It’s testimony to the enduring love for a band who shaped a time in all our lives that Al Bairre, who went their own separate ways almost seven years ago, could sell out the 6000 capacity of Kirstenbosch for their short-lived reunion.
Alongside fellow indie-heavyweights Shortstraw, who have not, thankfully, called it quits yet, they pulled off an evening packed with nostalgia, to one of the most impassioned crowds I’ve seen in years.
I opened up the cubby hole of my car a few months ago to find that the Al Bairre debut EP that I bought back in 2013 had succumbed to my continued overuse of the compartment and had snapped into 3 neat pieces. It was a sad moment, but it felt weirdly apt.
By the time we arrive at the Gardens, hauling our sweating selves up the hill after a scorching summer day, the mountain is wreathed in cloud and the sloping lawns are packed. Familiar faces speckle the landscape. We’re all here for the same reason. We cram ourselves into a tiny triangle of vacant lawn just as Shortstraw takes to the stage.
They’re as vibrant and infectious as ever – reeling out a jam packed set spanning their repertoire. A small standing crowd at the front bops to the familiar strains of “Bikini Weather”, the rest of the seated mass belts out the words between mouthfuls of chips, and it’s good to see the outfit as we know and love them.
“Keanu Reeves” takes its ever-present slot at the tail end of the set, before “Couch Potato” wraps things up in a triumph. Nic Preen makes an early appearance to hoist Tom Revington onto his shoulders. It’s a vibe.
But the crowd is electric by the time Al Bairre, dressed in white and buoyed up by the roaring reception, run onto stage. It’s like they never left.They play everything from formative tracks like “Ancestors” and “When I Was Tall” (“It wasn’t even a metaphor, I don’t know what it means,” Nic Preen quips of the track they wrote in their late teens), to fan favourites “Let’s Fall In Love Some More” and Where Do We Go From Here” which carried their departure from the scene.
The lyrics emerge effortlessly from some archived recess of my brain, word for word, and I’m not the only one. The crowd is singing louder than the band.
You can practically feel the serotonin re-entering the bloodstream of several thousand jaded millennials. The haze of the last decade is lifted and all at once it feels a whole lot like the indie heyday that was 2013. When life was a little easier, social media didn’t rule our everyday and R300 got you a gig ticket and three beers. It’s a good moment.
“Bungalow” hits home with the timeless lyric “Right now is never the good old days but someday I’m sure we’ll think they were,” – and we will – while “Tunnels”, a personal favourite, takes a couple tries to start but delivers with a punch.
Nic does a handstand, the twins beam and bounce the snappy bridge of “Bungalow” back and forth, Kyle flexes his long legs in short shorts and stares everybody down impassively, catching a bra and a pair of knickers flung onto stage, Tom kills it on the drums.
It’s an experience awash in nostalgia for most of us. A rare moment of timelessness. A roar for more erupts after the final notes of “Just Like A Song” die away. The crowd cheers for an excessively long time and it’s warranted. There’s a bit of a clumsy encore that almost doesn’t happen, salvaged by the exuberant crowd and a well-thrown rose.
See you again in seven years, Al Bairre. Or on Saturday the 27th in Jozi, take your pick.
