Blown by Nataniël

Preconceived - priːkənˈsiːvd/ an adjective which means of an idea or opinion that was formed before having the evidence for its truth or usefulness. In other words the same set of facts can be tailored to fit any preconceived belief, as if I am opinionated enough already.

Exercising the right of occasional suppression and slight modification, it is truly absurd to see how plastic a limited number of observations become, in the hands of men with preconceived ideas. Well it looks like I too made a judgment that was not founded on proof but circumstantial second hand information.

My friends what I saw in press about Nataniël le Roux, a South African singer, songwriter and entertainer lead me to have a preconceived opinion on who Nataniël was. I never went to see him for myself but relied on what my friends had to say about him without even them seeing him live at a performance. Yes I saw him on TV being interviewed and with my preconceived notions, I always thought Nataniël to be a controversial damp rag.

So began the breaking down of my preconceived ideas. Lynda phoned last week and told me that she won a pair of tickets to see Nataniël and his latest stage show Rainbow at Midnight now showing at Emperors Palace. I immediately started thinking who of my friends would love to go and watch Nataniël, none!

So in we walked Lynda and I with my preconceived ideas hand in hand and was blown away by this kaalkop going by the name of Nataniël. It was not what we expected, well the dialogue was, but his singing, ladies and gentlemen, I give you South Africa’s very own Elton John, aka Nataniël. His voice blew us away, well the whole cast of Rainbow at Midnight did. Not to mention the awesome costumes, wow!

We found Nataniël unpretentious with a voice that matches Elton John himself, note that is only when he is singing. When he talks he has his normal husky voice as if he has been chain smoking since he was a baby but when he sings, well shall we say that I am now a believer. We were blown away. Afterwards I dearly wanted a photograph of the two kaalkops together, and of course apologise. So if you ever read this blog post Nataniël, let’s get together for a wynjie.

One of my favourite authors, Charles de Lint once wrote… let me give you a piece of advice: Try to approach things without preconceived ideas, without supposing you already know everything there is to know about them. Get that trick down and you’ll be surprised at what’s really all around you.