Mud, queues, bursting bladder, rumbling stomach, queues. Aarghh! No toilet paper!
A beer would be good, but if I stand in another queue for two hours I might miss the reason I came: the band. That big, famous band that leads us to endure forms of torture not yet outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
I mean, no one enjoys the queues at Sars. But bring over that famous band and South Africans are a little more likely to soldier on and suffer for their kicks.
The 5fm Coca-Cola Colab Massive Mix concert two years ago was a case in point. You know, the one where Metallica played? I haven’t met anyone who wasn’t appalled by the hostile conditions, starting with almost non-existent access to refreshments and amenities.
Hours and hours in snaking lines under a baking sun just to get a warm soft drink. Or food. Worse, you’re wandering about on your own, no idea where your friends are, dehydrated, starving, spirit crushed. But concert foot soldiers never die —
On the bright side, you might save some money by never getting to the front of the refreshment line and spending most of your personal concert experience being bounced from counter to counter like an ID-book applicant at home affairs. You have, after all, already spent a couple of hundred rand for the joy of getting into the venue, inch by centimetre.
But the band, they’re what makes the difference. It was worth it to see Metallica, we all said afterwards.
Last weekend’s My Coke Fest at Newmarket racecourse was much the same. Says a colleague who attended the 65 000-strong super concert: ”Came back all dirty and dusted. Queued for an hour to get beer. Overflowing toilets. Sore legs. Aching back. Ruined hiking boots. Mud up to my arms. All in the name of rock’n’roll.”
And those concert toilets? We fest-vets have become experts in extreme toilet-going.
A photographer covering My Coke Fest was overjoyed to find the media had access to the VIP toilets (a perk of the job) ”until Paris Hilton arrived with her entourage and we were banned … Maybe the organisers thought we’d follow her into the loo and try to take pictures.”
Music festivals over several days bring their own hardships.
Queues are not generally an issue and you can take along your own provisions. But as the harsh light of reality bursts through the clouded hangover after days of loud music, little sleep and erratic eating arrangements, you know you’ve been to war. You look around. Your clothes are filthy, your head is thumping, your mouth is dry; the creature comforts of home are calling.
Nothing brings this into starker focus than Oppikoppi in Limpopo. Dusty surrounds, menacing thorn trees, hundreds of cars forming mini-camps, broiling days, Siberian nights, drunken revellers setting up spontaneous ”booze-blocks”.
You peep your tender head out of the tent in the morning (if you found your tent) and the campsite looks like a mini-battlefield.
People leave the festival with the biggest PJD (post-jol depression) known to humankind. Nothing a bucket of KFC and a few Creme Sodas can’t fix, though. And you know what? It was fun, everyone will tell you, well worth it.
Another colleague, a Splashy Fen vet (11 tours of duty), spoke of his most recent experience at the annual four-day jol in the Drakensberg. The start of the festival was ”hideous”, with 110mm of rain causing four-hour delays for cars trying to make their way to the entrance through churning mud. Some people simply abandoned their vehicles in the goo and went off on foot to set up camp.
But when the clouds cleared, the beauty of those spectacular mountains reanimated the survivors. Some even discovered what my colleague calls the ”solidarity” of never-say-die festival-goers. Decorated veterans wouldn’t change such adversity for a world of golden circles.
We wear our hangovers, torn pants, cut hands and mud-stained shoes like medals. On leaving the festival we swear: never again. But a year later, when the bands sound the call to arms, it’s back to the trenches.