Mail & Guardian reporters give the lowdown on their festival highlights
Fifteen thousand people getting wild and woolly in the veld is not a pretty sight, but, goddamn, it is a beautiful experience.
For the first time in Oppikoppi’s 16-year history, the festival sold out and the masses descended on the patch of earth that was set aside for camping.
By day three the camping area resembled something closer to Mordor from Lord of the Rings.
The walking wounded were plentiful, the beer and brandy were flowing thick and fast and everything was covered in red hazy dust.
Punters stumbled around in all kinds of costumes, from Superman outfits to full-body chicken suits, with Carel Hoffmann, the festival organiser, even dressing up as a four-leaf clover on the last day.
The bands were plentiful, some rocked and some were truly awful, but everybody was having fun, celebrating the ability to let it all hang out for three days in the middle of nowhere.
When we — the Mail & Guardian‘s Oppikoppi-going staff members — returned to our desks this week with that brain-dead look in our eyes, our colleagues looked us up and down, wondering aloud why we put ourselves through this Oppikoppi experience every year.
But that’s only because they’ve never experienced it and if they had they would have been riding shotgun the previous Friday, ready to crank out their chicken suits and get messy all over again. — Lloyd Gedye
Gemma and The Fonz
By Saturday afternoon at Oppikoppi things had already become messy.
Gemma
Those who had started to drink when they woke up were now going weak at the knees, and others found a place to curl up in the shade for some shut-eye.
So it was a welcome treat when two international solo artists, British rockabilly guitar queen Gemma Ray and Dutch folk singer Lucky Fonz III, took to the Levis stage for two magnificent sets of laid-back rock ‘n roll.
The Fonz
Sitting under the trees watching these two amazing singer-songwriters was a real treat. Make sure you catch them on their national tours in the next few weeks. — Lloyd Gedye
Disco Dave
Without a doubt, the highlight of my festival was Disco Dave. Our first encounter with him was just outside Northam, the closest town to the Oppikoppi farm. Dave was dressed in a full black-and-gold disco bodysuit with a cape and was hurtling along to Oppikoppi on a gold scooter.
Disco Dave
Numerous other sightings followed, including his guest appearance on stage with Dutch electro-rock outfit C-Mon & Kypski and the time we caught him stumbling along the dusty Boom Straat looking for his golden scooter, which someone had stolen from the front entrance of the festival. The fact that some hooligans decided to vandalise the scooter rather horrifically was unfortunate, but he gets my vote for Oppikoppi 2010 reveller of the year. — Lloyd Gedye
Tumi
Although there’s much that is good about the bands at Oppikoppi, it’s only occasionally that you get something startling, something that makes you say: “hell, these guys are doing something special”. It doesn’t always have to be a new band. Valiant Swart’s superstar-riddled version of Die Mystic Boer, for example, was so perfect, so awash in hard-earned prowess and dearly bought cred that it brought a lump to the throat.
Tumi
Indeed, festival photographer Liam Lynch claimed to have cried on stage while shooting.
Producing an improbable sound both hard and flowing, Tumi’s show was one of those highlights. Tumi’s done some great collaborations before. His set at Oppikoppi featured members of Pretoria prog-rockers Isochronous and was a reminder that hip-hop is still a genre that can reinvent itself, and that music that is visceral doesn’t have to be obvious. — Chris Roper
Ramblin’ Bones
The award for the tightest band at the festival goes to Ramblin’ Bones and his Bloody Agents for their spirited set of power-pop and roots-rock that had the Oppikoppi crowd dancing up a storm and begging for more when their hour-long set finally came to an end.
Ramblin’ Bones
Jay Bones is a veteran of the South African music scene, particularly with his previous band, Fuzigish, but his new band is a killer and the songs are as brilliant as ever. By the time they broke into a cover of the Human League’s Don’t You Want Me, Baby? the crowd was eating out of their hands. — Lloyd Gedye
Vusi and Albert
Dust-covered and relentlessly debauched, Oppikoppi is synonymous with the sort of furry amnesia inextricably linked to an overdose of sun and exotic alcoholic concoctions, such as cane spirit mixed with grape-flavoured fizzy drinks.
Vusi Mahlasela
Yet there were moments of pristine clarity. Like Vusi Mahlasela and Albert Frost performing on Sunday afternoon with the setting sun making blackened silhouettes of the stark acacia trees behind them, the perfect backdrop for Frost’s bluesy fingering of the guitar and Mahlasela’s soaring voice to combine to astonishing effect — an appraisal untainted by a succession of early-morning Bloody Marys.
Mahlasela’s vocals reached far into the soul of the audience with his high notes, which must surely have been situated near heaven’s choir. Frost’s guitar work, meanwhile, was able to reach deep into the African dust to mine our pain, melancholia and indefatigable optimism. Say Africa and Thula Mama especially appeared to resonate with the crowd — predominately white and middle class — and, for a moment, a sublime moment, there was a sense of living in a post-racial South Africa. — Niren Tolsi