Bittereinder: 10 Facts You May Not Have Known

Bittereinder has always been one of my favorite live acts. I had the privilege of seeing them performing numerous times at venues like Arcade Empire, Aandklas Hatfield and Hatfield Square and at music festivals like Park Acoustics, Oppikoppi, Synergy Live and RAMFest.

Their best live set has to be their first set at Oppikoppi Unknown Brother in 2011. They rowded up 8,000 bouncing fans and anyone that was there will agree that that was one of the highlights of that year’s festival.

I’ve been following them since late 2010, so yes, I’m a huge fan. If you’ve never of them before, you’re probably curious to find out more about this Afrikaans Electro Act, so today I’m going to do a solid.

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Here 10 things you might not have known about Bittereinder

1. All three members of Bittereinder hail from Pretoria, South Africa.

2. The members of this Afrikaans Electro act are Jaco Van Der Merwe (also known as “Jakkals”), Peach van Pletzen (also known as “Perske”) and Louis Minnaar (also known as “Leeu”).

3. They’ve done colabs with Jack Parow, Chris Chameleon, Tumi Molekane, Richard Brokensha (of Isochronous fame), Tim Beumers (from the Netherlands), Shane Durant (from Desmond and the Tutus) and Inge Beeckman (of LARK fame).

4. Some Pretorians had their hands in the air when they referred to Pretoria as “Kerkorrel se Snor City” in their song “Tale of 3 Cities”. The Snor City term was first coined by Afrikaans artist Bernoldus Niemand (aka James Phillips). Subsequently Bittereinder have been correcting this bit during their live shows.

Bittereinder have released their fair share of records over the years…

5. They released their debut album ‘n Ware Verhaal” in October 2010. They also released Die Dinkdansmasjien (in 2012), Skerm (in 2014) and Dans Tot Die Dood (in 2015). In late 2017 they released a new single entitled “Donker Wolk”.

6. To my knowledge, the full version of their song “A Tale of 3 Cities” has only been performed live twice with all the artists that sing the song on the album.

7. Bittereinder performed at the Lowlands festival in the Netherlands in 2011. More than 80,000 people attended the festival. They attracted a huge crowd in a tent.

8. To date they’ve won 2 SAMAs (South African Music Awards). They’ve also received 7 MK Awards nominations and 3 Tempo nominations. Bittereinder has also won the Rekord Best Band Award twice.

9. Bittereinder was formed early in 2009. Before this Jaco was rapping under the name “Ajax” and Peach brought us Yesterday’s Pupil and Oorlog Frankenstein (a side project with Francois Van Coke). Louis Minnaar is one of South Africa’s most-prominent visual designers.

10. In August 2013 Bittereinder was featured prominently on a CNN show called “Inside Africa”. The episode was about cultural diversity in South Africa and focused on Pretoria. The episode featured clips from their live shows, music videos and an in-depth interview with Jaco.

For those of you who are still in the dark, check out the video below featuring Bittereinder on MK Studio 1 featuring a performance of their song “Almanak”:

Remember, feedback is appreciated and welcome here. So, if you have a fact that you would like to share about Bittereinder, feel free to do so.

Watch this space for regular updates in the Music category on Running Wolf’s Rant.