Tuesday, August 10, 2004
OppiKoppi
Last week LoLLy asks me "Wanna go to OppiKoppi?" Heck yes, always wanted to go but my friends were never really the type. Or maybe I weren't the type, but I tried before and only got back a couple of (LAME) excuses. (Do know that insufficient funds do qualify as a good excuse, better start saving for next year...) So I fished around a bit to the new friends I made at the last beer fest in Johannesburg... Only excuses. Well I have to admit, it was short notice. 1 week.
Tough... I have one friend that wants to go, and that is enough.
Since we watched Koos Kombuis at Centurion theater on Thursday and had a couple of drinks afterwards I couldn't get up as early as my alarm clock wanted me to get up. Oh yes, met some nice people Charmaine and ??? (Forgot the name atm, but it will come back to me). So around 10 I got up and started packing. I used to do some camping in my time so I was no stranger to what we needed. Around 12 the boot of my car was almost full and I still had to fit in LoLLy's stuff. So I decided that's it, drove to her place and we did our best to pack in all the stuff. Got some food from Spar and filled up the gas container. Oh yes, we also turned around to print the map off the internet and get the road atlas. Then we drove all the way down to Makro to get some Dop. 24 Brutally fruit, 24 Smirnoff Spin, 24 Windhoek Draught, 24 Klippies and Cola, a bottle Spiced Gold, 2 L Old Brown Sherry, half a bottle of Vodka, and a bottle of Tequila. Well it should be enough for 2 people for Friday night to Monday morning? My car was absolutely stacked! Back seat was pack shoulder height.
So we set off to "the Koppi". Damn it is far away! Close to 200KM from Pretoria, close to Northam, and Zwartklip. On the way there Celeste phoned me, she was really pissed off since I did not invite her, Sorry babe! Next moment there was this huge road block, the cops were looking for drugs and they were out in full force, pulled us over, frisked me, talked to me to make sure I am not drunk or stoned. Even made me open up my car's boot. Looked underneath my seat too. I just stayed friendly to them and talked relaxed smiling often. After about 5 mins they told me I could go. Some other people even had to unpack some stuff so they could search through it, it helps to be friendly!
Eventually we found the place. Well there was not that much to find! To sum it up, "dust and thorns" sounds about complete.
Plus there was a LOT of people. You drive around, there are dirt roads with names... you look for a place that looks like there are not too many thorns and you pitch your tent. That is it, no camping grounds, no electrical points, no water and no nice lawn. We had to get rid of a couple of thorn bushes and then pitched our tent. Darkness was settling very quickly. So we got out a few drinks, chow'd something, and set off to the stage! Luckily we remembered our torches!
Jo Day wasn't there, such a pity, but in her place they got Tweak, they weren't too bad, except that the sound engineers were still sorting out the sound, so the sound sucked a bit! Saw Sugar Drive too, was OK. We decided to quickly walk back to camp, LoLLy had a monster headache. So we ventured off, initially we thought it was just around the corner, no such luck! I never really looked at the time, I just knew it felt like 2 hours, it was in fact close to one hour. We lost our camp! Every now and then we would stop and talk to other people, it turned out that every one that was walking around was lost. Ha ha, very funny, well it was since nobody was sober. After giving up we decided to go back to the music, saw Aston Nite, that was nice! except that Celeste phoned me again, to complain, again! She killed my party mood completely. So we went for the second attempt at finding the camp, this time LoLLy was leading and I would just follow, amazingly enough she managed to find the camp in about 20mins... This time we even looked at the street names... So next time we would know that you take Boom street to Beton Boer, and turn off in Freedom avenue.
I did not sleep well that night, woke up every hour or so, people were making too much noise, or maybe it was all the beer. The next morning I woke up with a babbelas(hangover). Got some coffee into my system, ate some rusks and then decided to drink some "Klippies en Cola", that helped for the babbelas! As the temperature picked up we were really lazy, the sun was killing all energy, everything was covered in a layer of dust. Around 11 we decided to braai. LoLLy figured that she took along the wrong attachment for the frying dish. Crap!!! I walked up to the neighbors to greet, the girl seemed very much the bliksem in, plus early the morning she was yelling at some people because of the music they played.
What do you know? They turned out to be very friendly and helpful. There was a tall thin dude called Dirk, quiet but friendly, talked every now and then to keep the conversation alive. The girl was Tanya, on first impressions she strikes you as being a bitch but get to know her, she is a nice and pleasant person, she cares for her friends. Then there was Rob, nice person, really keeps the conversation interesting and alive, nice person to talk to, good all round general knowledge. There was also this one dude called Deon that gave me the creeps, never talked, apart from telling me that I should make LoLLy wash the dishes, c'mon, what era do you live in, a woman is not suppose to be a slave, they have equal rights. Needless to say that did not gel very well with me. Tanya's summary of him was "Looks like a serial killer". He left on Sunday morning. Well maybe that is a bit harsh... Rather be safe than sorry. Then on the other side there was a dude called Dorin (we just called him Doring). Not really the drinking type, bit scared to associate with all these "Alcoholics", he was quiet but stayed friendly, doing his own thing, reading... Those were our neighbors, On Saturday afternoon a friend of Tanya called Jean also joined us, she was a bit older, 40 or so, she had a child of age 11 (at home), she was a pleasant person but I got the idea that she found it difficult to connect to the younger people. LoLLy aso met some of her chat buddies, like Tank 
By Saturday afternoon we were already good friends with our neighbors. So we decided to watch the bands together, we had different tastes though. Before we went we had a shot of tequila... I still know why I stay away from the stuff, it bliksems me! This was no exception. The bands we watched... Karen Zoid, I was a bit disappointed with her show, she wasted too much time introducing her band so I would just rate it as OK. Arno Karstens, I thought it was pretty damn good. Prime Cirle was awesome. (I might be confused what bands were on what days but I think I am about right, if not I have a pretty good excuse ;). Wonderboom was really awesome, they really performed very well and they are something to look out for! At some stage LoLLy decided to walk back to the camp, together with (only) Deon which really freaked me out big time! Tanya echoed my concern. I was really pissed off with LoLLy, she almost made my heart stop beating. I tried telling her that it was really dumb but somehow some of her mom's genes are kicking in and she won't admit that it was stupid. Instead she keeps on insisting that she knows quiet people like that, and she understands them. Lets just leave it at being very grateful that nothing happened to her. Well after my near heart attack I completely stopped drinking for Saturday night... Except when we got back to the camp 
. Funny thing, Doring had too much and puked!!! Haha, luckily it was in the bushes. oor oke probably also had a pretty bad hangover the next morning.
Woke up on Sunday morning with a moerse babbelas! Klippies en Cola quickly fixed that problem, I also decided that a shower was in order. Lukewarm shower, and I wouldn't really call that a shower, one stream that hits you on your belly. Oh well, I think I was cleaner afterwards.
Smelt better at least so I think it was a gain. We kuiered the whole afternoon with our new friends. It was fun, even though the energy levels were low.
Jean also had to leave. Our dop supply was seriously disappearing fast. That evening I also ran into Jasper and Ettiene, couldn't believe my eyes! On Sunday the best shows were on. Cutting Jade, was ok, they performed mostly their old songs. I decided to buy their new CD and also got it signed. Listening to it... I do feel a bit disappointed, oh well, following up the first CD is never a easy task. 
Koos Kombuis performed, he had a good show and really got people alive, next show was Valliant Swart, his show was also nice.
Since LoLLy knows Valliant personally she also organised a photo. 
At this stage we had to go and stock up on dop again, LoLLy's phone's battery died so I also borrowed her my phone, so if anyone tried phoning me... Sorry! After that The Narrow performed, the show was probably a highlight of the whole Oppikoppi. 
It was really good, so afterwards I bought their CD too, met the band, got the CD signed, I even got a photo together with the band. Bunch of nice people. 
Boo also played, they are, like Wonderboom, awesome performers, the music is a bit weird but original, needless to say, I also got my Boo CD signed. Fo*ofPolisieKar also played, I was seriously impressed, they rock in Afrikaans! Someone to watch out for into the future. Springbok Nude Girls also performed and there were so may people it was kinda hard to see what was going on, they are/were probably the one band that should have made it big overseas. The show was really good and I am sure a lot of people came to oppikoppi to just see them.
Monday morning once again was met with a moerse babbelas, the difference, I have to drive back, nothing more to drink, 2 cups of coffee, rusks... fruit juice, water. Damn I felt crap. Tanya, Dirk and Rob left as we woke up. We started packing up all our stuff. Left there around 8 or 9 and firstly drove to Zwartklip, put in some petrol... Drove home. On the way back home I forgot the CD player face in the back and we had to drive in silence. LoLLy was also a bit grumpy so talking was not really an option, she fell asleep, so I drove back in silence. She slept the whole way and only woke up when we got to Pretoria. Dropped her off at home. Got home, showered, ate... drink more water. The afternoon wasn't a good one... Jacques also invited me over but I felt too crap! Monday wasn't a good day in my books. I think my parents were shocked to see all the left over liqiour, luckily they never saw the before picture. (Which was basically the back seat of my car filled). I still look like a hippie, I have not shaved in 5 days, plus the long hair adds to the effect. I also feel like one, very chilled out, the aggro and depression is also gone.
All in all the verdict is that the weekend turned out to be really awesome, the babelas ain't pretty but you only live once. So to anyone that wants to go to oppikoppi and haven't done so, I pity you, you have no idea what you are missing!
The bands, the people, the dust, the whole atmosphere. If I knew years back that it would be like that this would not have been my first (Camping) oppikoppi. There are even people from the Free State and Botswana, now I know why people are prepared to drive that far for a music festival.
See you there next year!
Tough... I have one friend that wants to go, and that is enough.
Since we watched Koos Kombuis at Centurion theater on Thursday and had a couple of drinks afterwards I couldn't get up as early as my alarm clock wanted me to get up. Oh yes, met some nice people Charmaine and ??? (Forgot the name atm, but it will come back to me). So around 10 I got up and started packing. I used to do some camping in my time so I was no stranger to what we needed. Around 12 the boot of my car was almost full and I still had to fit in LoLLy's stuff. So I decided that's it, drove to her place and we did our best to pack in all the stuff. Got some food from Spar and filled up the gas container. Oh yes, we also turned around to print the map off the internet and get the road atlas. Then we drove all the way down to Makro to get some Dop. 24 Brutally fruit, 24 Smirnoff Spin, 24 Windhoek Draught, 24 Klippies and Cola, a bottle Spiced Gold, 2 L Old Brown Sherry, half a bottle of Vodka, and a bottle of Tequila. Well it should be enough for 2 people for Friday night to Monday morning? My car was absolutely stacked! Back seat was pack shoulder height.
So we set off to "the Koppi". Damn it is far away! Close to 200KM from Pretoria, close to Northam, and Zwartklip. On the way there Celeste phoned me, she was really pissed off since I did not invite her, Sorry babe! Next moment there was this huge road block, the cops were looking for drugs and they were out in full force, pulled us over, frisked me, talked to me to make sure I am not drunk or stoned. Even made me open up my car's boot. Looked underneath my seat too. I just stayed friendly to them and talked relaxed smiling often. After about 5 mins they told me I could go. Some other people even had to unpack some stuff so they could search through it, it helps to be friendly!
Eventually we found the place. Well there was not that much to find! To sum it up, "dust and thorns" sounds about complete.
Plus there was a LOT of people. You drive around, there are dirt roads with names... you look for a place that looks like there are not too many thorns and you pitch your tent. That is it, no camping grounds, no electrical points, no water and no nice lawn. We had to get rid of a couple of thorn bushes and then pitched our tent. Darkness was settling very quickly. So we got out a few drinks, chow'd something, and set off to the stage! Luckily we remembered our torches!
Jo Day wasn't there, such a pity, but in her place they got Tweak, they weren't too bad, except that the sound engineers were still sorting out the sound, so the sound sucked a bit! Saw Sugar Drive too, was OK. We decided to quickly walk back to camp, LoLLy had a monster headache. So we ventured off, initially we thought it was just around the corner, no such luck! I never really looked at the time, I just knew it felt like 2 hours, it was in fact close to one hour. We lost our camp! Every now and then we would stop and talk to other people, it turned out that every one that was walking around was lost. Ha ha, very funny, well it was since nobody was sober. After giving up we decided to go back to the music, saw Aston Nite, that was nice! except that Celeste phoned me again, to complain, again! She killed my party mood completely. So we went for the second attempt at finding the camp, this time LoLLy was leading and I would just follow, amazingly enough she managed to find the camp in about 20mins... This time we even looked at the street names... So next time we would know that you take Boom street to Beton Boer, and turn off in Freedom avenue.
I did not sleep well that night, woke up every hour or so, people were making too much noise, or maybe it was all the beer. The next morning I woke up with a babbelas(hangover). Got some coffee into my system, ate some rusks and then decided to drink some "Klippies en Cola", that helped for the babbelas! As the temperature picked up we were really lazy, the sun was killing all energy, everything was covered in a layer of dust. Around 11 we decided to braai. LoLLy figured that she took along the wrong attachment for the frying dish. Crap!!! I walked up to the neighbors to greet, the girl seemed very much the bliksem in, plus early the morning she was yelling at some people because of the music they played.
What do you know? They turned out to be very friendly and helpful. There was a tall thin dude called Dirk, quiet but friendly, talked every now and then to keep the conversation alive. The girl was Tanya, on first impressions she strikes you as being a bitch but get to know her, she is a nice and pleasant person, she cares for her friends. Then there was Rob, nice person, really keeps the conversation interesting and alive, nice person to talk to, good all round general knowledge. There was also this one dude called Deon that gave me the creeps, never talked, apart from telling me that I should make LoLLy wash the dishes, c'mon, what era do you live in, a woman is not suppose to be a slave, they have equal rights. Needless to say that did not gel very well with me. Tanya's summary of him was "Looks like a serial killer". He left on Sunday morning. Well maybe that is a bit harsh... Rather be safe than sorry. Then on the other side there was a dude called Dorin (we just called him Doring). Not really the drinking type, bit scared to associate with all these "Alcoholics", he was quiet but stayed friendly, doing his own thing, reading... Those were our neighbors, On Saturday afternoon a friend of Tanya called Jean also joined us, she was a bit older, 40 or so, she had a child of age 11 (at home), she was a pleasant person but I got the idea that she found it difficult to connect to the younger people. LoLLy aso met some of her chat buddies, like Tank By Saturday afternoon we were already good friends with our neighbors. So we decided to watch the bands together, we had different tastes though. Before we went we had a shot of tequila... I still know why I stay away from the stuff, it bliksems me! This was no exception. The bands we watched... Karen Zoid, I was a bit disappointed with her show, she wasted too much time introducing her band so I would just rate it as OK. Arno Karstens, I thought it was pretty damn good. Prime Cirle was awesome. (I might be confused what bands were on what days but I think I am about right, if not I have a pretty good excuse ;). Wonderboom was really awesome, they really performed very well and they are something to look out for! At some stage LoLLy decided to walk back to the camp, together with (only) Deon which really freaked me out big time! Tanya echoed my concern. I was really pissed off with LoLLy, she almost made my heart stop beating. I tried telling her that it was really dumb but somehow some of her mom's genes are kicking in and she won't admit that it was stupid. Instead she keeps on insisting that she knows quiet people like that, and she understands them. Lets just leave it at being very grateful that nothing happened to her. Well after my near heart attack I completely stopped drinking for Saturday night... Except when we got back to the camp . Funny thing, Doring had too much and puked!!! Haha, luckily it was in the bushes. oor oke probably also had a pretty bad hangover the next morning.
Woke up on Sunday morning with a moerse babbelas! Klippies en Cola quickly fixed that problem, I also decided that a shower was in order. Lukewarm shower, and I wouldn't really call that a shower, one stream that hits you on your belly. Oh well, I think I was cleaner afterwards.
Smelt better at least so I think it was a gain. We kuiered the whole afternoon with our new friends. It was fun, even though the energy levels were low. Jean also had to leave. Our dop supply was seriously disappearing fast. That evening I also ran into Jasper and Ettiene, couldn't believe my eyes! On Sunday the best shows were on. Cutting Jade, was ok, they performed mostly their old songs. I decided to buy their new CD and also got it signed. Listening to it... I do feel a bit disappointed, oh well, following up the first CD is never a easy task.
Koos Kombuis performed, he had a good show and really got people alive, next show was Valliant Swart, his show was also nice.
Since LoLLy knows Valliant personally she also organised a photo. At this stage we had to go and stock up on dop again, LoLLy's phone's battery died so I also borrowed her my phone, so if anyone tried phoning me... Sorry! After that The Narrow performed, the show was probably a highlight of the whole Oppikoppi. It was really good, so afterwards I bought their CD too, met the band, got the CD signed, I even got a photo together with the band. Bunch of nice people. Boo also played, they are, like Wonderboom, awesome performers, the music is a bit weird but original, needless to say, I also got my Boo CD signed. Fo*ofPolisieKar also played, I was seriously impressed, they rock in Afrikaans! Someone to watch out for into the future. Springbok Nude Girls also performed and there were so may people it was kinda hard to see what was going on, they are/were probably the one band that should have made it big overseas. The show was really good and I am sure a lot of people came to oppikoppi to just see them.
Monday morning once again was met with a moerse babbelas, the difference, I have to drive back, nothing more to drink, 2 cups of coffee, rusks... fruit juice, water. Damn I felt crap. Tanya, Dirk and Rob left as we woke up. We started packing up all our stuff. Left there around 8 or 9 and firstly drove to Zwartklip, put in some petrol... Drove home. On the way back home I forgot the CD player face in the back and we had to drive in silence. LoLLy was also a bit grumpy so talking was not really an option, she fell asleep, so I drove back in silence. She slept the whole way and only woke up when we got to Pretoria. Dropped her off at home. Got home, showered, ate... drink more water. The afternoon wasn't a good one... Jacques also invited me over but I felt too crap! Monday wasn't a good day in my books. I think my parents were shocked to see all the left over liqiour, luckily they never saw the before picture. (Which was basically the back seat of my car filled). I still look like a hippie, I have not shaved in 5 days, plus the long hair adds to the effect. I also feel like one, very chilled out, the aggro and depression is also gone.
All in all the verdict is that the weekend turned out to be really awesome, the babelas ain't pretty but you only live once. So to anyone that wants to go to oppikoppi and haven't done so, I pity you, you have no idea what you are missing!
The bands, the people, the dust, the whole atmosphere. If I knew years back that it would be like that this would not have been my first (Camping) oppikoppi. There are even people from the Free State and Botswana, now I know why people are prepared to drive that far for a music festival.
See you there next year!
# posted @ Tuesday, August 10, 2004 8:47 PM 
