It took a full two days and a bit for me to recover. Let me tell you, been back at work after a 48 hour sleep session is not fun, I would love to be taking a nap right now! Ok, so I didn’t sleep for 48 hours straight, but 70% of it was spent with my eyes closed!
Witchfest 2008 was for me, the best camping rocking experience ever. If you have seen the photos on facebook, the pictures definitely speak louder than words! To all that were there, the Tormented Children posse, I thank you for all the good times, the giggles, the photo bombing, the river! Not a care in the world, we were camping! What a weekend!
After some crazy cajoling the previous two nights, Monkey and I woke up early early (for me it was normal, for Monkey, well, he doesn’t know what 8am looks like. Now he does), with a two day old Flaming Lamborghini induced hangover (never again, yuk) and squashed all our shit into poor Fritz. We then rushed to pick up Eugene, with the car already filled to the brim. I still have no idea how we managed to yet put more stuff in there. That’s why I love my car so much.
The weather didn’t look promising at all. It was cloudy and threatening to rain. Even though we were going all the way to KZN, the weather reports said that it would be hot but get very cold and possibly rain, even snow on the weekend. So we weren’t too sure what awaited us, I just packed for all seasons.
By 10am we were at Wez’s place, but no one else had yet arrived. After an hour of waiting, we decided to go to a nearby Pick n Pay and shop for some bare necessities i.e. booze, meat and more booze. Once again, Fritz was jam-packed with even more stuff: 3 cases of beer, copious amounts of bottles of spirits, meat, rolls etc. Eish!
Bianca and Charles were already at Wez’s but we still had to wait for Itai to leave work. Poor bugger. So eventually we left, 3 hours after schedule and raced to Mooirivier like a bat out of hell (or in this case, wanting to get into hell, bwhahahaha). We needed to get there before sunset to pitch up our tents (doing it in the dark is just not cricket) and catch Fragmented Children’s gig which was at 18:00.
We stopped once just before a very windy Harrismith, then once again at Mooirivier so Wez could find a butchery, much to our consternation. I was itching to get there, I hate long drives. We got there just before 18:00, quickly put up our tents in the Fragmented Children camp (which was then named Tormented Children) and ran to the stage area, armed with booze, to see those crazy nutters. The sun was already setting, but it was still scorching hot. I took some damn good pics, if I say so myself, and jammed to their tunes. What awesome peeps.
Back at the camp, we embraced, we partied, we giggled and passed the time away before it was time for Torment to go on stage. Getting there was quite a distance so Charlie, aka Princess Pretzel drove his car with all the equipment while we tackled the treacherous mud and tall dry grass. I was made official photographer for the night so I got to stand right by the stage while all the other sods stood behind the barrier, heheh. What baffled most of us was the poor sound, and the “no alcohol and no swearing on stage” rule. WTF? This is Witchfest!I was quite impressed with the boys’ set. They included several samples at the beginning of some of their songs and included two new, kickass, hardcore songs, one of which I filmed in its entirety. Wooohoooo! They rocked! We had a giggle when the FC boys proclaimed them a “Black Metal” band, bwhahahahhaa. Yes, they are BEE compliant.
Once that was over, we were free to party and go bos. It had been a long time since I had scored a drum stick from Charles, so I happily walked back to camp with my stick and poked things with it. Bianca’s butt was my last victim. I named my work of art “Bianca on a schteeeek” which was met with a fit of giggles from Ray Ray. Oh, he cracks me up.
Monkey and Adam figured out that they were separated at birth, the more they talked the more they things they found that they had in common. So for the rest of the weekend, I called Adam the “stunt double”. Much of the evening is a blur but eventually we got to our cold tents and slept, a bit. We woke up early next morning to the sounds of metalheads happily chirping away. By that I mean Ray Ray and Matty Boy.
I decided to brave the showers but that was pointless as it was the equivalent of having a bird pissing on you. I tried to clean up as much as I could then went back to camp. It was quickly getting hotter and hotter, so Monkey and I decided to join Wez and Eugene at the river to cool off and drink cold beer – nothing beat that! We were soon joined by our whole camp and we sat in the cool water getting up to mischief, and slapping on the sunscreen as our baby pale skin burned. Time was not of the essence. We were just having fun. And getting wasted and stoned – the rock ‘n roll life, baby.
Eventually I got bored, and in my crazy state, decided to run after a bull. Bad idea, but luckily no one got hurt, especially the bull. I just stood there, some 2 metres away from it, and waved stupidly like a special kid. I could hear Monkey in the background shouting worriedly for me to move away from there, but I just waved, and smiled.
As soon as the booze ran out and the water got colder, we held onto each other and carefully tread on the stones to get back to shore and more booze. We had a good fire going too – as the sun set it quickly got colder. And that’s when Matty Boy passed out on my chair. I was about to wake him, or at least tickle his nose, when I was quickly stopped in my tracks by Ray and Q. They were definitely up to something. So I ran and got my camera – hee hee.
I filmed as they tied Matt up with some red and white tape, while the rest tried to control their giggles so as not to wake him up. But the little one didn’t move an inch, he was comatose. We even checked if he was breathing, just to make sure. Bianca then painted his face so pretty, while others did some unspeakable things to the poor thing. It was then finally time to wake him up, and was dunked with a bottle of cold water, which instantly gave him the shock of his life. He had no clue of his surroundings or of what had just taken place. He smiled happily and high-fived the grinning evil-doers.
The party carried on, so much booze was consumed that the rest is a blur. I remember watching Agro, eating some pork wors and drinking way too much OBS – thanks Bianca. I was in the mood for a fight and so I apparently picked the Satanists from Bloemfontein as my victims. All 5 of them. We fought about ABBA, I think. Monkey had to fill in the blanks.
I was put to bed sometime before midnight, in quite a drunken stupor, and forced to hold a full 2 litre coke in my hands while Monkey searched for Comprals. Needless to say, I couldn’t hold on to it and dropped coke all over myself. He gave me the painkillers, tucked me in, and went to watch Fokofpolisiekar. Wish I hadnt missed that.
I woke up the next morning feeling so fragile it took me an hour to get out of the tent and another two to recover and actually move around. I sat by the fire, wrapped in my sleeping bag looking miserable while Monkey gave me sympathetic looks. Saturday was the antithesis of the previous day, which was scorching hot. This day was freezing, so no frolicking in the river.
After I felt a bit more alive, Monkey and I strolled to the food tent and got ourselves some sustenance. I immediately felt much better. Only it was getting colder and colder. That afternoon we watched Misericord on stage, and almost died of frostbite as we were definitely not amply clothed for this. When they finished we ran back to camp and put on almost every item of clothing we had. I put on one jersey and two thick jackets, and soon began to feel my fingers and toes again. Our campfire was quite impressive, thanks to our forest guy, Itai and his two sidekicks, Monkey and Keylim who managed to drag the biggest trees they could find.
Booze was almost out of the question for me so I drank a few gay Saritas and tried to stay awake as much as possible as tonight was the big night we had all being waiting for: Carcass! We heard rumours of snow, and temperatures dropping down to -4 but that wasn’t going to deter us. We were ready. It was just hard to believe that the previous day we had been sitting in the river in our underwear!
My eyes refused to remain open, and the more I sat, the sleepier I felt. Monkey and I tried to sleep for a bit just after we ate, but with all the commotion going on outside, we didn’t last longer than an hour. So we walked to the stage to see what was happening. We watched another band from the UK, called Season of Six, for a bit. Quite impressive. And all of a sudden, the sound had improved tenfold. Hmmm.
Waiting for Carcass was a bitch and a half. It took their single sound tecchie over an hour to set everything according to their specifications and fix what our crap sound guys had done. We were getting restless, cold and miserable, but we persevered, and watched as the sleet dropped from the sky.
When Carcass finally came on stage, the crowd woke up and went wild. These guys were amazing, you could tell that they have been doing this for years. Totally blew me away. After one song, they insisted we get rid of the barriers and move closer to the stage and party with them. I wish I had reacted a bit faster, but still managed to get a good spot to take better pics of the band. I then threatened to leave Monkey for one of the guitarists. He was that good, lol.
It was definitely worth staying up for Carcass. What a friendly, down to earth band, with gorgeous hair to die for! They didn’t even seem to mind playing for a small crowd of 300 people in the middle of nowhere, with sleet falling on their heads. We got to bed just before 3am, our bones aching all over. I longed for bed but dreaded freezing my butt off in the tent, but surprisingly, with all the clothes I had on and Monkey’s cuddles, I was soon in la-la land.
It seemed too early when I was roused from my sleep, but we wanted to leave as soon as possible so we could get home to a nice warm shower and comfy bed. I moved my ass and helped pack all our shit and get out. By 8:30 Monkey, Eugene and I were out of there while the rest still contemplated packing up. The drive back felt long and hard, and this time Eugene took over the wheels for a bit as well. I didn’t even dare as with my granny speed we would have gotten us home the next day. So with the soothing tunes of Andrea Bocelli and old school rock, we made the long trek home. After 3 days of slaughterhouse metal, we couldn’t bear to listen to screams anymore.
On our way out of Southern Cross, we saw a couple of Jesus freaks sticking up a sign saying “Jesus died for you”. They probably thought we were worshipping the devil at Witchfest. Please, metalheads are a peace-loving group.
We finally got home that afternoon, and after a much needed shower, we climbed into bed and slept till the very next day, with a pit stop at 10 that evening to watch The Mummy 3. I just couldn’t let myself sleep all that time, it was crazy!
So now I THINK I have recovered, but it was definitely all worth it, bonding with the Fragmented Children crowd, the debauchery, the squealing pig music. We must do it again soon! HELL YEAH!
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