Friday: Part 1

Friday is upon us, and so descends the hungry masses, devouring like locusts all that lay before them.

The day starts late, much lazing around the campsite is enjoyed, water is drunk, teeth are brushed, thorn bushes are urinated upon, Coco Pops are devoured.

Excitement begins to build around noon – for today’s line-up inspires some hope for the salvation of our parched souls. Cabins in the Forest is followed by Guy Buttery, with Richard III, Twelv & Thesis and DJ Sassquatch performing at well spaced intervals.

I arrive at the Gito Baloi stage a good half-hour early, my anticipation met with my inability to correctly judge walking times and led me to Janice Half-Jack. Janice sang and strummed while Half-Jack (Ja? Ck?), I guess, offered moral and melodic support. She needed it. Somehow, much of South Africa’s music is stuck in mid-90s American “alt-rock. This can be the only explanation for the Alanis-esque vocals that plague the very MOR tunes that were so very earnestly sung. Why would a nice Afrikaans girl insist on sounding as generic as she did? Anything in actual Afrikaans would have at least made her slightly different. I guess she read my mind, as she did sing a song in Afrikaans. As the song began, I mistook it for a John Mayer cover, until I thought: “No, wait. This is too boring to be John Mayer…” Her social-commentary track, “Simple Thing” sounded like like Phil Collin’s “Another Day in Paradise”, but for the narcoleptic set. Oh dear lord. “Everyone’s a millionaire without a single thing,” she sings. Well, then, we’ve all fucked up.

A trip to the bar later, and Cabins finally took the stage. Yeah! Whoo! In T-shirts and socks (and jeans, ladies), they both kind of look like Sam Beam of Iron & Wine fame – or his younger, better-kept brothers, perhaps. And when the first stomp-box is stomped, something altogether different happens… We hear the first awesome set of Oppikoppi 2008. Andy and Gary pick and wince and scream through gradually epic tracks, playing around with odd melodies and harmonies as they nimbly pick at their strings. The audience closes their eyes and take in something broad and lunar. Their songs evoke empty roads, dusky drives, a sense of impending… unknown. “Just because you feel like toast/ Doesn’t make you someone,”, but no, we are no-one. We are not toast. We are here and, for the first time this weekend, dozens of people are focussed on one point in space.

Even the rather heavy-handed “Army of the Disenchanted” works as a chugging, simmering condemnation of “school-yard bravado”. The Anti-Bush polemic is a little too overworked by now, for my taste - but they still sound good. The indie-kids and long-haired hippies salute what they’ve witnessed with hearty applause and whistles, and any band with a didgeridoo as part of their set deserves some thanks, at least. Oh thou of little hope! We are all saved!

In a one-two guitar hero combo, Guy Buttery takes to the stage. Some divine intervention (or just smart organisers) planned this set-list, obviously. He sets up his guitar, sitar and, uh, saw, barefoot. With a quick “Hello Oppi!”, he gets underway. Over the next 40 or so minutes, Buttery treats his guitar like a princess, like a whore, like a red-headed step-child, like a living beast. He taps, he slides, he picks, he wows – he plays a saw! He also manages to be technically brilliant, but never showy or masturbatory – a feat unappreciated by many, but oh-so-important. Never does he force you to think “Wow, this guy’s an awesome guitarist,”, simply because you’re too busy listening to the array of sounds he produces, drawn into a musicscape of completely unheard of proportions. Although he may perplex the uninitiated “Bru, when does this oke sing?”, he deserves more plaudits than I can manage to type. The brilliant cover of Joanna Newsome’s “Book of Right-On” ends his set, we wake from a peaceful dream and head downhill for some lunch.