No Thank You for the Music
Save the DJ 101 playlist for the post-match party
There was much talk of ‘silencing the crowd’ ahead of Saturday’s Sprinbok-All Black classic at Ellis Park.
Shutting up the Joburg faithful would be key to the visitors getting a foothold at an iconically raucous and patriotic cauldron steeped in significance for the hosts.
Well, the Kiwis executed that part of their job superbly with their opening salvo, which culminated in Codie Taylor’s try at the seven-minute mark. But I wonder if it was all that important, really.
Not because silencing the home crowd didn’t matter. But rather because the stadium’s tannoys seemed determined to do the job on New Zealand’s behalf.
Never mind wave after wave of All Black attack. Those snippets of tunes no human being with a beer in their hand can resist singing along to, which blared out at every break in play, were a tailor-made way to take the sting out of the spectators.
Rugby crowds, when not provoked with sure-thing stimuli like rats in some experiment involving electrodes, are quite capable of entertaining themselves with the business of the war going on out on the pitch. They know what to do when the home team goes 10 points down and the clock is ticking. The start making a noise – gently at first, then building up to a crescendo as the shock of the score recedes and the restart approaches – to gee up their team.
Ellis Park, of all the crowds in the world, knows how to show its favoured side that things are not all over. Olé olé olé may not be high art, but believe me it can still send a shiver down the spine and a message out onto the pitch.
But they can’t do it if you’re going to blast Sweet Caroline through the neighbourhood and make a mockery of what at the time looked like a hammer-blow for the home side. And shooting down any chance of a response. Talk about robbing yourself of home advantage.
If I were a player, I can’t imagine I’d want to see my so-called supporters swaying along drunkenly to Dancing Queen, with their hands in the air like they just don’t care. Not when I’ve got my back to the wall and am fighting for my country. I need them to show me that they do care.
Photo source: Spotify
Okay, the players are probably so focused that they don’t hear all the banality blaring over the PA. After all, they did turn the match around despite the best efforts of Ellis Park’s resident 1993 TDK mix tape. So perhaps I’m just offended on behalf of those who spent good money on a live rugby experience and were treated like a sloshed 4am dancefloor instead. I know I’m in a minority for caring about this, but I think these musical interludes are patronising and moronic.
Leave song snippets to idiotic T20 cricket leagues. Rugby crowds are unique and often quite smart. They’re capable of making their own sweet song, based on the match situation and decades of tradition. Fields of Athenry, anybody? Allez les bleus? Need I go on? If I buy a ticket to watch rugby in the stadium – certainly a great one in which every last seat sweats memories and history – rather than on television, that’s exactly what I’m shelling out the cash for. Not Spotify’s Best Four-Second Clips to Cheer up Drunken Throngs playlist. Ugh.
If we really must insist on music between plays, could it at least be something South African? Or something particular to the host city, even? That might at least be a decent fit for a home game – and send a better message to the hard-working players jogging back to the restart of their lives.
Despite the impact this article will no doubt have in the halls of SA Rugby, I fear there’ll be no change for this weekend’s match in Cape Town. I’m sure multiple meetings of marketing sub-departments would be needed to arrive at the simple decision to turn off the darn racket. So a very different crowd with a very different vibe (trust me, I’m from Cape Town) will be silenced into a cringey (the embarrassed-for-them variety) common denominator once again.
In closing, let’s perhaps ponder a line from SA Rugby CEO Rian Oberholzer regarding the ‘audio-visual’ intereference that overshadowed the Haka ahead of the game on Saturday.
“In the confusion, the crowd’s excited cheering was mistaken to have marked the conclusion of the Haka by an unsighted sound engineer who restarted the music programme. It was highly regrettable but in no way deliberate,” said Oberholzer on SuperSport rugby.
The Haka is perhaps the best example of my rugby’s ability to make its own theatre. Theatre that needs exactly zero help from any sound engineers, DJs or assorted pontificating people with clipboards. And what happened during the All Black challenge is the best possible case for keeping said folk and their mixing desks out of the stadium entirely.
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