Obviously, every year I put my body through the same awesome turmoil that is the dusty camping, rocking, falling, drinking, unified, merry mess that is Koppi. This year was no different and a bit different. This year I’m older and wiser… NOT. The Bewilderbeast had me very excited to enter it’s belly and vaguely see a great number of awesome bands, while bumping into friends I haven’t seen in weeks and months and others a year since the last Oppikoppi. Even though my favourite South African bands, like 340ml or the young men of December Streets were not in performing attendance, the fact that Oppikoppi is more of a culture than a simple music fest still had me as excited as a chubby teen rapidly dropping her baby fat unexpectedly. I missioned to Northamrockcity with one of my fav colleagues – I mean, he goes to Oppi, so he’s obvi cool, duh – and found myself happily inhaling that first dust by Wednesday night.
You can probably tell that I have very little to tell, because between the walking from stage to stage and being completely nake, I have no real review-like stuff for you. I saw a Mango Groove though… I saw Mango Groove, you guys. If Special Star doesn’t make you wanna get up and dance and be South African… You’re a douche, put a Madiba in the douchebag jar and go hang in King’s Landing with Joffrey, you heartless lunatic. I saw Toya Delazy – let me explain, I had lost my friends and her stage had the biggest vibe at the time. I was forced to look at her. Gods be good. And there were a number of other famous and non-famous people I saw in between that too. I particularly enjoyed Beatenberg, whom I also stumbled upon while searching for lost friends. I was too tired so I sat on the grass, continued partaking from my sippy cup and listened. Their lead seems like such an awesomely cool pothead and I would do bad things to the guitarist. Also, their music is pretty good, thoroughly enjoyed their set. There was another B-word band I saw, sounds something like Backuk or whatevs, I was too high on life by then but they were awesome! There was a cool poetry session at the Rayban Stage – who knew Afrikaans could sound so romantic. I made a few bad decisions but a couple of good and fun ones too, because that’s what people do at Koppi. People make fun-bad decisions and get lost and found and find themselves and love everyone. That’s Oppikoppi Bewilderbeast!
Zoe The Writer 