Friday night
Matthew van der Want
`I have numerous talents, but bringing back life to the dead is not one of them”. That’s what Professor Sherman no doubt still says to his Wits English students and it’s what I’m left thinking about the audience we play to in the middle of Friday afternoon on a stage with the word “bamboo” in its title. As we come off the Splashy Fen daytime stage, a pimply young man with an “All Access” badge pours us beers from a large, silver bucket.
An hour later, I’m asked to leave the backstage area. The bucket is all but empty and I’m abusing my privileges, I’m told. I head for the beer tent and make it there just as a cloud bursts and floods Splashy Fen.
A strong wind carries a flysheet, reportedly belonging to a band called THC, over the main marquee.
The beer tent is full of bitter musicians complaining about the event organisers’ alleged nepotism. It seems that many of the sought-after marquee slots have been given to young, unknown bands who have more than a passing acquaintance with a powerful somebody called Pedro.
Barney Simon is there too, buying the bitter musicians beer. I have discovered that one of the bartenders is mistakenly selling Old Brown sherry in 500 millilitre containers at R4 a throw.
Someone is passing round the Splashy Fen 10 Year Commemorative CD. My name is spelt wrongly on the cover. I’m in a conversation that I don’t want to be in with Fetish’s guitarist about whether or not music made with commercial success in mind can ever be good.
A feeling of appalling loneliness overcomes me and, because it’s stopped raining, I make for the “VIP Tent”. Here are iceboxes laden with the sponsor’s product and a handful of very drunk important people. Here’s Chris Letcher too and I greet him over-friendlily as if I haven’t seen him in years.
There’s a blank patch for a couple of hours. The next thing I know is I’m standing with Chris backstage watching Sugardrive. We seem to have hatched a plan to walk onto the stage and push their drummer over. We’ve got as far as telling Dave the stage manager that we’ve been invited by Sugardrive to do backing vocals on the next song. I stumble up some stairs and walk onto the stage.
My nerves fail me completely and I just stand there for a moment before launching into some interpretative dancing manoeuvres. Within 20 seconds, I’m being coaxed off the stage by a bouncer who is so gentle with me that I’m sure that he understands where I’m at.
Nobody in the musicians’ campsite can sleep. A herd of cows has escaped from their pasture and is wandering between the tents mooing loudly. My throat is so dry and the two very bitter sleeping pills I took without water are stuck in my trachea.
People are howling at the full moon. “I swear I’ll never come back here” is something I remember saying to Chris at last year’s Splashy Fen. I lean over a bulging sleeping bag which I assume to be him and say it again.
Matthew van der Want is a musician and professional shit stirrer