Splashy Fen festival (Underberg, South Africa).
5 April 2007.

We hit Splashy SO HARD!

First of all I suggest that you read Super eM’s Splashy blog. Hers is much better than mine. Also check out festivals.co.za for some rad comments.

For a number of reasons Splashy is one of my favourite South African festivals:
>> It’s in KZN so all my old school mates are usually there
>> The setting is beautiful, not much beats swimming in the river
>> It is usually wet and muddy which adds to the chaos
>> It’s small enough to wander off without losing your friends for too long

The music, however, is never the main attraction for me… at first. Splashy Fen doesn’t feature all the biggest bands in the country. Instead they bring in a few big names and then focus on a lot of really cool up and coming bands. I always walk away from the festival having discovered someone new and exciting. The Splashy line-up is always dominated by KZN bands, which works well for me to discover artists that I wouldn’t have the chance to see otherwise.

This year’s award for ‘best band I’ve never seen’ goes to The Living Alarm. This ska-punk band blew me away. I didn’t get to see too many other new artists but Go! Go! Bronco was also pretty impressive.

This year I bought my ticket for Splashy Fen and thus felt no compulsion to ‘work’ by taking photos of bands (plus I didn’t have a press pass). Thus most of the weekend was spent in an inebriated stupor.

We caught the Splashy Bus (organised by festivals.co.za) on Thursday night. We were supposed to leave at 9pm on a luxury bus. We hit the road at 10:45 on one of those crappy school bus items. That coach company will certainly never be used by festivals.co.za again!

English Dave & I found the easiest way to avoid uncomfortable sleep by drinking throughout the night. There were some very unhappy people on that bus! We arrived in the early hours of Friday morning and I was not a happy camper. Fortunately my oldest mate Craig made a surprise guest appearance with his massive tent. I napped thru some serious abuse but eventually got back into the swing of things.

The weekend was dominated by 7am bongs, serious drinking and muddy madness. I spent the entire weekend in my red overall and afro, at the best of times Rama-Phuza the pink dolphin was strapped to my back! There were lots of jokes about Big Willy’s massive knob (although it’s no laughing matter). There was dry humping SO HARD! Spooning SO HARD! Completely senseless references to “your mom” and ongoing screams of “where’s the ice cream!”

Rama-Phuza the inflatable dolphin was such a trooper. She beat the crap out of someone who later stabbed her with his keys. A bit of insulation tape and she was rocking out to the New Academics. Security didn’t think she deserved to have that much fun so they had her locked down before two skanks claimed her and ran away with her.

A few more comments on the music:

New Academics – Absolutely the highlight of the festival! The boys funk-rocked out SO HARD! They were on between Chris Chameleon and Lark, certainly a challenging spot to fill. They stepped up to the plate and the post-Chris-crowd that had started to disperse was quickly regenerated, and they loved it!

Harris Tweed – I haven’t seen the tweedies live in a while. Their recent trip to SXSW has clearly helped them up the game. They put on a very slick performance which was more upbeat than usual, allowing the crowd to bum-shake a little. My only complaint was the drunk in the crowd wearing a red overall & afro with a dolphin who kept screaming “I love you Cheri!”

Chris Chameleon – I loved Boo! I was the first person to interview Chris after the break-up. He played two acoustic songs on my show back then and they rocked. Then he did the 7de Laan thing and I lost all interest. He is charismatic and entertaining but apart from a few songs the show was boring.

Bed on Bricks – Amazing as always! I was a bit bleak that they didn’t play “Fuck on the Radio”, but the irony entertained me. There was a no swearing policy and the song is a protest against censorship… a protest that was censored into silence!

I am bummed that I missed the City Bowl Mizers and Habit To, was really looking forward to those two.

Okay I’m done!