult to walk off stage, breathed it all in. Staring at the audience before them, the band contently but almost brokenheartedly waved. After taking a rightly merited bow, we said goodbye to Al Bairre.
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Read our Farewell Interview with Kyle Davis here.
