The Rocking the Daisies festival was once again a freakin’ fantastic experience!

As you might have heard already, this was the first year that they were completely sold out which meant that over 15,000 people descended onto the Cloof Wine Estate in Darling to to get their musical-festival-madness on.

The Friday night after setting up our tents, we headed out to explore.  On the main stage I really enjoyed seeing ISO (previously known as Isochronous) live for the first time.  I hear their music on 5FM all the time and I’m a big fan, I didn’t even realise they were a local band.  Check out their songs “No Fire” and “Cinema” – I’m sure you’ll dig them too (if you don’t already).

The Red Bull electro tent was certainly where it was at on the Friday evening though.  They had 2 big international acts.  The first was American hip-hop artist & DJ, Grandmaster Flash.  Followed by UK dubstep duo, Koan Sound.  So we ended up “putting our hands up & in air and shaking them like we just didn’t care” over here for most of the evening.

The Nu World Beat Barn is always a bit of a weird one for me.  I can’t really explain the music style, all I can say is that’s is was certainly “different”…

The Shnit Cinema was there for you to chill out and watch some local & international short films.  And it was a really cool place to hide out if you needed a break from the cold and craziness outside.

And then the Lemon Tree Theatre had you entertained all the way with tons of stand-up comedy (including big names like Rob van Vuuren), a little bit of burlesque and even a guy in a lit up waiscoat & a guy-in-a-monkey-suit sidekick.  I kid you not.

So basically the scene was set for a weekend of pure awesomeness…  even though it was cold as ballz…

Obviously another key festival criteria is kick-ass food options.  I thought they did pretty well with offerings from Knead, Butler’s Pizza, Hudsons Burgers, On a Roll hot-diggedy-dawgs, deliciously fluffy crepes and more.

Saturday at least brought a bit of sunshine, a much needed defrost session I guarantee you.

This was when I first noticed the seriously cute World Wildlife fund Panda tent!

With a freakin’ panda chillin’ inside!

Mr Panda’s shine was somewhat stolen by this poor guy who was super trashed, but still fighting to stay awake… and failing miserably.  He didn’t even notice the 10 people taking photos & video clips of him.  Shame man. Hehe.

The little bit of warmish weather meant that most people flocked to “the beach”.

OK, it’s not so much a beach, but rather just the side of the dam with a bar serving Mainstay box mix cocktails, but it was fun nontheless.  The water was ice ice cold though which meant only the very drunk / high bravest of the brave actually made it in for a quick dip.  It was also at this point we noticed some folks building a balloon train, but more about that later. 

Of course, festivals and temp tattoos go hand in hand really.  There’s no better opportunity to get some dumbass tattoo you’d never actually get in your right mind, but could do there just for shits & giggles.  I opted for a big breasted lady:

And Bjorn went a bit gangster’s paradise with some guns & aces:

The line up on the main stage from 6pm onwards was pretty great.  First up we had Jeremy Loops (loooove this guy), then Desmond & the Tutus (Zim zala bim bitches!), Arno Carstens (however I will admit we popped out for a food break at that point) and the hard-core rockers, Shadowclub.  A perfect mix of local acts I thought.  Then of course the headlining international act was Brittish indie rock band, Bloc Party.  We had to wait quite some time for them to come on stage and it was really really cold and started raining.  So as I’m not the biggest fan and don’t really know a lot of their music, I did opt to duck out for cover a few songs in.  But I hear they were totally rocking it by the end of their set.

Oh and in the last piccie above you can see that same balloon train (which also had some LED lights), it got sooooo huge and then they let it go and it looked like a long snake in the sky.  It was very cool.  We joked that it must have scared the crap out of the farmers in the area…

Sunday brought on the set of post-apocalyptic movie… a zombie wasteland if you wish… 3 days of hard partying certainly takes its toll…

I really felt bad for the cleaning crew that had to come in afterwards and I kinda wished that everyone would just own up & make sure they kept their own spots clean.  Then things would just be easier for everyone, no?  I come from a household where I’d get the hiding of my bloody life if I dropped trash on the ground and didn’t pick it up again.  But ja…  I guess this is just how these things go really.  We packed up, got breakfast, watched a few last bits of comedy and then hit the road, yearning for a hot shower & an afternoon nap in a warm, comfy bed.  But hell what a weekend we had!  Bring on the next one!

So now I know what you’re really thinking… What did Kevin the monkey get up to???  Well you’re just gonna have to wait and see…

xxx