All my days

Where to camp?

A while ago I read Where The Music Never Stops: A Sobering Account Of Festival Culture by Joey Power on Thought Catalog, and damnit, I should have heeded his words, but still I went. Where? To Mieliepop festival in Lothair, near the Swaziland border. A friend asked me along because he had a free ticket. After the interesting experience that was Rocking the Daisies, I said yes, although somehow I knew I maybe shouldn't have. Ah. The morning of departure I told my mother that I hate camping, I hate not being able to sleep on that useless excuse for an inflatable camping mattress, I hate the sleeping bag, I hate having to schlep everything around, I hate pitching the tent, I hate always being either too cold or too hot, I hate the portable toilets and 5 minute cold showers. Basically, I hate everything about festivals. Except for the music. The music is what makes me forget all the hates and say 'yes' again, every time.

The whole thing didn't start out well. We left an hour and a half later than we should have, I didn't know the people we were driving with, and all in all I was just being insecure about the next three days. Like Joey Power, I kind of felt as though "I'd probably rather get blowfish poisoning than ever go to one of these things again". Which is not the ideal attitude.

So after a few hours of rock/metal blasting at us, we arrive and pitch the tents, but the wind is howling and it looks like paragliders readying for take-off. I get irritated at the other girl who embraces the stereotype of female helplessness. She didn't want to touch the tent cover because it was filthy, she couldn't stomach the sight of raw meat but was fine with it cooked, and she brought a suitcase. Maybe I need more girly friends to appreciate playing the damsel.

The Uriah Heep singer's boots. Hello!

But the bands that played more than made up for my negativity. I thought Uriah Heep was this group of old men who occasionally escape from the home in order to shuffle around on stage whilst  dancing to some pre-recorded track from the 70s. I was wrong. Terribly wrong. Uriah Heep was without a doubt the most fun band there, because of how much their music rocked and because they looked so kind (And those boots!). I just wanted to sit down for a cup of tea with them afterwards and ask them which one would like to be my substitute grandfather.

Their guitarist, Mick Box, made these fluttering movements with his right hand in between using his guitar like I imagine it sounds when I air-guitar. And now for his website's name: heepstermusic. Ba ha ha ha. Heepster. He has this little blog going, and he wrote about coming to SA and bla bla, but the best part was: "Walking around the site it felt like a sort of ‘Hippy,’ festival, just like the old days. There were however some really good bands, and a couple of those that I really enjoyed listening to in my room were, 'The Tidal Waves,' and 'Dan Patlansky'".

Dan Patlansky moves too much for my camera not to make him look blurrily evil.

Patlansky was supposed to play before Uriah Heep, but somehow the schedule was a few hours late, so he played a short set after them. Most people had left, so it was great standing in the front row and not being pushed constantly by other people. Also, one of the guys in our camp site somehow managed to get one of those white patio chairs and passed out, right there. So he missed the entire performance although he had the best, and only, seat.

Other bands that I had never heard of but that were worth a listen were Naming James, Chiba Fly, The Aidan Martin Band and the Smoking Mojos. Jeremy Loops, whose performance at Daisies was not that great, was outstanding here. Maybe it helps to play in the dark, because by then people have gotten up from lounging on the grass all day and a nice little bunched up crowd develops in front of the stage, instead of being dispersed into diasporic groups.

I could edit that for you, Mieliepop.

Overall, the venue itself is really beautiful and because there were only about 1500 people (compared to I think 18 000 at Koppi), the atmosphere was very relaxed. One never had to queue for showers or toilets (although I managed to always have to shower in ice cold water). It was a good festival. Suggestions for next time? To be there earlier or to get someone to save you a spot next to the river, then you don't have to sleep at an incline. And for the organisers to put up the line-up somewhere, or to have flyers with the line-up on, or to make it available online before the festival in a nice little jpeg or pdf. They only had this hand-drawn board next to the stage which was pretty useless.

If you feel like an Afrikaans review of the festival where everything is described as 'befok', look to Wat kyk jy's article.

Tidal Waves (?)

I heard the party's here

And I'm back.
Joh.
I previously stated that roadtripping to Rocking the Daisies could be at either end of extremes: awful or awesome. Maybe it was a bit of both, a bit of loneliness and fun and happiness and depression and incomprehension strewn in between just to mix it up. Maybe it was better this way.

When going to Koppi, I remember groups of people, camping together; making a fire; chilling in front of the stages and enjoying the music; and, partying at night together. The camp site there is an important place, since it is where you spend half of the time. Also, it is not unusual to just pitch up at some stranger's camp site, be offered a drink and make new friends. Oppikoppi is gezellig.

By comparison, RtD is not. Since it purports to be some kind of hippie-hipster-eco-festival, camping and cars are kept separate, and no glass is allowed in. Also no fires are allowed. Therefore, there is no reason to have a camp site to chill at, and the tents are just pitched at random. At Koppi you try to get a few trees, here you don't give a f*ck since you'll probably just be sleeping there. What neighbours? What sharing a beer? Not these cool kids.

Shock number two came after queuing for two hours to shower for a full five minutes. To me, showering at festivals is nice, but it is optional. You are there for the music, not to make sure you look your best. Again I was very wrong. These girls have ghd-straighteners and hair dryers. They also don't leave the shower-tent without putting on their made-up face. And I'm not talking just some mascara here. Hells no.

The outfits are also worth mentioning. I am used to taking semi-old clothes so that if something happens I don't mind throwing them away. Ahhhhhhhhh non. All these girls appear to be in dire need of nourishment, and they all wear their mother's high waisted jeans, but cut off just short enough to show the rounding of the gluteus maximus. The crop top, angle boots and large hats were also a staple. The gentlemen all looked like they weren't trying to look cool but that they were secretly spending quite some time on getting their hair looking just messy enough. The boys I went with spent more time in the bathroom getting ready than I did.

I mean, this is not necessarily a negative thing, but I felt as though at RtD the festival is a constant fashion show, and that music is just something happening in the background. Except for when Bloc Party played. They are INTERNATIONAL, after all. Rocking the Daisies was somewhat of a disappointment. No one seemed to respect the local bands, like the Dirty Bounce Collaboration (with Mr Cat and the Jackal contributing members), Machineri or even hip-star of the moment, Jeremy Loops. This festival felt as though it was more important to be seen, to tell others afterwards "Ja, bru, sorry I missed you at Daisies, hey, Ja, it was awesome", to have been there without really caring about any band past Bloc Party.

A festival is definitely not the place to be lonely. At Koppi, even when I went only with my friend Sliv, there were always others around to go party with, there were always random people that were willing to meet new people and just have a good time. Here, the cliques were already established, and no one new was cool enough to break into the established order of coolness. The Capetonians were constantly remoulding themselves to be more avant garde, more advanced, more hipstamatic than even the app. Me? I was stuck, rigid, a piece of unwanted, a Nokia 3310 in a sea of iPhone 5s.

Perhaps it is my own fault. I was pretty pissed (not the drunk pissed, the pissed off one) because my homeboys had their own agendas for the festival, which is fine. But it wasn't my fault that things had changed, that the original party was not going, and after three days of being supportive and understanding and adapting to other ways of doing things I just felt a bit die moer in.  If I could try to be understanding, so should they. On Saturday we had a tent-round-table, and sorted it out, which was great, since after that the last night of RtD was quite fun despite the rain and the cold. Nothing a bit of Havana Rum and freshly squeezed orange juice can't fix, hey.

The roadtrip, the Daisies, it was all an experience, neither best nor worst. Like gezellig, I am trying to find that one word to describe the festival, the one that will capture its essence. Beautiful? Eco? Different? I'll settle on oppervlakkig.