Alex Sudheim
Though it only turned 10 this year, Splashy Fen is in the advanced stages of a mid-life crisis. As a person approaching their twilight years often chooses between growing old gracefully or disgracefully, so must one of South Africa’s largest music festivals decide whether to embrace the recklessness of youth or the quiet dignity of old age.
Unfortunately, as was proved by this year’s event, Splashy Fen seems to have opted for the latter route. Though this means a return to Splashy’s roots as a family- friendly folk music festival, the organisers have chosen to largely disregard the youthful nature of their constituency of supporters.
Ten years ago, when Underberg farm owner Peter Ferraz decided to turn his land into a rustic celebration of acoustic folk music, Splashy Fen had a rough and ready rural charm, providing sweet relief for urban hippies with big-city blues. The back-to-nature brigade instantly adopted the event as an annual pilgrimage site, and for a while it remained the exclusive domain of folkies, new-agers and Woodstock refugees.
However, over time the audience profile gradually changed, with Splashy Fen becoming an ever-more popular destination among a youthful crowd more keen on a three-day debauchery than communion with mother nature. This trend was reflected in last year’s event, with Splashy Fen for the first time headlining with popular rock acts Just Jinger, Henry Ate, Fetish and Boo!, attracting record crowds of over 10 000 people.
But in 1999 the festival took a few steps back, filling the night-time slots with overwhelmingly mediocre soft-rock outfits while relegating Fetish and the adrenalin- rushing Trans.Sky to early daytime performances.
Despite the blazing sunshine, the necromantic power of Fetish still awed, but one had to wonder why this meant the nights were filled with the bland monotony of a plethora of coy easy-listeners such as Wendy Oldfield, Famous Curtain Trick, Caffeine Substitute, Heather Mac and Ichabod.
The unimpressive Ichabod had never played a live gig in their lives before, yet were awarded a prime-time Friday night slot, while Heather Mac – certainly no household name to anyone under 40 – was given plum position on Saturday night and performed her dated funk- rock to an indifferent audience. Spying me scribbling in my notebook, a woman standing next to me was prompted to remark harshly: “This has set South African music back 15 years”.
Only at about 11pm on Saturday, with the arrival of The Honeymoon Suites did the crowd start to let off some steam. Boo! and THC completed the night’s line-up, making for the only stretch of nocturnal music with a vigorous pulse during the entire festival. (Even the much-vaunted Sugardrive managed to sound like Crowded House on Friday, failing to save the night from mediocrity.)
THC’s live spectacle was a massive collision of trance, metal and tribal music with daredevil pyromania and a nightmare creature escaped from Marilyn Manson’s Beautiful People video. All very impressive until members of the troupe launch into embarrassing soap-box oratory about the planet-saving qualities of hemp and how evil corporations unscrupulously rape the earth’s treasures. (Ironically followed by the incineration of several litres of fossil fuel.) (See accompanying article.)
But, in the main, if the 35 armed and uniformed members of the South African Police Service’s high risk unit were keen to arrest anyone for loitering with intent to listen to powerful music, they could never have made the charges stick. For, with all due respect to Landscape Prayers, they’re not exactly what the young, dumb and tanked-up masses want to get their rocks off to on a Saturday night.
If Splashy Fen wants to stubbornly remain a cute and cuddly folk festival committed to wholesome family values while discouraging the attendance of degenerate drug and alcohol-abusing rock fans (come to think of it, even the green-fingered hippies were alarmed by the formidable police presence), they should be explicit about it and not languish in an identity crisis that only confuses themselves and everyone else.