MyPepsiFest

So Ken and me, we went to MyCokeFest 2008, keenly aware of the risks we were gleefully rushing towards:

1. It was in Alberton. Ya Alberton. DEEP south.
2. By 4pm, our time of departure from the leafy suburbs, we had already received reports that the bar wait was over 1hr.This turned out to be inaccurate. It was over 1.5hrs.
3. Many of the bands on the lineup were superkak (and still are superkak), meaning that every edenvale doos and his three-toed cousin was going to be in attendance (Korn! Fuck yeah! 30 seconds to Mars? Did you say Mars?! OMG Jared Leto is SOOOO hot!!!!).
4. Everything we were told about the organisation last year was pretty derogatory - and nothing, it seems, had changed between last year and last Friday's 'event'.

But we went anyway. Because that's what we do in Jozi. We keep standards low low low, expect very little, and get excited about it all. And fuckit, I wanted to see Chris Cornell play live. Like 13 or 14 years in the making. And he was beautiful. Jesus-like.

Muse were also excellent. Tightest live show I've seen. Kaiser Chiefs were also pretty slick, and just played and played and played. We bounced around.

In fact both Brit bands were about the show, and did damn good jobs. The American bands, except for Mr. Cornell's, did not. 30 Seconds from MyAnus (Jared Leto's nonsense) is about the worst band on the planet, and Mr Leto kept calling us all motherfuckers. Lank times. Over and over. Then he dedicated a song to freedom. I nearly wet myself laughing. Apparently Mr Leto insists that he takes his music career very seriously, and has been at since 1996. The acting thing is the side-show, allowing him to pursue his real passion - terrible music from the angry, unsuccessful half of 1995. We all pity the man. His band is so bad.

Average Charlotte came in a close second (if they'd left Parys Heeltin behind MAYBE I'd have been more sympathetic. Then again maybe not.). And I've been told Korn were actually pretty good, but I didn't wait around. Apparently, it also took an hour between Muse and Korn, the 'headline', and most people had left by the time they came on. Serves them right for being so angry all the time without any clear need or justification.

Let's see. Power went out a few times, but not Eskom's fault. Always good for a laugh. Ken's potato and spinach in breadcrumb bites from Woollies were not allowed in. No food inside. 'Ken, just give it to the guards'
'But it's Woolworths!'
'Ya whatever man we can get some more tomorrow'
'But it's fucking WOOLWORTHS food!'
'Ok cool let's chow it here outside the gate'
Eat eat.
'Dude I can't eat anymore potato balls'
'Me neither. Dammit. Ok fine we'll leave the rest with the guards'.
'Cool. So we can go in now? Excellent.'

The 'golden circle' was MASSIVE. A R400 ticket bought you a great view of the big screen, mounted on the back of the production tower, about 50m from the stage. A R600 ticket got into the ginormous circle, but apparently not too many wanted to pay that much. So we all squished up against a fence, yearning to fill the 30m of open ground in front of us, wishing we could see the real people on stage.

A swampy marsh sort of thing emerged for about 100m in every direction from the porter potties. I lost my shoe in a particularly boggy puddle, but found it again, after submerging my shoeless foot. Yes, it was covered in whatever created the bogginess for most of Muse. Rock on. The shoe and sock are on the balcony now. I don't know what to do with them.

The bar, however, has to take the cake. The past two years have produced the same complaint - takes waaaaay too long to get drinks. My god. Over an hour and half?! You stand and stand and stand, shuffle, stand stand stand. You can see the kool okes pulling on the taps up front, pouing pouring pouring. Except no wait, is that fucker texting someone? Using his CELLPHONE? Instead of POURING BEER? JESUS CHRIST! And when you finally get to the front you are told four's the limit by the grumpy lady who has by now realised that 12hrs of shuffling beer between pourer and 'customer' is not worth the free ticket to the 'event' (which you can't see from the bar anyway? Moron).

So you buy four plastic cups of beer. Castle. Eish. And wrestle your way out. You then realise you can't really walk around, much less jump around, with four full beers. You can't even drink one of them when holding the other three (well you can, but it's uncomfortable, and you definitely can't smoke). So you put two down, open your gullet and down the other two, and totter off into the crowd with the remaining two. Repeat every 3hrs or so. Ken got hammered. Blotto.

So why did I go? Did I enjoy myself? Fo sho laaitie. Chris Cornell (and Muse) made it ALL worthwhile. He played THREE tracks off Badmotorfinger, a few from Superunkown (including Black Hole Sun and Superunkown), a couple Audioslave tracks, and I think one of his solo songs. I squealed like a girl. Been listening to Superunknown all weekend since.