Yesterday I got a call on my landline from Arno Carstens looking for Jerome, my housemate. Jerome is the ex-drummer for Cape Town rock pioneers Nine, and nowadays he splits his drumming duties between Arno Carstens' New Porn and my band The Diesel Whores. It turns out that Arno and his band had been selected to open for the Rolling Stones in San Sebastián in Spain this Saturday the 23rd June.
A few minutes ago Jerome left for the airport and the band flew to Spain tonight to what is certainly going to be one of the best gigs of their entire lives. This is a huge break for Arno Carstens, and potentially massive for South African music in general. As a musician I cannot think of anything better than supporting the Stones in front of 35000+ people in Spain during the summer, except perhaps playing the Bohemian in Melville on a Monday night :).
Its been a pretty huge two weeks for the band. They have just returned to South Africa from playing the Isle of Wight festival alongside bands like Muse, Wolfmother and the Stones, and they obviously made enough of an impression to get this support slot in Spain. I much prefer the Springbok Nude Girls catalogue to Arno's more middle of the road solo fare, but he is one of the hardest working musicians in this country, and a genuinely good guy to boot, and he deserves every bit of success that comes his way.
Jerome said to me he was more excited about attending the afterparty on Saturday night than playing the actual gig - I think the Isle of Wight afterparty had a deep and lasting impact on his fragile drummer psyche.
Arno Carstens será telonero de los Rolling Stones en Donostia, junto a los bilbaínos Zenttric (Spanish Press Release)