Jesse in The Living Room

The Living Room in Maboneng is a fresh rooftop venue offering Urban-Eco Café Cuisine, Plant Art and Urban Design; a showroom for green design and lifestyle.

Designed, built & growing by the hands of the Tiakaya Designs team, the truly organic space is constantly evolving as season’s change, plants grow, and new creations come to life. The space boasts prototypes of vertical gardening solutions, and there is a shop which sells potted plants, gifts & jewellery.

The Living Room is like an oasis in the sky, a veritable Hanging Gardens of Babylon. And a super cool place to watch the sun set over the cityscape.

The cafe has  a nice tapas menu

Plant shop!

 

 And there's a full bar for sundowners.

Down it goes.

Ah, nothing like a blue sunset ...

We were there to see and hear Jesse Clegg, the son of Johnny Clegg  and as you would expect, a very talented musician, songwriter and performer.

Acoustic and (almost) unplugged - there was some amplification. He was awesome!

I love Japanese lanterns.

Nice backdrop too of the Telecom tower and Ponte City with its Vodacom billboard. Another fun night in the CBD.






 

with Graham Parker after he performed Live @ Drew's

The intimacy of the setting and the incredible view reminded me of an actual real living room where I heard and saw musicians perform in NJ. About 10 times a year, Drew Eckman, a former associate editor at Newsweek magazine, invites musician friends - who are usually in town anyway to perform live in New York - to come over to his house in Ringwood, NJ and perform in his actual living room, a venue he calls Live @ Drew's.

picture windows overlook the lake

Drew has a log cabin on a lake in the country with a large central living room overlooked by a second floor balcony. He removes the furniture and sets up rows of folding chairs for about 60 to 65 guests to come and hear live music. Guests bring a snack and something to drink and leave a little something for Drew to pay the artist and also the cleaning lady the next day.

In both cases, the more intimate setting makes it feel less like a concert with an audience and more like a musician performing with a small circle of friends. Nice.

The Living Room is located on the top floor at 20 Kruger St, right in the heart of Maboneng.