The 10th Rocking the Daisies was probably the mellowest yet. Taking place at Cloof Wine Estate in Darling, Western Cape, at the weekend, a #DecadeOfDaisies was celebrated on seven stages. Upon arrival, it seemed as if it was going to be a gloomy weekend.
It felt like it was quarter-to-raining, the sun was playing hide-and-seek and weird black bugs that are so hairy they look like they’re wearing Juicy Couture velour tracksuits kept bothering me. To make matters worse, I overheard the leader of Forefront, a baby band that received a lukewarm reception on the main stage, say he was planning to put Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) in their set.
Luckily, the bit of their set that I caught had no “nae nae” involved. I was most impressed by the rock band, The Liminals. The band is on the threshold of a transition from Cape Town faves to soon-to-be national darlings. And that’s not just because they got the crowd riled up when they played a funky Ytjukutja. And yes, they whipped and nae nae-ed for a bit, but don’t hold that against them.
It was interesting to watch Medicine Boy, which is fronted by a girl on a keyboard. At some points, their obvious melancholy sounds like it’s reaching for Feist and in other places, they present a sound that’s an almost-Spaghetti Western score. It’s dark, but cool.
Although the Hemp stage had the worst sound – vocalists sounded like they were swallowing cotton wool when singing – it had some nice, new acts. Paige Mac is one who stood out. Wielding a guitar and wearing overalls, her raw vocals that reference early P!nk are a pleasure to hear and she performed covers and originals.
When I first saw Majozi at the Cape Town Nu World Music festival a few months ago, he had a sizeable crowd enamoured by his solo set. But the guitarist-singer-songwriter brought out a full band of white boys and a girl for his main stage debut. He plays the ukulele and people lap it up! He gets everyone to sing: I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier, without anyone thinking how corny that sounds. Majozi is onto something!
Clearly, PHFAT is onto something, too. Attempts to get into the electro dome where they were performing proved futile, it was so packed! Even if the hip hop group started 15 minutes late, people weren’t willing to budge and lose their spots. They started with House of Clashes – to which people lost their minds. They ended with Lights Out featuring Nonku Phiri who raps under the name JungFreud. She also sang her smash of a single, Things We Do on the Weekend. They might have had one of the best performances of the weekend.
Over on the main stage, 340million were debuting their ultra-dark all-electronic-everything mash-ups of songs they’ve already released. Their kwaito-fied Midnight sounded surprisingly good. At one point, lead singer Pedro asks the crowd to make some noise and afterwards, remarks: “That was sh*t.”
The comedy held at the Lemontree Theatre was a major hit-and-miss with Brendon Murray, KG, Yaseen Barnes, Oliver Booth, Nkosinathi Maki and Devin Gray killing it and everyone else being bleh. And of the international acts (The Cat Empire, Milky Chance and The Kooks), Milky Chance were engaging and more interesting.
l Check out our awesome Daisies gallery at www.tonight.co.za.