Oppikoppi festivalturns 20 in style

421,Mpho Tlale,phpB106.tmp.jpg,2013/october/01,2013-10-01 23:19:00, | Thursday May 22, 2014 00:00

It is random yes but pretty much beautiful when strangers greet each other with so much affection and vigour, all in the spirit of music and fun. The standard greeting at this year’s Oppikoppi Festival was simple and high-charged yet driven by the common goal of having a good time. A group of strangers would shout “Oppi” while greeting another bunch of strangers who would in turn respond with a “Koppi”.I can’t really say all this surprised me though because from the instant I got my Oppikoppi Festival accreditation I knew the event was going to be a crazy, fun and liberating affair. My instinct told me to expect something epic and that is exactly what I got. I have been accredited to cover countless festivals but none of them have ever arrived in the unorthodox manner the Oppikoppi accreditation did. The subject line in my email read “#canyouphuckenbelieveit“ and I simply just couldn’t “phucken believe it”! Within that moment I was able to find my sense of humour and get a good laugh out of it. At the back of my mind I thought: “But how cool can this be though? More PR agencies should do this more often and lose the formality just for once”.

Anyway the rest of the email went on to tell me that my accreditation to this year’s Oppikoppi had been approved and stated a few terms and conditions regarding the media tag I was to be given. But that was it, nothing less, nothing more.

Oppikoppi is an annual music festival held in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, near the mining town of Northam. Although the festival started off focusing mostly on rock music it has gradually added more genres over the years and now plays host to a complete mixture of genres. This year the festival celebrated 20 years and it did so in a manner that could better be described as the “Oppikoppi way”.

Despite the fact that this was my first year attending the festival, I felt more at home than ever before. Probably because I had always thought of attending the festival, but something had always come up. I had the chance to browse the photos from the previous years though, which is probably what made everything familiar.

As a way of overcoming the last minute things that always seem to pop up out of nowhere, I decided the simplest route to Oppikoppi would be to take leave so that I too could be amongst the masses of festival-chasers who were there to witness the 20 year milestone in style.

The first thing that caught my attention about this year’s festival was the line up. With me, festival-chasing is all about music above everything else. I hold the view that the beauty of live music is uncontested; nothing comes close to it and that is exactly what I got.

Oppi offered a diversity of music in all its forms, from the legendary Hugh Masekela to American artist Aloe Blacc, The Muffins, Spoek Mathambo and DJ Fresh amongst others. These are all people whose works I am familiar with.

I enjoyed basking in seeing them perform live but I also appreciate that my novelty to some artists was broken. I fell in love with rock bands that included Gangs of Ballet, Zebra and Giraffe, The Olympic, Holly & The Woods and many others.

The drill was simple though. It was one festival, three days of non-stop music and a set up of six stages all with its own vibe. I am yet to find anything that can actually match Oppikoppi vibe this year. The camping moments were also out of this world. From the conversation, dances and drinking by a bonfire to gazing at the moon and appreciating its roundness and serenity as it looked over us.

What tops everything though is the “wet wipe” bath that I had and preferred over a cold shower for the period between Thursday to Sunday. It’s not like bathing was a priority anyway. If you want to catch me at a moment when I don’t care how I look like, it’s on my travels. I just really couldn’t be bothered and I guess that extends to the strangers I meet. Anyway I only bathed properly when I got back on Sunday evening.

And so I say hats off to Oppikoppi for the beauty that it is. It took me out of my comfort zone to a weekend of fun and socialising in the wilderness.