Fans may have begun to feel that they were robbed when, for the umpteenth time, during what turned out to be a brief performance, Mlindo the Vocalist stopped the music and threatened to stop performing if those in the packed general section did not stop pushing the barrier that stood between him and a frenzied crowd at BAC Leisure.

It was not, by any means, the young talented South African musician’s fault that the organisers of the Big Tent Experience on Saturday night underestimated the force of fans – many of them high on both adrenaline and intoxicants in those early hours of a new day.

Mlindo is one of the hottest properties in South African music at the moment and when he grabbed the microphone after midnight, it showed, as screaming fans threatened to collapse the feeble steel barrier that separated him from those that had paid a cool R100 to see him perform.

In fact, most of what went wrong on the night could not be blamed on the young artiste from Port Sheptone, KwaZulu-Natal. It was almost a given that Mlindo would attract a young, energetic and sometimes rowdy crowd and one would have expected better security on the night. However, when Mlindo came on stage, the world suddenly turned upside down, and as fists started flying in the front row, it became clear that the security on the night was less than adequate.

It was indeed a sad sight to see some of the city’s prominent figures in the world of showbiz turn into makeshift security personnel as they took it upon themselves to make sure the fence did not collapse. It would have led to a tragic and costly stampede.

An even sadder sight was a pleading Mlindo who had to repeatedly beg fans to stop pushing after every song performance. Those in the VIP and VVIP section, who paid R200 and R300 respectively, were perhaps the most aggrieved on the night. Those in the VIP section had to contend with catching a glimpse of the man who they had paid scarce foreign currency for as their view was obscured by those that thronged the general section.

Those in the VVIP section also did not seem to have the best seats in the house either despite paying a small fortune to see an artiste who has multitudes eating from the palm of his hand after only one album release. The VVIP section was situated almost behind the stage, an oversight that seemed to have escaped the organisers when the gig was planned.

However, despite the many blemishes that deserved to be blamed on the organisers, Mlindo himself put up a below par performance which seemed to last barely 30 minutes and was filled with endless interruptions. For a man called the vocalist, Mlindo seemed to have forgotten his famed vocals at home as he lip synced his way through a forgettable performance that served as a reminder that he is still relatively wet behind the ears in the world of showbiz.