so we went to this big ROCK FEST this past weekend.
Lordy, lordy... who knew there were these hard core rockers on the dark continent! Moreover, who knew they were actually locals and not just a bunch of angst-ridden expat's kids!??!
Some photos of the day out...
This first one is of the first band we saw when we got there, around 3pm. They're called CRACKDUST and if you go to crackdust.com you can see their website. Not to be missed. Trust me. As you can see from the crowd, not many people had shown up yet, but those that did were really into it and loved to show off their Osbourn-esque SIGN OF THE DEVIL!! RRAAAWWWWWRRRRR!!! (imagine Rammstein with a Setswana accent... that's all I can say to describe the enigma that is CRACKDUST.
Also NB about this show is the fact that it was advertised to start at 1pm. We thought we were going to seriously miss out by not being there until 3. Little did we know that we actually caught the FIRST BAND!! Talk about genuine African punctuality! In general, most people came around 8:30 pm or thereabouts.
The concert promoters did something a little bit funny... they had a lineup that included about 10 bands and let's say 6 or 7 of them were actually rock/hardcore/metal/grunge. The remainder of the bands included some Kwaito, kwasa kwasa, and local R n' B. The ONLY reason they did this was because they'd tried something similar a year ago and this newspaper reviewer slammed them for "not including local popular acts, rather than bands aimed at the MINORITY of people in botswana who like this rock crap" (ok i'm paraphrasing) The jist of it was that they were being dissed because the lineup was too "western" and not "african enough" or whatever.
There had been a lot of speculation about the "wild crowd" and "troublemakers" that might be there. Extra security was in place. Cops everywhere. Editorials in the newspaper about devilworshippers and evil. You know the drill. Think bible-belt America in the late 80's, grappling with issues like "how to deal with children who listen to Quiet Riot".
CRAZY rock fans! CRAZY!
Thus, we had these guys: (somewhat popular kwasa kwasa group with dancers and obligatory dude with major afro). As you can see, the crowd was huge. (NOT!)
Yes that is a bicycle wheel on his head:
It was like tumbleweed City until they brought back on the HARD ROCKERS!!! There was one mega metal band from SA, and the rest were pretty local. I swear I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be watching about 150 africans in black leather and Iron Maiden shirts moshing to the sounds of RRRRRAAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!! KILL THE BEAST!!!!!! I AM SATAN'S BEARER OF PAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!!!!! The remainder of the 200-strong crowd were those of us whities who kinda showed up just to see if it was real.
I do have to say it was worth it though! Well notwithstanding the warm beer that only arrived at around 6pm, and the 4 or 5 token non-rock bands who were just... zzzzzzzzzzz. It had only been one day since Reggie died and we weren't exactly looking for a huge party, so we left around 10 but I think that was sufficient. I got my rock on. Our friends were all there and we had a good time. Even the boys liked it.
Labels: goin out, music, photos
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