First off, Oppikoppi was one INSANE weekend, as always! This was only my second Oppi, but this one was certainly an improvement on my first one. As always, everyone has a few highlights that plays off in your head till a few weeks after Oppi, even if everything was one big highlight. My highlights, Wolfmother and Editors, WOW! Springbok Nude Girls performing with Francois van Coke, aKing performing with Francois van Coke, Shortstraw, Wrestlerish performing for the last time ever and giving me the last ever CD at a live show, Van Coke Kartel, Dan Patlansky and Albert Frost performing as the sun set over the Oppikoppi farm, an un-expecting absolutely epic show from a relatively unknown show from Durban band Black Math, PHFat, and Mr Cat and the Jackal doing Where’s my shoe and the whole crowd singing along with one shoe in hand!
We arrived the Wednesday morning, grabbed a drink and sat under a huge umbrella and decided when the tents will be pitched. After 5 drinks we eventually gathered enough energy to at least take the tents out of the car. One tent was pitched and we were back to drinking instead of pitching the remaining 3 tents. We eventually finished the pitching of the tents at around 3. The weekend was about to begin!
On the Thursday MK made a big appearance with a Trojan horse, which my friend decided to call “Die bons perd”, that was built on the back of a truck and a DJ popping out on top of it with some pretty loud tunes very early in the morning, while I was still trying to sleep. The day continued with shows from the likes of Wrestlerish, Boargazm, Dead lucky, Newtown Knife Gang and Bittereinder, with some early morning camp fire chats and cod beers from our neighbours who always happen to have mountains of ice with them.
Friday morning I slept till about 10 am and being woken up by my camp mates drinking and singing Fokofpolisiekar tunes. I got up and was immediately handed a drink, things just went downhill from there, I ended up sleeping it off and waking up halfway through Matthew Mole’s set, but at least I didn’t miss anything. Friday brought shows from Matthew Mole, Taxi Violence, Zebra and Giraffe, Gangs of Ballet, Springbok Nude Girls and Van Coke Kartel. If you know me in any way, you would know how much I love Van Coke Kartel and Fokofpolisiekar, and it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen them live or how many times Francois van Coke and the rest of the band has greeted you, it doesn’t get old that they know who you are and greeting you from the stage during sound check or that infamous finger pointing of recognition during the show. Springbok Nude Girls was up next on the James Phillips stage for a very rare performance that every South African music fan dreams about. The always entertaining Nude Girls decided to do their show in dresses, yes, dresses! I rocked my face off while I sang along to every song! PHFat ended off the night with one of the best sets at this year’s Oppikoppi.
Saturday morning was a rough one, I felt like I drank all the beer at the Windhoek tent, ran a marathon and then being hit by a bus right at the end but I powered through and got up, there are very few things a cup of coffee cannot fix in the morning. The day has come, the day I have been looking forward to since the start of Oppikoppi, the day I would get to see Editors and Wolfmother! We went up just before the Hugh Masekela tribute show, got a burger from the always trusting Burger Express and headed to the stage to watch the tribute show, we found a matrass that looked like it asked me to come and sit on it, so I didn’t argue at all, ate my “The Legend” burger and washed it down with an ice cold Red Bull since I still had quite a few hours of photo taking ahead of me till the end of the night. After the tribute show it was time for Dan Patlansky and Albert Frost to take the last sun set at Oppi to a next rocking level with a face melting performance that blew my mind completely! The talent between the 2 of them is simply put, amazing!
Shortstraw, with their catchy and always popular tunes had the crowd singing along for the full hour. There were enough people there to fill a stadium. aKing saw that the South African rock fans sang along to every song and as always, they had an epic set! Up next was one of the bands I was most looking forward to seeing this year, Editors! They did not disappoint! Even though I wasn’t allowed to photograph them, I had the best time in the crowd, apart from the girl standing in front of me doing these weird stripper moves and dry humping me every chance she got and saying that I should stop dry humping her, I REALLY hope I, or anyone else for that matter, ever has to stand behind you at any show again. Congratulations, you were THAT girl. Wolfmother was up nest on the Dome Stage, I decided to skip Rival Sons to keep my spot right in front to see Wolfmother, one of my all-time favourite bands. I was surprised with a lot of boobs everywhere, it definitely made up for the lack of boobs in the Naked run this year.
It felt like I walked about 100 km’s in a 1 square km festival taking photos of most of the bands, I had way too much to drink, smoked too much, bathed too little, but as always, it was all worth it at the end! Once again, thank you to the very cool people, doesn’t matter what you think, they are very cool people, for the opportunity! We’ll do it again next year.
For all you people who missed Van Coke Kartel at Oppikoppi for some absurd reason, you have a 2nd chance to see them, Fokofpolisiekar and Francois van Coke live in the next month, details to follow soon.
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