Day 304, Much to my dismay I have never camped at a music festival. Considering the UK is home to some of the most famous festivals with the biggest bands playing every summer, it is quite a thing that my first festival experience came in the tiny mountain kingdom of Swaziland.
The Bush Fire Festival is described as Swaziland’s premiere arts and music festival, though in all honesty I haven’t really heard of any other such events in the country. Six of us set off sharp after work on Friday, camping gear in hand, dancing shoes on our feet. My knowledge of southern African musicians being limited I was only really aware of one of the bands on the bill but I was enthusiastic nonetheless.
In the UK these events are held in the summer in the hope that the weather is conducive to the festivities. The great consternation is about whether it will rain or not and will the wellies be needed. Being the middle of winter here, we too were concerned about the weather, not a drop of rain poured but the 15 degree dip in temperature at night was very noticeable. Setting up the tents in the dark we wrapped up warm and toasted the night before wandering over to the main stage.
The band I’d known, Goldfish, were headlining the first night and we made it in time to catch their set. The Cape Town duo played their upbeat electronica which proved the perfect kick start to the festival. My friends and I danced nonstop through their performance and awed at their digital gadgetry. Even the open air setting and the chilling conditions were not enough to dampen our mood as we revelled until the wee hours of the morning. The midnight pancakes before retiring to our tents helped to warm not only our spirits but our bellies too.
The following two days were a blur filled with hidden treasures of music I never would have known about. The highlights were the celebrated Oliver Mtukudzi of Zimbabwe and Habib Koite of Mali and South African bands Hot Water and Tonik. The latter played an intricate set of keyboard and tablas as a silent gig, with the audience listening through headphones. A slightly odd idea, it did serve to question the listening experience.
The crowd was a slice of all demographics; older hippies, families with children, black people, white people, Swazis, Saffas and foreigners. There was of course enough interest in football to have it distract for a while on Saturday evening. Of course, aside from the Barcelona and Manchester United shirts the festival was awash with colourful costumes, crazy hairdos and glow sticks. The giant puppets and insane Tshe-Tsha Boys with their boiler suits and clown masks only added to cacophony of bizarre and bright sights and sounds of the festival.
Like so much during my time here, this was yet another thing that I’ve been introduced to that I never got around to doing back home. With a nudge in the right direction from friends I have again managed to widen my horizons. Who knows, I may even have to invest in a pair of wellies.
Now, that last paragraph... IF I had the poor fortune to be your "friend" in the UK, I would be quite insults (well played!).
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