Sunday morning started off a bit like Saturday morning: I awoke to the never-ending thud of the electro pyramid and the sleepy mumblings of Mikhaila as she stumbled out the tent, declaring that it was too hot and she was going to sleep outside.
Some hours later, the sun was properly up and so were we. Jess and I went in search of breakfast, which ended up being pizza (another reason I love festivals). She then left, along with the majority of the festival-goers, to make the long journey back to home and reality.
Somewhere after 10 I caught the last few songs from one-man-band Lonesome Dave Ferguson. I’d seen him once previously at the Granddaddy Hotel and really enjoyed his stuff; the ‘crowd’ was pretty non-existent, but those who were there seemed to enoy him too.
I didn’t stick around for Wrestlish and instead headed to the tent to start packing up. Mikhaila was sitting in the shade and looking tender, the weekend had clearly taken its toll…she wasn’t too interested in any of the bands, but knew I didn’t want to leave till after Bittereinder, so she was prepared to endure a few more hours…
I headed back down to the main stage halfway through 7th Son , another band I’d heard of but never heard. I was sorry to not have caught their full set, because the songs I did hear were really cool.
13:00 Bittereinder – the situation was pretty unfortunate; day 3 of a rock festival and the afternoon timeslot with the sun high and vengeful meant that many people missed out on seeing a great performance by arguably the best new band at the moment. looking out at the 30-odd people that formed the crowd, Jaco said “Hullo almal en dankie, julle is die regte bittereinders wat nog hier gebly het.” He was right, it had been a long weekend but we’d endured and we were about to be rewarded.
I was wondering how their album would translate live, and it turned out the answer was ‘great’. This was partly thanks to the multitude of guest performers – Inge Beckmann, Tumi, Richard Brokensha and Hanu de Jong from Not My Dog all came out and looked like they were having a blast on stage.
The whole thing felt fun and pretty light-hearted; Inge got the giggles during Wakkerword when it came to the whistling (with Jaco telling everyone ‘moenie lag nie, jy kan nie fluit as jy lag nie!’) and at the end, everyone went off stage except Peach and Louis who stayed playing parts of Almanak while bouncing up and down.
The set ended and concluded a great weekend. I dunno how many people stayed for Mix & Blend up next, and I was surprised to see 1 guy still dancing his head off by the otherwise dead electro pyramid on my way out, but I’d reached my limit by then and was ready to head home.
My first Ramfest, done and dusted. Awesome. I really enjoyed the festival and definitely look forward to going again next year – provided their lineup’s just as good of course…
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