Goo Goo Dolls live in SA: The re-education of a girl turned Goo

All images © Shan Radcliffe

Living from a personalised manual from hell

But it wasn't until two years later - when my mother upped sticks post-divorce and moved us across the country to Cape Town - that I got my hands on my brother's copy of A Boy Named Goo and cycled it on repeat for days while I feverishly tried to create an art portfolio to qualify for the class at my new high school.

It was the music of misfits - music for the misunderstood, the ghosts, the lost and the broken. I connected with the lyrics on a soul level - the track changes between angry, angsty guitar riffs and the melancholic acoustic melodies reflecting the emotional rollercoaster I was strapped to at the time.

It was there in the summer of '97 that A Boy Named Goo became a core soundtrack to my life; the foundation that would be built upon with the Goo Goo Dolls successive albums over the next 10 years.

Songs to rage to, songs to cry to, songs dedicated to boys, and songs that would become personal anthems – over a decade of memories wrapped in chords and lyrics, putting words to feelings I wasn't able to articulate on my own.

Coz f*ckin' up takes practice, I feel I'm well-rehearsed

When news dropped last year that the Goo Goo Dolls would be touring South Africa in December, tickets to the concert topped my birthday gift list.

Except I'd fully underestimated the situation - failing to take into account the limited nature of the venue and tickets. As Capetonian fans know, tickets sold out within a matter of hours, and by the time I looked at the prices - well, there was nothing left to look at.

Roll on December and a reel from the official Goo Goo Dolls Facebook page appeared in my feed the day before they were due to play; it was frontman John Rzeznik in a hospital bed, explaining he’d been admitted for pneumonia and apologising to South Africans for having to postpone the show.

By the time organisers added a second gig to the rescheduled Cape Town leg, I'd convinced myself not to go - the universe did not want me there. But on the morning after the first Kirstenbosch concert, having seen photos from the night before of friends who'd been quick on the first draw, I steeled myself and watched a few clips from the show.

And that was enough.

Within an hour, I had a pair of tickets and was informing a friend of our night's plans.

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Just look around coz this is right where you and I belong

Kirstenbosch Gardens was already packed by the time we pulled in just after 6pm, although by some stroke of pure dumb luck, we managed to find parking inside as day-trippers departed for the evening.

The concert grounds were already heaving - around 6,000 bodies, picnic blankets and cooler boxes covered almost every inch of the lawn in front of the stage and the hill beyond. We picked our way along a conveniently marked walkway and found a little space beneath some trees halfway up the second block, with a tunnel vision of the stage.

In the distance, Cape Town CBD was basking in the rays of what I suspect will be one of the last good days of summer. The weather couldn't have been more accommodating - comfortably warm and absolutely no sign of the season's notoriously bitchy south-easter.

Goo Goo Dolls T-shirt

Having both dropped chocolate ice-cream down our fronts in the car on the drive over, this seemed like a perfectly good excuse to stop by the merch stand and pick up a couple t-shirts.

Now sporting suitable fangirl attire, we settled in to enjoy a truly South Africa legend. Ard Matthews and the Just Jinjer crew took to the stage for a nostalgic set which included local favourites Father and Farther, Leaving Shallow Waters, Stand In Your Way, What He Means and a cover of Rodriguez’s Sugarman.

Matthews was in fine form, hopping off stage to mingle and connect with the crowd, stopping for selfies and accepting drinks in kind (I'm going to assume no-one tried to roofie him). He chatted candidly about reaching his big half century, while sounding as good as he did 25+ years ago.

Local legends Just Jinjer

Everything means more now than words could explain

The main show started with the smashing of drums and the heavy guitar chords of Dizzy - sounding every bit like I'd just thrown my Dizzy Up The Girl CD in the tray and hit 'play'... but in full audiovisual glory. Rzeznik, in-between tracks, asked the audience for help on the next one, before easing into Slide.

I was transported back over 25 years, to a time these songs were an integral part of my life - the lyrics forever tattooed in my memory; the words more familiar than the scar on my knuckle - the titles themselves being mere placeholders on a disc jacket.

Dressed in a black tank top that revealed toned inked arms, his signature shaggy cut falling in his eyes, Rzeznik was looking more ripped than most 20-year-olds I know. He checked in with the crowd early on - asking whether anyone had been to the show the previous night. Nope - it appeared these were all the kids who missed scoring tickets in the couple hours before they sold out the first time round.

John Rzeznik with Robby Takac on bass guitar and Craig Macintyre on drums

Hit me like a sucker punch

I would later learn that Naked was the opener for night one, and while Dizzy felt like a truly perfect way to kick off such a killer set - I'll probably always wonder if I'll regret missing one of my personal favourites live.

Bright electrics soon dropped into Big Machine, launching me out of my high school era into my 20s, while the following track - one I didn't recognise - hit Home that I'd lost touch with the band somewhere along the way. Given the concert setlist cut a cross section through 30 years of their musical career, touching on other well-known favourites from Here Is Gone to Feel The Silence, I came to realise over the course of the evening just how sadly my Goo-ducation was lacking in their more recent works.

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Some of these gaps in my tuition included Come To Me, Over and Over, Run All Night, Miracle Pill and my new earworm, So Alive - its infectious light piano intro immediately catching my attention with a sound I wouldn't usually associate with them.

As all fans know, bass guitarist Robby Takac sings lead on several Goo Goo Dolls numbers - and he took over the mic for the first time in the evening to hit us with Smash.

I've always viewed Takac and his songs as the happy-go-lucky foil to Rzeznik's more brooding edginess. He cut a vibrant figure on stage with his bright magenta hair, and you couldn't not smile as his energy shone through his own tracks - Life's A Message and Bringing On The Light - that dotted the setlist.

John Rzeznik's epic riff off with Goo Goo Dolls guitarist Brad Fernquist, and Jim McGorman in the back on the keyboard.

Sleeping on the White House lawn ain't never changed a thing

Grateful to my friend for allowing me to abandon her (she didn't want to leave our spot beneath the trees) so I could get some close-ups from the front edge, it was at this point Rzeznik stopped to chat about the tour and getting out of the US for a bit while it all went to "shit".

"Do you guys take asylum seekers, refugees?" he jokingly asked, before referring to green cards: "Would any of you want to marry me?" The audience put up its hand. "Is gay marriage legal here? I don't care - we could double our chances!"

Much to the crowd's amusement, he went on: "Elon Musk - he must be about the second-most-hated man on the planet now, right? Do you guys want him back?"

*crickets*

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It was also during one of my stints down front that he told us about the first time he ever heard their first commercial hit on the radio. He'd been at an all-night supermarket at some ungodly hour, "pushing around a buggy - what do you call it?" - he made a push-pull motion - "you know, a shopping cart" and he was wondering what kind of person ended up working the graveyard shift at a place like that.

Turns out, that kind of person was a convict. And it was as he was talking to the guy about his time that he heard the first strains of Name filter through the store's speakers. "I wondered if I should tell him... but then I thought 'no, he could f*cking kill me'! And I had dogs to feed."

And then, acoustic guitar in hand, he strummed the opened bars to Name... as adopted kids, it's a song that has always held a special place with both myself and my brother.

It's hard to lead the life you choose

Rzeznik showing off his 'Blik' guitar - a gift from organiser Andy of AMP Events

In fact, their music invoked several powerful memories of my brother during the evening - with Black Balloon rising more poignantly than ever since his passing 18 months ago, his own blackened balloon tucked beneath the couch.

Rzeznik touched briefly on his personal struggle with addiction - explaining the next track was written while he was in rehab. "I hope you can relate," he said, a wry laugh indicating he’d caught the implication of his words a moment too late.

"Stranger than your sympathy..." - and it was mine: the one I'd selected as my personal theme song for a college exercise a lecturer had set out for us, some 20 odd years ago. And while the lyrics held their own meaning to me then - and even now - it was something I identified with completely and that summed up so much of that year.

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What do you need from me tonight

Considering the uneasy state of the world, it was no surprise when Better Days joined the tail end of the setlist as the band wound down. Broadway followed with Rzeznik taking the opportunity to show off his stellar skills on the harmonica; Tattered Edge/You Should Be Happy being the penultimate track.

As my friend had pointed out earlier: "There seems to be a song missing" - the final track was the one all but one had been waiting for: Iris. The crowd swayed and crooned to the Goo Goo Dolls’ most iconic hit - the sheer number of post-concert videos showing different snippets of the tune testament to the audience’s love of the irresistible hit.

Open up my heart like a shotgun

But I hold a very unpopular opinion and I'll brace myself for the obvious hate I'm likely to endure after I drop it. Iris is an absolutely amazing song - there's no denying it. She's the prom queen of the Goo Goo Dolls repertoire: she's beautiful, she's popular, and everyone loves her. And it's for this that I hold a grudge against her.

While I'm forever grateful for what she did for the Goo Goo Dolls' career, it was the song that put the band I loved for making music for the outcasts on the radar of the social elite. Iris now belonged to the cool kids.

Yet the Goo Goo Dolls are so much more than that. They are Burnin' Up, the Only One and Ain't That Unusual. They are a Long Way Down, Bullet Proof and my January Friend. They are Jed and Superstar Car Wash. They are What I Learned About Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce.

And they are Acoustic #3 - a track I was genuinely disappointed did not make the final cut; special for its deeply emotive lyrics and atypical song structure - three verses, no bridge, no chorus and no extended break. To quote one commentator on the YouTube listing - it's "the best Goo Goo Dolls song you never heard".

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Almost human, but I'll never be the same

Despite missing a few of my personal favourites, it was an unbelievable night of incredible music that triggered visceral memories spanning over a decade, while creating equally potent new ones. The epic guitar riffs and heartbreaking ballades, the spectacular light show and crisp sound, laid bare in arguably Cape Town's most picturesque venue - an all-round tight and well-organised production.

And all this lead me back to a path I didn't realised I'd wandered off many years ago, reigniting my love for the Goo Goo Dolls and reminding me to brush up on my education - with several albums waiting to do just that.