The Sleepers First National Tour Round-up

Ok. So we know a lot of you want to know all the details of how our first tour went.
It went exceptionally well. I think all of us were quite surprised at all the love we were shown and the warm crowd responses from Gauteng and Kwazulu Natal. Secondly, we had no technical problems, nothing was broken and we all arrived back home intact.
On the way up we very nearly ran out of petrol. That was pretty scary. But luckily, Winburg (a tiny little village next to the highway on the way into Gauteng) has a petrol station. The very friendly petrol attendant found it quite exciting helping fill up for a band.
Oh yes, and then after the petrol debacle, we encountered a storm. THE STORM. It seemed to follow us, we had about 10m visibility all the way into Gauteng and it carried on for 3 hours. And yes, the five Capetonians in the kombi were very frightened by the loud lights in the sky. Jislaaik.
On the Thursday we played with the mighty Isochronous at Tings ‘n’ Times in Hatfield, Pretoria. The place was packed to the rafters, and the boys from Isochronous kindly let us play an encore. The crowd was insane... Pretoria we love you! Sound was great, it was boiling hot outside, we sold some cd’s partied afterwards... all in all we had an awesome night.
Friday saw us playing with The Uncut at The Bohemian – a really cool little club catering to the students from UJ. But on the way there we got lost. Seriously lost. We ended up in Fordsburg (and drove past Barney Simon Avenue, who we later found out was named after the playwright, and not the DJ... sadness) somewhere in the industrial area, which really didn’t look like there were any clubs there. But luckily we phoned a friend who eventually guided us to the club. And when we got there... delicious pizzas! Black Label quarts! We felt right at home. This night was probably the most intimate of the shows and we played two encores! The Uncut also rocked our socks off and we’ll be sure to hook up with them again.
The Saturday saw us play a small show for the cast of a play at Parktown Girls High School. The very very talented girls are using two of our songs for a play they’re doing in March, and we were very excited to see what they were up to. We sat down and chatted with the girls and they showed us some hilarious improvising skills! They made us feel really welcome and we felt like total rockstars!
Straight after that we pulled through to Back2Basix for our last show in Gauteng. We played with our stablemates, Heroes Wear Red. We had some awesome sound, had a great turn out and had a great send off from the Jozi locals.
So the next week saw us do a bit of promotion, visiting Highveld stereo and UJFM for some interviews and disc spinning. We visited some music stores, comic stores... but mostly we were stuck in traffic. Sadly, Michaela our photographer had some pressing work to tend to back in the Mother City and had to leave the tour before our KZN leg. We had a little braai with the guys from Isochronous, got a bit silly and got ready to drive through to KZN on the Thursday - sans Michaela. Stayed over at Ladysmith on the way and arrived in a mighty humid Durban on the Friday. We stayed wet and sweaty for the next 36 hours.
We headed through to Umhlanga to the slick Boogie’s Diner and had an awesome night with Kissed By Katie and The Otherwise. The next day we got a little lost (again!) but not too badly, and we went to some more music stores and had some much needed breakfast in the Pavilion Mall. We then packed all our gear and headed through to Burn. There was a storm brewing and it was breathtaking to watch from Burn’s roof. We saw some familiar faces from Umhlanga (C.R.A.C.K. and The Otherwise FTW!). We played a rocking set and met some really interesting Durbanites! Juggernaught and Grynd Rodd Muse broke the stage with a deft precision and so ended our night in Durban. We stood outside on the roof for a little while to cool down in the rain, drinking in the end of our tour. Satisfied and tired we got into our blue kombi and said goodbye to Durban. Steve drove us out for the first few hours, I fell asleep on the backseat. We took turns driving for the next 19 hours back home. When we arrived we were five blissed out and tired guys, happy to be home.

Hands upon the wheel...

So, we arrived in Gauteng on Wednesday night, having driven the last 300kms through one of the most terrifying electrical storms we've ever seen. Now, I know a lot of you Jozi fans are scoffing at the Capetonians being scared of a little thunder... but seriously, this was crazy. We had 10m visibility in front of us, with big fat rain drops and lightning and crazy truck drivers doing stunt driving it seemed in the middle of the tempest. Oh... and we almost ran out of petrol... almost... thank you Winburg for having a petrol station.

So far, both shows we've played have been awesome! Tings on Thurs in Hatfield with Isochronous was electric, and The Bo' with The Uncut was off the hook. We've gotten some really warm responses from the twin cities. Thanks to Mike from Tuks FM and Alexia and Grant at UJFM for some hilarious interviews.

And yes... we have a GPS... and yes, we managed to still get horribly, horribly lost. But not because of the little device, but good ol' human error.

Tonight will be our last show in Gauteng with our Headline Artists stable-mates Heroes Wear Red... we're going to go big, if you're in the area come for the party!

Next week sees us taking to Umhlanga at Boogie's on the Friday with The Otherwise, and Burn Nightclub in Durban on the Saturday with Grynd Rodd Muse and Juggernaught.

We'll keep you updated with some more tour antics, spread the word, if you've got friends JHB/DBN, tell them about us.

Keep safe.

Simon

The Sleepers.