Oppikoppi Unknown Brother: The good, the bad, and the ugly…
Oppikoppi, Unknown brother festival took place over the past weekend. Festivities began on Friday, and were set to last for an entire crazy weekend of the best in local and some international music.
Oppikoppi is one of the few South African music festivals, which attracts thousands of people annually, for a weekend of bundu bashing and proper ‘jolling’ for music lovers.
The exodus began on Saturday morning, as our team got together in preparation for what was a first Oppikoppi experience for most of us.
We were thoroughly excited – what we like to call our “pig in the mud” excitement – at the prospect of a road trip, and a weekend of thumping live performances.
So off we went on our trip, and just 2 and a half hours later, found ourselves at Northam farm, ready to get at it.
After a fair amount of confusion as to where we were supposed to park and set up tent, we finally made our way to register our presence, and get on with things.
The first thing you are faced with on entering, is bowls of Durex condoms, which come free of charge – just to ensure that you come back with no regrets – and that’s when we knew that things were serious.
With registration being done, it was time to find ourselves a piece of land to lay claim to, and make our home for the foreseeable future.
We then unpacked our tents and all the poles and slowly began to realize that we are absolutely clueless when it comes to pitching a tent, or anything else to do with the outdoors quite frankly.
But being the quick-thinkers that we are, myself and some of the team decided to take a walk-about and found some random stranger who was kind enough to help us out; and him and our only other male companion got down and dirty (while we pretended to help) and got our massive tent up. Talk about a home in a bag.
Soon after that we made our way to go and see what was going on in the rest of the world. We wanted to know what bands were performing, and of course to replenish the drink supplies, and maybe get a bit to eat.
And once we were out, we discovered that there was no going back, until we started to get so icy that there was no choice but to grab a change of clothes – a very necessary task if we were to survive the rest of the evening.
We were treated to some awesome performances all evening long. The drinks were flowing and the atmosphere in the air just electric.
We got to see the likes of Max-Hoba, Goodluck, Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse, Zebra and Giraffe, Karen Zoid, Jax Panik and many more as we trolled around the huge farm.
At some point we even made a treacherous journey to the top of the hill, where we thought we were off to see a now unnamed band, but ended up at some old bar where we encountered an unpleasant woman, whom we gave a biting, indirect piece of our minds to.
If you think we’re kidding about the sheer insanity of the place, I will mention just a couple of the unusual things we witnessed: People walking around half naked in the icy cold weather, a group of men dancing the night away, whilst showing off the jiggling “moobs”. One guy didn’t fare too well on the said slope and ended up falling, being picked up by his friend, then sending the both of them tumbling. It was hilarious to watch though.
Another guy got his ear bitten off (literally) because of a random run-in with a guy whom he had burnt with a cigarette by mistake…
At about 03:00 in the morning, most of us were just too damn tired to keep going, so decided to head back to our humble abode (the tent) for a bit of a chill-session indoors.
We stayed up chatting and comparing notes for hours, until the bodies just couldn’t take it anymore. We had to admit that we may all just be getting too old for all-nighters, and we got into our sleeping bags, to get some well-needed rest.
You get warned about all the dirt and dust that you will experience at Oppi, but we can tell you that you never really know what they mean until you experience your first festival.
Nothing could have possibly prepared us for the swirling dust – everywhere – the grass that sticks onto everything, and of course the unavoidable dirt that you will inevitably find sliding into your nails…
Nothing too can prepare you for the excessive fun that you will have at Oppi, and how much you might wish that you spent an extra day or two there despite the fatigue.
We came back content, but shattered – all the things only a good meal, shower, and hours of sleep could deal with, but happy to have gone, and already making plans to return next year.
Thank you Oppikoppi for the wonderful time. Thanks to the team, and thanks to all the awesome musicians who made our weekend worth all the while.
