A festival of rams.

It’s been a week since Jo’burg’s RAMfest which is the time needed to recover and process the 12 hours spent in the searing sun with friends, drinking vodka and Red Bull, eating Chip Stix and watching band after band − pretty much my idea of the perfect day out.
The weather was good to us (almost too good as evidenced by the red necks and noses the day after) and Riversands gets two thumbs up as a venue close enough to civilization to get cell phone reception but just far enough into the middle of nowhere to avoid noise complaints.

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of RAMfest 2011:

THE GOOD
The festival was world class in terms of organisation. I never spent longer than a minute in a queue for food and drinks, the “bathrooms” were clean almost until the end (which as anyone who regularly attends these kind of events knows, is an impressive feat) and the everything ran on time.


Props to the organisers, stage hands and sound engineers for an unbelievable platform that lit up like a spaceship once the sun went down. Without sounds like a hippy, it felt like we were part of something special when it became dark enough to appreciate the structure and sound which echoed through the estate. Even surrounded by hundreds of people, there was something very intimate about singing along to international bands we thought no one else knew about. Having already spent a week in South Africa, both Alkaline Trio and Funeral for a Friend seemed at home on our soil and their sets were fun, casual and a dream come true for those still sober and strong enough to enter the mosh pit.

THE BAD
There’s not a lot I can honestly complain about so let me take a moment to be overly critical. The line-up remains a mystery to me. I felt ashamed that a unique and acclaimed band like the BLK JKS who fill venues overseas, were given the dismal first slot of 11am when only a handful of people were there. Yes, their sound is unlike anything you’ve heard before and therefore not commercial enough to get a lot of radio play but watching them in action gave me goosebumps.

Too bad most people were still asleep at home during their set. There were also a couple of bands on the line-up (I won’t mention names for fear of being pelted with rotten fruit by die-hard fans) who don’t appear to have done anything new in the last couple of years. I completely understand their appeal to band-aids who’ve been with them since the beginning (Lord knows I’ve spent much of 20s watching the same bands sing the same songs) but with so many new and exciting acts out there, I have to wonder why they made the list.

THE UGLY
Die Antwoord. Before you reach for the rotten fruit again, hear me out. Putting them in “the ugly” section is a compliment and no doubt what they’re going for. I’ll be the first to admit that I was keen to see them again. I originally stumbled across them at Oppikoppi two years ago just before they hit the mainstream and assumed someone had slipped something special into by brandy and Coke.

Now armed with some insight and info about Yo-Landi, Ninja and DJ Hi-Tek, I was curious to check them out with fresh eyes. And I’m none the wiser. In fact, I get the distinct impression they are having a good laugh at our expense. They are probably just as surprised as anyone that they’ve been able to take this zef act as far as they have and can’t believe they’ve managed to sucker so many people into paying for CDs and concert tickets. In what may very well be the most successful art school project ever, Watkins Tudor Jones and his better half Yolandi Visser have immersed themselves into their crass characters, getting nice normal people to sing along to their degrading lyrics and making a fortune. It’s genius and I applaud them for it but it doesn’t mean I want to see them again.