Freshly Ground at Kirstenbosch

Clearly I am a devoted Freshly Ground follower, this being my 3rd concert in about a one month period. And what better way to see them than enjoying a lovely summer evening and the beautiful views at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens? In the summer, Kirstenbosch has outdoor concerts every Sunday evening, which is a really fun thing to take advantage of. Having learned our lesson with The Killers concert, we arrived at Kirstenbosch 2 hours before the concert, at the time doors opened. We were a bit dismayed when we showed up clearly running behind thousands of other people already there, but we were beginning to think the concert gods were trying to make up for our previous experience when we found the last on-ground parking space. This was particularly exciting for us, having walked for 3.5 hours total along side the road for The Killers concert, if you recall. On top of that, we managed to find room for our blanket amongst the only small shaded section of the entire place set aside for sitting. And then, as if things could make us any happier, we discovered that the band was really good friends with the people sitting directly in front of us, as various members kept coming up to say hi and sit with them before the show. Sorry, no pictures of that though – since we seemed to be the only ones who noticed (there were people walking up and down and around all the time, so I think everyone else just tuned the crowd out and didn’t notice the fact that the band members were sitting down right next to them), it seemed particularly inappropriate to draw attention to the scene. Needless to say, it was still cool. And the concert itself did not disappoint either. I had never heard Freshly Ground be particularly political before, but they dedicated one song to Mr. Robert Mugabe (the dictator of Zimbabwe, for those of you who may not know) and then proceeded to sing about being “too chicken to change.” It was nice to hear them be vocal about that issue. Anyway, hopefully there will be time to fit in more Kirstenbosch concerts soon!