I love festivals – loads of great musicians at the same place, camping, having fun in the sun – but haven’t been to many at all. This is usually because the line-ups aren’t appealing enough to endure the effort of going. I’ve never been to Ramfest before and the 2011 lineup had me pretty keen but I was still undecided, until I heard Bittereinder would be playing – that news pushed me over the fence and made me utterly determined to go.
So last Friday, after a frantic week of last-minute plan changes, I found myself in Keran’s car along with Mikhaila, on our way to Worcester. We arrived at the height of the midday heat but were lucky to find a great camping spot and some cool neighbours. The obligatory pics-of-us-and-our-tent photoshoot ensued.
We killed the hours till the bands started by drinking, swimming in the river and relaxing in the shade of our tent; the heat was bad and it was only going to get worse…eventually the sun lowered sufficiently to go wandering down to the festival area.
I made it to the main stage in time to catch the last minute or so of The Revelators…which was unfortunate as they were quite awful and I happily would’ve walked slower if it’d spared me from hearing them at all… luckily they were gone pretty soon and replaced by the main stage MC – the hilarious John Vlismas. I’ve always thought he was funny and had an idea of what his face looked like but had no idea he was so…well…hardcore – tattoos, piercings, mohawk, all pretty impressive. He demanded (and managed to extract) a few polite cheers for the departing Revelators before throwing MK hats and the odd insult at the 30 people that formed the ‘crowd’.
While we waited for Blk Jks to set up, I noticed one of my favourite local photographers up on the stage – Liam Lynch. I saw a few other familiar faces and am sure there were some other heavy-weights over on the media side but he’s the only one who has a face to his name.
19:00 Blk Jks – I was quite keen to see them live as I quite like their album After Robots.
I confess I wanted to like them a lot more than I actually did…they weren’t bad though, they just didn’t really hold my attention for very long. I suppose the sunset timeslot and minimal crowd was a bit unfortunate, though it did kinda add to their vibe.
I wandered around for a bit and returned later to catch the tail-end of Ashtray Electric, another band I’d heard of but never heard. I really can’t remember what they sounded like, but I remember thinking it wasn’t bad at the time…
The bands that followed were all ones I wanted to see, so I pretty much didn’t move from the front of the stage for the rest of the night.
21:00 Desmond & the tutus – I really enjoyed these guys, loads of energy and a whole lot of fun to watch. Catchy tunes too.
22:00 Zebra & Giraffe – third time seeing them, very slick and enjoyable as usual. The crowd was a decent size by now, and generally become more crazy – in my immediate vicinity, there was a guy who had an inflatable Giraffe (“for Zebra & giraffe, get it?”) that found its way onto the stage halfway through the set, another with a tail and a small flock of people in weird, matching dungaree things…Ramfest was really waking up.
23:00 Gazelle – Another highly entertaining performance, fun costumes & colours and lots of energy, though I must say I much prefer the original Die verlore seun to the dancey live version…
00:00 Die Antwoord – the crowd was pumping, the alcohol and drugs having long since taken hold, and waiting impatiently for Friday’s headliners. As usual, they didn’t disappoint, delivering a high energy performance that still felt fresh even though I’d seen it twice before. What made it particularly enjoyable (and is another great plus of festivals) was all their guest performers: Jack Parow for Wat Pomp, Wanga for Evil Boy and Francois Van Coke (and Jack Parow) for the epic encore rendition of Doos Dronk (my personal fave of theirs).
Afterwards I wanted to head over to the electro pyramid/triangle/whatever it was, but just couldn’t face it…so instead, enjoyed Haezer for the next few hours from the comfort of my sleeping bag – an awesome end to awesome first day.
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