Kieran SmithFriday night saw a return to the formula that made Disturbance Design's erstwhile restaurant/gallery/design store "Home" so popular and so sorely missed. Held at Manna, 'Big Wood' featured artwork, stuffed toys, great tunes from Disturbance honchos Richard and Roger (and ex-Disturbian, Ryan); and the second Durban performance of SuperHotJoy. Ex-Cynosure lead Garret van der Spek's new outfit features Mike Goddard (Perez, Big Idea, Love Jones... this guy is a machine!) on drums, and Kieran Smith on bass (another accomplished machine!).

GarrettVan der Spek was on fine form, dressed to screech in falsetto-inducing stovepipe jeans and snakeskin boots, and belting it out he was too. Sound like? Hmmm.... The Police. No, honestly - with bass and drums that were tight as... a very tight thing, and van der Speks' renowned vocal style, this was a slick show with oodles of energy and loads of attitude. The whole package was the perfect compliment to the independent style and art that Disturbance is renowned for, a style that has a strong following, as the capacity crowd at Manna showed.

Saturday night and the Nudies blew into town to promote the release of their new album, Peace Breaker, at Burn. Burning up, more like. It might be autumn out here folks but lemme tell you that inside Burn you'd never know it. The sweat was dipping off the ceiling when the Springboks took to the stage, and to their credit they never let this get in the way of a rocking performance.

Despite sound that was overpowered by their heavy-duty assault, they performed with the usual aplomb, trotting out a selection of both classics and new cuts from the album. Say what you like about Arno but as a unit the Nudies kick big booty all over the shop, even when the heat threatens to make you faint. Backstage you'd never think they were one of SA's greatest rock bands of all time - they were polite, offered your roving correspondent beer and Jagers (hic!) and generally shot the shit like any old bunch of maties.

And then it was time to get the hell outta dodge and salvage what little was left of the weekend.