It’s quite fitting that I would watch Fetish performing live for the first time in over a decade, only days before I walk back into my dream performance space, because they epitomize everything I love about music, and their songs define so many vivid memories of my early 20-something years. Years later I still hear so many echoes of things I’d forgotten, and truths that remind me of what I’ve come from.

Despite being my favourite band to ever come out of South Africa, I only remember ever seeing them perform live once, at the Bat Centre in Durban in the late 90s, so watching one of my idols float around the stage again, seeing moments etched across her face that I can only appreciate now that I know what it’s really like to be there… I was speechless for days afterwards, but it put me in exactly the right headspace for the week of dreams that followed. There is something so unassuming about their performance and about the music itself. It tells you everything you need to know but holds something back, leaving you slightly unsettled in a way that you can’t quite understand. It’s epic.

And there’s a new album coming soon…