The first morning of a festival is the best by far.
All the troopers from the night before slowly start surfacing, giving one another silent nods of approval from across their respective campsites while the morning sun shines impossibly bright all around you.
First thing I did when I woke up was put my sunglasses on. Second thing I did was down a sachet of rehydrate followed by two liver pills and two Myprodols in rapid succession.
Lastly, I put the Tiger hat on and got ready to face the day though all the preparation in the world wouldn’t have got me ready for the insanity to follow.
First thing was first – the mushroom.
It had been decided that instead of sorting ourselves out with a gazebo, we would tie a series of sarongs together to make a canopy and tie this with string above all our tents to make shade for us to chill under at Camp Tiger.
Of course, this proved a lot more difficult in practise, so I fetched our beach umbrella from the car and next thing you know, The Mushroom happened:
After getting that right, J-Rab and I decided to take a long, slow, lazy breakfast while we lay on our backs and watched the clouds shift and swirl because The Mushroom was working; it was shady and there were no bands starting for a good couple of hours.
We passed our morning listening to music through some Shox speakers connected to my phone (a festival must-have for campsite chilling), eating fresh fruit salad and drinking Bloody Marys which, I’m pretty sure it’s scientifically proven, are the world’s best hangover cure.
A peaceful, easy feeling breezed through Camp Tiger and all was calm in the dappled tie-dyed light that fell, glowing on our skin.
It was a good, long time before we decided to head up to the main stage and explore the festival a bit, but when we did we hardly got far when Barbarian called to say he had just arrived and was at the main gate.
I remember sprinting down that orange / red sand road leading up to the main stage, my feet hardly touching the ground as I sailed effortlessly through crowds and crowds of people like a minnow over the surface of a glassy pond.
Barbarian, his brother Spu and his girlfriend Millie got settled in back at the campsite as the afternoon sun slowly faded and I think we stayed and had a few more drinks there before deciding to head to the beer tent at the main stage.
There we briefly saw The Brother Moves On being all freaky on stage and pissed ourselves laughing at this guy:
From there we got seriously stuck into the main stage beer tent so much so that we basically missed every band that went up. Problem is this good friend of ours we hadn’t seen in ages, Molly, suddenly showed up out of the blue and we ended up jamming with her all night.
It was about then that I ran into my partner in crime Mr Dan Nash whose ear I decided to chew off for a good hour or so (hahaha! Sorry homes). Shortly after that (before that?) I barnacled myself to another long-time fellow writer and whisky-lover Sean Lloyd though God only knows what the hell we spoke about.
I also ran into Gabi (www.musicalmover.com) who is one of my all-time favourite people, SA bloggers and musical aficionados.
From there the night melts into a bizarre collage of nameless faces, laughter, loads of beer in plastic cups, more laughter and a vague feeling like time was passing and maybe it would be a good idea to watch some bands.
The good news is we did end up catching some of The Kongos’ set and they were AWESOME! Definite Desert Rock vibe going on there, it’s tragic I didn’t catch more and that the bits I did catch I don’t remember very well.
Oh, and we also caught Beast after that but the general vibe I got is that Inge (singer from Lark) needs to reign it in a bit, her vocals were tearing the songs apart like a wailing cat. The rest of the band was killing it, but most of the people we spoke to thought she was very difficult to listen to.
What happened after that is anyone’s guess, but I do vaguely remember J-Rab breaking into the Heartbreak Hotel compound with my buddy Peggles’ so we could get more booze from his tent.
I swear, I have no idea why anyone would want to camp there. Looks like flippin Auschwitz or something. I guess the clean facilities and free breakfasts are a huge plus, but still, I wasn’t sold and even Peggles himself said next time he’s definitely camping with us.
More hilarity ensued as the night wore on until we all eventually decided to hit the hay and try to get some rest before the big day on Saturday.
My last memory is of walking back to our campsite, happy, fuzzy and thinking I’d NAILED Friday in the best possible way when out of nowhere this random guy bolts past, grabs my Tiger head hat and sprints off in the other direction.
Instantly my happy, carefree state flicked off like a switch and I went straight into KILL mode.
Next thing this guy knew he had 90kgs of 6ft1 gym-hardened Tiger flying through the air like a guided missile into the small of his back. My arms clamped around him as I sent him plunging into the dirt to eat a mouthful of soggy, trodden-on turf – a perfectly-executed tackle for a guy who only played rugby for a grand total of 6 weeks in highschool.
Needless to say I got the Tiger head hat back and walked away feeling totally fine (my only injury the next day was a broken toenail for some reason), while my assailant limped off mumbling grumpily to no one.
Back at Camp Tiger, we crawled back into our tent of lurve, piled on the blankets and fell instantly asleep.
That night I dreamed about a calzone. It was the weirdest dream I’ve ever had and I couldn’t explain it if I tried, but somehow seemed like a fitting end to an awesome day.
Tune in tomorrow for my last piece on RTD12 where I actually watch some bands and have the best damn hoddog of my LIFE!
Good times I tell ya.
Good times 
-ST
I don’t know what it was that made me fall in love with the desert, or at least the idea of it because the closest I’ve come to experiencing it was staying at Matjiesfontein in the Karoo on road trips from Jozi to CT. 
