Rocking the Daisies
2012 was cold. And rainy. So cold and rainy, in fact, that I skipped the 2013
festival because the extremities that I’d almost lost to frostbite had not
quite recovered. So it was with a mix of trepidation and downright excitement
that I headed off to RTD 2014.
It must be said
that Rocking the Daisies is very loosely termed a ‘music festival’. It is, in
fact, a three-day-long party, with some interspersed music and nightly pass-out
sessions in tents. As one person put it “I’ve been to nine festivals and only
seen about three bands.” Yes, music is optional, but far more important is the
‘vibe’ or ‘gees’ if you will.
Frustratingly,
festival go-ers were met with a shocking queue to enter the festival. Yes, for
security reasons it’s great that IDs were checked, but the organizers needed to
the strong possibility that huge crowds were going to arrive on Friday
afternoon. Standing in a two hour queue in the howling wind whilst carting
around all your bedding and supplies for two days is far from ideal, and by 8pm
on Friday night instead of listening to Jeremy Loops serenade me with ‘Down
South’, I was listening to the guy behind me in the queue pull a “How you
doin’?” whilst opening his 42nd can of beer.
Inside the arena,
however, the party was in full swing. With Taxi Violence having just finished
up their set, an excitable George van der Spuy was to be found in the beer
tent, smiling for photos with fans. “Did you enjoy the show?” Yes, of course we
did.
Sticking with
legends of local rock, Francois van Coke and Arno Carstens were joined by the
likes of guitarist Albert Frost and Jason Ling of Taxi Violence for a set that
went down a storm with the fans. Even the most English of English people were
to be found singing along to every word of van Coke’s Afrikaans songs, whilst
Carsten’s ‘Another Universe’ received what was perhaps the loudest crowd
reaction of the entire night. Over on the other side of things, the Electro
Dome proved popular - perhaps because it offered a brief reprieve from the wind
– but was overcrowded and stuffy before long.
Friday night’s
chilly weather gave way to burning heat on Saturday, meaning that a swim in the
dam was a priority for many people. When a slight wind picked up, this was
certainly the best place to be, and with the sounds of GoodLuck emanating from
the Beach Bar stage, it offered the perfect balance between relaxed beach
vibes, and the excitement of a festival.
Over in the Lemon
Tree theatre, comedian Rob van Vuuren had the crowd in stitches with his brand of
humour that somehow finds the balance between slightly crude and squeaky clean
humour. “What’s the only thing more pretentious than a cat person? An effing
cat!” He cried, to uproarious laughter. His comments about the demographics of the
festival were also on point: “If there’s Ebola in the dam, Constantia will be
littered with corpses on Monday morning.”
Out of every
festival that I have ever been to, RTD 2014 wins hands down when it comes to
food. From outlets of popular Cape Town chains including Knead and Hudsons, to
an array of noodles, curries and vegetarian options, there really was something
for every taste. And with a whole truck filled with different kinds of teas,
the hipsters went wild. As water was not sold at all on site, there were apparently
nine water points scattered throughout the festival, but the lines for these
were long, resulting in one particularly un-PC comment of “Welcome to the
holocaust, where you have to queue for your water rations!” (“He’s German, it’s
okay.” His friend assured me.)
As Saturday
progressed, the mercury continued to rise, along with the spirits of the rugby
fans. Whilst sitting in a boiling hot tent with a thousand or so other boytjies
might not be everyone’s cup of proverbial tea, there’s no denying the goosebumps
that shot up the arms of every single human being in the beer tent when
everyone rose simultaneously to sing our national anthem before the Bokke took
to the field. And two hours later, they had cause to celebrate as our team
pulled off a spectacular win.
One person who was
not so impressed with the rugby situation was Ard Matthews. Relegated to a Main
Stage slot in the middle of the rugby match, the Just Jinjer frontman commented
that he wasn’t that popular in the Springbok camp (a reference to his botched
rendition of the national anthem a while back). Whether it was a light-hearted
comment or a cutting jibe, I wasn’t sure, but the man’s musical talent is
indisputable. From the slowed down ‘Shallow Waters’ to a cover of Rodriguez’s
hit ‘Sugar Man’ (with a lot of sweet Mary-Jane in the air…) no one in
this crowd gave a damn about the rugby.
The sun had set and
the chilly wind had returned by the time the international acts were ready for
the Main Stage. Crystal Fighters pulled off a brilliant set, with their unique
dance-rock style combining with their eccentric dress and stage presence for a
show unlike anything Daisies has seen before. Even after the death of drummer
Andrea Marongui just three weeks ago, the band elected not to pull out of the
festival, and the thousands who gathered for their set were nothing but
appreciative. My personal highlight was the insanely catchy ‘LA Calling’, and
the band definitely have one new fan in Cape Town.
And then came MGMT.
The band that rocked the commercial music scene back in 2009, when ‘Kids’ was
topping the charts and making every human being feel 10 times cooler every time
they listened to it. The band that created ‘Electric Feel’, a song that is best
described by one word only: “sexy”. This was the band that everyone had been
waiting to see – and they killed it. And
by ‘it’ I mean the vibe. Although their trippy, hallucination-style background
graphics were cool for the first 10 minutes, they got boring, and with almost
zero crowd interaction, combined with a complete lack of stage presence, the
band quickly lost the audience’s attention. Even during ‘Kids’, a two-minute
instrumental in the middle of the song made everyone who had jumped up in
excitement sit straight back down again. But hey, ‘Electric Feel’ was great, so
who am I to complain?
Late Sunday morning
saw hoards of hot, sweaty, hungover campers attempting to disassemble the mess
that had become their campsite, leaving masses of trash in their wake. The 34
degree heat had resulted in much dehydration, and after trying to barter Marie
biscuits for any drops of H2O, the campers gave up and retired to their cars
for the long drive back. At the Engen One-Stop outside of Malmesbury, hoards of
dusty campers were to be seen dashing for the fridges as though they had been
competing in Survivor for the past month.
And so I arrived
home to my temperate house; my soft, warm bed; my water-stocked refrigerator;
my shower; my cat. Why, you may ask, would I ever want to go to Rocking the
Daisies again? Well, after all I experienced this weekend, why wouldn’t I? I
wouldn’t have traded the heat, the dust and the drunk campers for all the cold
water in the world. Because festivals are, of course, about the vibe, and
that’s something Rocking the Daisies sure didn’t lack.
Original review also published on www.whatsonincapetown.com.
Media clearance via What's On In Cape Town
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