RAMFEST 2010

The hypnotic, crazed sounds of Pendulum have been intruding my dreams…these propane nightmares…all night. And tomorrow I’ll be seeing them live. “I’m telling ya’ll its sabotage!” With headphones on, sitting in my office, the voices of the energy thieves who surround me fade as the pulsating beat of ‘Slam’ reigns mightily through my mind. Today’s going to be a great day. And an insane weekend lies ahead. It’s Real. It’s Alternative. It’s a carnival of music. It’s RAMFEST 2010 boys ‘n girls.

Cape Town’s renowned for her mad trance parties, but I’m a rock festival girl at heart. There’s time to actually chill and not everyone is bouncing around loving’ strangers all fuct on some type of psychedelic tripor MDMA. Oh, and there aren’t swarms of ‘trancies’ or hippies. I always wonder where the hell these people gather during the interludes between trance weekends. Can’t help thinking of that Island of Lost Socks. Maybe they have there own little island, existing only through song, dance and luminescent fabric. As Hunter S would say, all these “savage beasts” are disguised as people lovin’ hippies.
Then again, those beasts are at the least, entertainment. Us, on the other hand… Well, we’re all a cranky cult of cocks ‘n c*nts, disguised as ambitious hard-achievers. All in the assembly line, waiting for our luck to strike double platinum. Hustlers, existing in hourly breaks and self-depletion.

Friday night: the prelude to Saturday. Fokofpolisiekar, The Narrow, Yesterday’s Pupil and Kidofdoom….just a few of the names I should mention.
For those of you who can’t figure it out, Fokofpolisiekar translates in English to “Fuck off police car”. Originally, with the band’s inception in 2003, Fokof had come together as a bit of a mock to the long-standing conservatism renowned to Afrikaans culture. From there developed a new wave of music – Afrikaans Rock. An English girl myself, I generally don’t understand most of their lyrics, but I sing along and jump around just like the other rock kinders (children) around me. Fokof is renowned for putting on a crazy live show and they pulled through for all of us. Fok Of Polisie Kar!!!

A band without a vocalist, Kidofdoom always amazes me; these guys are something special. Trade in a keyboard and hype stage presence and you won’t miss any such scrambled syntax. With Kidofdoom, The Music does indeed speak for itself.
Yesterday’s pupil – another band everyone’s talking bout. All I can say is a hot lead singer and an energetic performance. The last act, their rock-indie lullabies put no one to sleep. I know this because at about 6am I woke up to sneak a pee next to my ‘tent’ (a shade cover with gaping spaces either side) and was welcomed by a group of metal heads hiding in the early morning shadows and a lonely photographer delighted to have captured the splendour of my wake up call.

Saturday. I’m cut for space here, so I'm sticking to the highlights.


Voodoo talk.


It was all playful splashes and 10 second dunks until I got told that some faulty dude shat somewhere downstream. Apparently this was all warm-vodka-OJ-mix nonsense talk, but that was the end of my murky rendezvous. Great vibe up on the river bed though. It happened to be the place where all my disappearing friends had vanished in wonderful oblivion to.

This ‘Voodoo Island’ spawned all the essential ingredients for a good time; sick dub-step and electro beats, plenty of spliff and booze and a mountainous backdrop to the flailing bodies, all sweating and probably covered in pooh. It was a festival within a festival, and it was definitely the best spot to be in the 38degree furnace, which that Saturday had turned out to be.


Band talk.

Jack Parrow – Afrikaans Rap, need I say more? He’s a parody of pretty much everything and wears a hat as long as his arm. Check out youtube for some insight.

Lark. If there ever was an angel trapped on earth and destined for hell, Inge Beckmann would be her. An estranged such angel, with a voice that projects the strength of an orchestra: haunting, daring and beautiful all at once. She pierces our souls by a route through our ears. The whole performance is sex on stage; an experimental ride of operatic trip-hop twisted with macabre lyrics and crazy stage effects. And,albeit no longer together, Lark remains truly astonishing.

Pendulum!!! Slammed and crammed, everyone had planned to ‘meet everyone else at the front’. I’ve been toReading and some other UK festies, and aside from the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and 2 Many DJ’s, Pendulumseriously blew me away. The only way I can describe their performance is that it was as if they were playing their first every show, just for me. Their professionalism, tightness and true appreciation to be in Africaresonated throughout the 1.5 hr set. These guys are masters at hyping up a crowd, and my God, I’d love to see them again in a small, underground venue.

I was just coming off a gram of shrooms and had managed to salvage a 2l coke bottle with some type of wonderful mix inside. It was the perfect moment. I and the bright skies above overlooked a crowd gone madto the banging sound of D n B. I was happy to be alive. Looking around, everyone was sweating and smiling, and I knew there were happy too.

A few days of unrivalled silliness is an addiction one just needs to feed at times. Myself? Well, I couldn’t have picked a better time, or place, for some reckless behaviour. Nothing like the present hey? Such like right now. It’s time for my designated smoke break. You see, you have to remember kids; I am, after all, just another human “caught in the rush of the city of madness”.