JoziFest (Published in Your LMG Magazine and 340ml's Reverbnation page under 'press')
I made my way to JoziFest on the Saturday night to commit a few of the cardinal sins and watch some of my favourite bands in Newtown. Most of the chatter around me was about the line-up. It was grand. “It’s like Oppi in one day” I heard. Straight to the bar is customary, and with beer in hand I headed to the Monster Stage. I didn't leave. There was plenty of activity happening all over the place, but my focus was on the stage where my personal musical heroes lay waiting to entertain.
340ml began their set with atmospheric feed-back from Tiago’s guitar, which induced squeals of excitement. As they broke into ‘Regents Park’ the crowd chanted the chorus in unison which spread through the streets of Newtown. It was going to be an amazing set from the dub-reggae-fusion foursome. I could just tell. And with whiffs of anonymous joints, the songs rolled on and the crowd lapped them up with voracity. There was an enthusiasm from the band that I haven’t seen in a while. They seemed rejuvenated. The drummer, Paulo, makes drumming look effortless while playing his seemingly discordant grooves and simultaneously hyping up the crowd throughout songs. The guy standing behind me kept repeating: “This band is just so fucking good”. I wholeheartedly agree.
It was like a musical wet dream when Tidal Waves, in my opinion S.A’s tightest band, came to the stage directly after 340ml. The rock-reggae band from Pretoria is impossible not to love. The lead shredding machine, Jaco Mans, was absent from the show but the lead man, Jacob “Zakes” Wulana kept things together and pleasantly surprised me with his guitar solos. “Original music for original people!” is the band’s mantra and is consistently chanted by both the band and their adoring fans. Tidal Waves have amassed a true following of fans that have come to learn every song lyric regardless of its language. They have consolidated their fan base in a way that not many other S.A bands have, and at Jozi Fest they delivered what their fans have become accustomed to, song after song of pure magic.
And so it was the last ‘Dans’ for Joburg as Foto Na Dans played their last Joburg show ever. I am still having denial fuelled thoughts that it’s all just a publicity stunt. South Africa needs bands of that calibre and it is certainly a loss to the scene. I’ll be honest; being their last Joburg show I expected mayhem and madness from the crowd, maybe some sort of sentimental frenzy. All I saw was a bunch of inhibited, confused Jozi kids listening half-attentively, bar a few hardcore fans near the stage. I’m not sure of the band’s history of playing in Joburg and maybe the lack of connection between Joburg and Cape Town is more apparent than I thought. Perhaps their reach did not extend to the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg.
Not much needs to be said about Lark, especially if you know them. If you don’t, stop reading this and go look them up immediately. The wildly talented Inge Beckmann’s voice pierced right through the very existence of the crowd. She jumped and crouched and slithered across the stage, belting out one song after the next. A Lark show is always guaranteed to be special and even more so due to the rareness of them.
Taxi Violence is my favourite South African band and I am unforgiving about the oodles of bias to follow. If all of my favourite bands were to engage in a massive musical orgy, the product would be Taxi Violence. That being said, their show was exceptional. The rock n’ rollers from Cape Town blew the heads off of every single person watching. Inge from Lark joined Taxi on stage for ‘Devil n’ Pistol’ and it was explosive. Perhaps collaboration is on its way? It would definitely work and hopefully speed up Taxi’s album output. The rock world is starving for more.
To end off a mini-festival with one of the most majestic line-ups I have ever seen, was Fokofpolisiekar. Thunderous performance: check. Frenzied crowd: check. Francois’ indelible rockstarness: Check. Enough Said.
Sure, in between the lines there were many beers consumed, giving way to deep and meaningless conversations, eardrums close to bursting, pushing and shoving, laughing and dancing. But that night was all about the line-up. It wasn’t like Oppi in one day; it was the best of Oppi in one night.
http://www.reverbnation.com/340ml/press/
