Posts Tagged ‘synergy 2011

28
Nov
11

Synergy 2011 FUll Event Review

By SlickTiger 20 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Gig Reviews, Good Times and Killer Posts
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Synergy CrowdWhat can I possibly write that could ever do justice to the fucking awesome time I had at Synergy this past weekend?

After building it up in my head to be this epic event that was going to change my life forever, I was pretty sure the actual experience would never live up to that, but after a bit of a rocky start, everything came together in the best possible way and we had a truly epic weekend.

The Good…

I actually started writing a full, blow-by-blow account of the entire weekend, but after I got to 2000 words I realised I need to keep this punchy.

So instead, here are some bullet points on what was awesome about the festival:

  • Boschendal is STUNNING! Surrounded by majestic mountain peaks and flanked on the one side by a river perfect for dipping your toes in or, further down, jumping in for a swim, the whole area is really beautiful and perfect for a festival

 

  • The organisation is pretty damned sick. At festivals you expect to spend a fair amount of time queuing for food and booze and holding your breath as you walk into porta-loos that look like hell, but Synergy was really well organised that way. Every toilet I went into was actually spotless, even right at the end and the food stalls were plenty and not too expensive either

 

  • TAXI VIOLENCE! These guys put on the best fucking show I’ve seen them play EVER! It was fucking electrifying, the crowd was loving every second of it and George and the guys were giving it their all. Great job, you blew everyone the fuck away!

 

 

 

  • LMG STAGE – a great place to discover new talent. These are the bands that will one day be tearing it up on the mainstage, no doubt. We caught snatches of bands playing here, but to be honest were too busy missioning around to remember who any of them were. DEFINITELY should have spent more time there, big fail on my part

 

  • The rides! We never went on them, but DAMN they looked like fun!

 

 

  • The river! On Saturday morning we went down to the river and spent a long time sitting or rocks slowly getting drunker, talking shit and splashing around in the river. This is what festivals are about, getting away from it all and doing something as simple as sitting with your feet in a river, not giving a shit about anything

 

  • The sun cream girls! Spraying everyone that needed sun cream with sun cream. VERY cool idea, a nice touch to make sure people didn’t get fried in their own natural juices

 

 

  • Our gazebo. This, more than anything, is a festival essential if you’re going with a big group of people. The gazebo united us. It provided much needed shade when the day started getting baking hot and it was the perfect thing to lie under and drink cold Bloody Marys all afternoon

 

 

  • Playing the messiest game of Kings ever! You know it’s a good one when the cards end up all over the camp site once the game has disintegrated into random shouting, laughter and drunken chants of “Down it!” All thanks to the genius “every time someone pulls a black card, everyone drinks” rule. That’s a recipe for awesome right there…

 

  • THE COMEDY TENT! Who goes to a music festival to listen to comedy, right? What a total waste of time, right? WRONG MUTHUFUKKAHS! On Saturday night we wandered randomly into the comedy tent and caught Dylan Skews’ set (who also happens to be a friend of ours) and basically spent the next hour crying with laughter. I’ve known Dylan for a couple of years through friends of ours, but never heard his stuff – it was the funniest comedy I’ve seen in YEARS. Great job man, J-Rab and I love your work

 

  • JAX PANIK! Possibly the biggest crowd I saw at the main stage all weekend – not really the kind of music I go for, but they were fucking AMAZING! The crowd went crazy for them and they delivered the goods. Definitely watch out for this band, they put on a great live show, one of those moments that makes you proud to be South African

 

 

  • ISOCHRONOUS! Ok, anyone who was at the festival is probably starting to pick up a general trend here – yes, we basically missed all the bands on the opening night except Taxi Violence (a lot of tequila happened. I blame you Ebz, I blame you… Joking! We had a badass time, sorry we missed you the rest of the festival!). But we caught Isochronous, who have a strong Muse-flavour to their material, and are face-meltingly awesome to watch live

 

  • Morning bacon and egg rolls for R15! That’s all we need to say about that one

 

  • VIP bracelets – thank you to the festival organisers for hooking J-Rab and I up with these, we put them to good use on Saturday night when, on a random mission to arrange a photo pass, we headed backstage to the production office and ended up…

 

  • MEETING BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB! Well, actually we didn’t really meet them so much as round a corner and find them sitting literally five feet from us being interviewed by MK89. For this BRMC-obsessed fan, it was fucking surreal to see the band so close, but we were asked to please leave by the band’s manager, not in a shitty way, in fact they even listened to me gush for 15 minutes about how amazing I think they are even though they’ve probably heard it a million times before. It was a perfect moment seeing them so close in this quiet, random corner of the festival and one I won’t soon forget

The Bad…

Of course, it can’t be all sunshine and lollypops, there are a few bad points about the festival that I feel I need to mention, namely:

 

  • The fact that I had to wait for over 2 HOURS for those aforementioned VIP passes! Thank God I managed to win a ticket to the festival through Bangers & Nash or I never would have gotten inside to find the festival organisers in the first place. It was a kak way to start the festival, but things were chaotic for the organisers so I understand, but still, 2 HOURS waiting alone under the Synergy arch?! That was painful

 

  • The nights. They were FREEZING cold! Friday especially – you could see your fucking breath it was so bad. J-Rab was practically crying she was so cold. Next year we’re taking backup blankets, that’s for DAMN SURE!

 

 

  • The drunken douchebags camping near us. Who, at 6 in the morning, think it’s cool to shout “Show us your pussy!” to the girls walking past their camp site. Don’t be a “show us your pussy” kind of guy, no one likes guys like that, especially not at 6 in the morning

 

  • The Redbull Stage. Not that the music was bad, the music was pretty sick for the most part, but the people listening to it, phwoar! Ease up on the MDMA guys, you look like a bunch of Gummi Bears bouncing here and there and everywhere, high adventures beyond compare…

 

  • The trek from the parking to the campsite. I guess this is to be expected at festivals, but you had to lug your shit for a good 20 mins before you hit the campsite and then at least another 10 before you found a spot to camp

 

  • This is a bit of a sad one, but after all that hype, after building it up for so long, it pains me to say that one of the bad things for the festival for me was Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. We fought our way right up to the stage, about 5 metres from the band and stayed there, basically in the mosh pit for the next hour before finally leaving before the band had even finished playing.

 

I mean, they NAILED some of the songs – “Conscience Killer” was INTENSE! They banged it out full of sound and fury, “Ain’t No Easy Way” was also fucking brilliant, as was “Six Barrel Shotgun”, but to be perfectly frank, for the most part the band looked a bit bored.

Leah (the drummer) came alive for one song maybe, the rest of the time she stared ahead with the same blank expression on her face, Peter (singer, guitarist) played like a fucking MACHINE, tearing his fretboard to pieces and banging out some seriously badass bluesy rock, but was also expressionless throughout.

Robert (singer, bassist) was the most animated of the three – he has this cool way of playing his base guitar like he’s aiming a rifle and MAN can he play that bass. He also swapped it out for a normal six string a couple of times, he’s a fucking talented musician.

 

 

In fact, they all are. You cannot fault them on that point and I will always, always love BRMC, but I just feel like their performance was missing something. I’m stoked I got to see them live and like I said, I loved a lot of songs they played, but they fluffed a few tracks too, which was a bit sad.

 

The Ugly…

And then there are the moments you kinda wish you hadn’t ever seen, like when…

  • It was 5pm on the OPENING DAY OF THE FESTIVAL, and I watched a girl falling all over the place, drunk as a mineworker and splashing white wine everywhere while her buddy tried to walk her back to her tent

 

  • One of the drunken douches camping next to us passed out at 6pm on Saturday night with his head out his tent so he could have a nice, hearty chunder while J-Rab and I were eating our sammiches not 10 feet away from him. Yummy.

 

  • On Saturday night, a guy ran straight into a car. It was actually hilarious. There was one solitary white polo parked off to the side the main stage, you couldn’t miss it, but this genius ran right into it, BANG! Hahahaha!

 

The Amazing…

I don’t want to end this on a shitty note, so let me sum up by first thanking everyone who made our festival experience possible, Tchavdar and the crew at Synergy Live, New Sound Artist Management and of course Mr Dan Nash.

Our plan came together in the best possible way and we had a fucking amazing time!

 

 

Sure, I didn’t catch half the bands I wanted to see, but there will always be time to watch them play in and get the interviews I want to sometime in the future.

The bands were amazing, the organisation was top notch, the good times kept rolling and the shower and nap we had after we got back home yesterday was fucking glorious!

You bet your ass we’ll be at Synergy 2012 and so will you guys because it’s a brilliant festival.

Here’s to an amazing weekend of sick bands, sunshine and good times Winking smile

-ST

25
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 5 – Lock And Load Bitches!

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

open-roadToday we pack our shit up and hit the open road.

We drive until the city melts away behind us and we are flanked by mountains and vineyards and farmhouses that look like they were built 100 years ago (they were).

We drive until our city lives are far behind us and for two days we forget the stresses and the pressure and the deadlines and the endless pursuit of a meaningless things to give our lives meaning.

From here on in, it’s all about the music. Forget about your King sized bed and hot shower and lemon-scented exfoliating balm, your big screen TV and your shiny laptop, your Saturday grocery shopping missions and your froo-froo girly cocktails.

We’re going to rough it for a few days, camp on top of one another, get a little smelly, get a little dirty and make some memories we’ll be happy to look back on one day when we’re wrinkled old farts.

Me, I got my eyes on the prize. I’m there to reconnect with SA’s best bands, meet some fucking crazy kids and take the first few steps down a road I hope will take me where I need to be.

And of course, I’m there to watch Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and, if I play my cards right, hopefully meet and interview the band.

 

 

I’m old enough to know that I’ve probably built this up in my head to be something much bigger than what it’s going to be when we get there, but I honestly couldn’t give a fuck.

I’m living in the moment until Monday morning 8am and right now the moment couldn’t be better.

To get everyone in the mood, here are my top 5 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club tracks to drink whisky to while you tear howling through the night, one from every album the guys have recorded.

 

“Love Burns” (off their self titled first album)

“Six Barrel Shotgun” (off Take Them On, On Your Own)

“Lien On Your Dreams” (off Baby 81)

“Shuffle Your Feet” (off Howl. The story of my life)

“River Styx” (off Beat The Devil’s Tattoo)

See you guys there. I’ll be the guy with my face in a puddle on the floor Winking smile

Expect an EPIC review on Monday.

Until then never forget that ours is not to question why.

Ours is but to do and die.

-ST

24
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 4 – SUCCESS!

By SlickTiger 6 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

wtf_catYOU GUYS AREN’T GOING TO MOTHERFUCKING BELIEVE WHAT FUCKING WENT DOWN YESTERDAY! THE CRAZIEST SHIT, LITERALLY THE CRAZIEST SHIT YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE!

After that mopey “I give up” post I wrote because I’d completely lost hope that I’d ever get tickets to Synergy and get to interview Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (one of my favourite bands of all time), EVERYTHING changed!

Thanks to Mr Dan Nash, the organisers of Synergy, a little badass called Paula K and most importantly, Grant Gelt from New Sound Artist Management I now not only have two tickets to the festival, but a photo pass so J-Rab can get shots from the photo pit and they’re doing what they can to arrange an interview on Saturday!

How fucking crazy is that shit?! It just goes to show, if you want something badly enough and throw yourself into it face first (with a cat on your back) sometimes, just sometimes, it actually works out.

Throughout the day one thing after the other was falling into place and then last night, at about 9pm, an email came from New Sound Artist Management saying they’d read my posts and wanted to basically help me get as close to the band as humanly possibly!

If you guys could’ve seen me last night you would have thought I had actually finally lost my fucking mind. Air punching, screams of “FUCK YEAH!” and practically having a full on seizure is how I spent the better part of an hour.

 

 

Then I promptly passed out from exhaustion, woke up this morning and continued the air-punching, seizure-inducing marathon that will probably only stop on Sunday.

This is going to be the best fucking festival EVER! I can hardly sit still I’m so fucking stoked – how the hell I’m going to get through the next 24 hours without physically detonating from excitement is anyone’s guess.

Batten the hatches boys and girls, the Tiger’s tearin’ up Synergy Winking smile

 

 

That was “Weapon Of Choice”. They’ve changed their drummer since recording that video, so you won’t see that dude (Nick Jago) behind the kit. But don’t be sad, they replaced him with a total belter!

 

 

In all my BRMC-inspired obsession, I realise that I’ve completely neglected to mention the killer SA bands that I’m going to be supporting at Synergy.

There’s a shitload of them, so not sure how I’m really going to be able to fit them all in, but here’s my festival wishlist:

  • The Plastics
  • Shadowclub
  • Taxi Violence
  • Zebra and Giraffe
  • Good Luck
  • McCree
  • Sixgun Gospel
  • Tumi & The Volume
  • Desmond and the Tutus (it’s been WAAAAYYYY too long!)
  • Isochronous
  • THE NARROW (HELL’S YEAH!)
  • Captain Stu (if I survive until the bitter end – please guys, stay to watch these guys, besides being awesome guys, their music is guaranteed to melt faces)

Life, my friends, has a funny way of working out sometimes.

To everyone who made this possible, thank you again, I won’t forget this Winking smile

-ST

23
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 3 – Restless Sinner

By SlickTiger 3 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , ,

Kalifornia brad pitt 03Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have a lot of killer songs, a lot of shit-kickin’, badass tracks that make you want to drive screaming into the night, firing a shotgun out the window of your buddy’s pickup while he swerves at breakneck speed through Nowheresville.

But it wasn’t until I heard “Restless Sinner” that I really started to take this band seriously, because for me, that song cuts right down to the bone.

It’s very seldom I can listen to it without some long buried memories clawing their way back out while I stare through the walls glassy-eyed, remembering…

It’s getting tired now, this constant pleading for tickets to Synergy and besides that, begging fucks with my pride.

This would have been a great opportunity for someone, an event sponsor, a partner, the event organisers themselves (God forbid!), to hook a brother up because the coverage I’d give them in return would have been epic. Their loss, the retards.

 

 

Instead, I guess I’ll just have to skip Synergy this year. I can’t afford R820 to get me and J-Rab there, because that’s not the only cost. It’s also another tank of petrol and it’s the booze and food while you’re there.

Add it all up and you’re looking at the business end of at least R1500 and we just plain can’t afford that at the moment.

I had this dream of meeting the band, swapping some war stories, connecting with them as people, flesh and blood and finding out what makes them tick.

In that dream, I asked the frontman Peter Hayes about “Restless Sinner”, what the song was about, why he wrote it, what it felt like to play it, but he didn’t say anything, just crossed the room and unlatched his guitar case…

 

 

-ST

22
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 2 – Radio Silence

By SlickTiger 3 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

insaneLife is fucking funny.

I’ve been thinking about my buddy, Guitar Jon who once, in a very drunken state, decided to tell everyone about ROCK AND ROLL!

We were varsity students getting fucked up in some bar or other that had a clever name and was wildly popular on Sunday nights in Jozi, but I’m pretty sure it closed down at least 3 years ago.

Guitar Jon was feeling low and disillusioned and like no one understood him (we’ve all been there), so he stood on one of the tables outside and delivered the following diatribe:

“Everybody shuddup! Shut the fuck up and LISTEN! Because I’m here to tell you, all of you, about ROCK AND ROLL! OK?! Because it’s something you FEEL! And it’s fucking ALIVE man! And it’s the best FUCKING THING that ever happened to us, to ANY of us! People forget that! But you just gotta BELIEVE! Because ROCK AND ROLL is the ONLY fucking thing that can save us! OK?! It’s… only fucking thing…”

He said. And one or two people looked at him, but mostly they just carried on drinking like nothing had happened, nothing at all.

 

 

So Guitar Jon got off the table and I think we patted him on the back and ordered him another round and that was that really.

I think in his mind things went differently – maybe people cheered him on or raised their voices in a passionate “Fuck yeah!” or two, but real life never works out that way.

I got in touch with the Synergy Live guys again yesterday and was told because ticket sales are going so well, they’re not issuing any media comps, which is why I’m climbing on the table to tell you guys:

“STOP BUYING FUCKING TICKETS OK?! YOU’RE BUYING TOO MANY TICKETS! IT’S NOT GOING TO BE THAT COOL, RATHER SAVE YOUR MONEY FOR RETIREMENT OR SOMETHING! OK?! YOU’LL NEED IT MORE WHEN YOU’RE OLD AND UGLY AND NOBODY LOVES YOU!”

But seriously guys, my big fucking plan is going nowhere.

 

 

I emailed Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s management and climbed on the table (again) to explain, in a passionate diatribe, how much I love this fucking band and what it would mean to get an interview with the guys while they’re in SA and so on and so on.

They probably printed my email out and then took it in turns to wipe their asses on it before filing it in a rather unpleasant smelling cabinet labelled “Interview Requests From Blogger Wankers” and all had a good laugh.

Or, like the crowd that witnessed Guitar Jon’s epic revelation, they probably just stared at it blankly for a few seconds and then pretended nothing had happened and quietly pushed the “delete” button.

I know it’s still early in the game and things could change, but right now the Road To Synergy isn’t really leading anywhere except to the nearest bottle of whisky and then after that, the street for some drunken swearing and public nudity.

I wish I had better news for ya folks, but that’s all she wrote.

Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be drawing an unhappy face on the head of my penis (adds a hilariously sorrowful undertone to the flashing) and listening to this track from my favourite band of all time, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, who I probably will never, ever get to see play live.

Ever Sad smile

This one’s called “Sweet Feeling”.

 

 

Don’t say it’s over so soon

We’ve tied to the day every wrong

We can wait in the shadows of mourning

But to wait just betrays what’s to come

There’s nothing, there’s no one, no cause

And still we believed in it all.

The sweet feeling’s gone

The sweet feeling’s gone…

-ST

21
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 1 – Shitting On The Dream

By SlickTiger 8 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Black-Rebel-Motorcycle-ClubSo on Friday I got all deep and philosophical on your asses and wrote about how I’ve been dicking around for too long and it’s time to step up to the plate and start slugging for the fence.

Well, I good couple of people who read the site and know me personally started asking what the hell I was on about was all about and why I was being so goddamned cryptic, so I decided I’d just spill the beans and give it to you guys straight.

My plan is to figure out a way to meet Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the guys headlining Synergy Live this year and one of my favourite bands of all time and I’m going to write one of the best goddamn features you’ve ever read in your LIFE about that experience and use that piece to start doing what I’ve always wanted to.

Write about rock n roll.

People are forever asking me what my site’s about and I’m forever answering, “I have no fucking idea. I just wake up that day and whatever comes into my head – BANG! That’s what I write about on that day.”

 

 

But for a long time I’ve been seriously considering steering this site in a musical direction so that at least I can say it’s about something.

Don’t freak out though, there will still be the random, awesome shit there always has been, I just want to have more of a focus on local and international music.

I guess it was that post “That Intangible Moment…” that I wrote awhile back that cemented the idea for me. If music means that much to me, if it’s such a powerful force in my life, then why not write more about it?

Of course, for my big plan to work I first have to get to Synergy, which is proving a little problematic.

 

 

See, I’m dirt broke at the moment. In fact, less than dirt broke. I’ve been living off my goddamned credit card the past two weeks and I’m so far in the red I’m contemplating robbing a bank just to tide me over.

Can I afford the R410 for a ticket (x2 for my photographer J-Rab) – fuck no.

So of course, being arguably one of the best bloggers in the country who has gotten free VIP tickets to U2, Rocking The Daisies and Kings Of Leon to mention a few, I contacted the event organisers to see if they could help a brother out.

Here’s how that went:

ME: Hey guys, I fucking love at least 15 of the bands playing at this year’s Synergy and am the BIGGEST Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Fan in the entire fucking world, do you have media comps available for Synergy this weekend? I’ll give you HUGE love on my site.

THEM: No. All gone.

ME: Ok, um, well do your sponsors maybe have any tickets available?

THEM: That’s our sponsors prerogative.

ME: Huh. Well can you please send through some contact details so I can get in touch with them and see if they can help a brother out?

THEM: (verbatim) “Why would we share our sponsor details with you and why would they issue you with tickets? If you are such a big fan why don’t you just go and buy a ticket from webtickets or outlets?”

That made me feel like a gigantic asshole. So I wrote back and said the following:

ME: (also verbatim) “It’s quite simple, you would share your sponsor’s contact details with me and they would (hopefully) issue me with tickets because I’d do a great write up of the event, hopefully get an opportunity to interview some of the bands and generally give your event some positive exposure on my site and through Twitter.

But judging from your tone in that last email, I can see I’m wasting my time. You think I’m just another snot-nosed blogger angling for free shit.

There’s a little thing called reciprocity, which is a principle I live by and one that can be loosely described as helping people in the good faith that one day they will return the favour. 

You should try it sometime.
-ST

Not long after sending that, the guy I was communicating with (Person A) called to give me a piece of his mind over the phone, but to his credit ended the conversation saying I should call Person B and ask if they had any tickets available.

I called and was told the guy who handles the media comps is Person A and that as far as Person B knew there weren’t media comps left, but she’d chat with Person A and get back to me.

And so here I am. Less than 5 days before everything kicks off and I got zip.

Anyone out there know anyone who knows anyone who can hook me up with media comps for Synergy?

In the meantime, here’s one of my favourite BRMC songs, fittingly entitled “Ain’t No Easy Way” (people are naked in it, so if you’re watching it at work, maybe check over your shoulder first…)

 

 

Imagine them rocking out with that shit live! That song is going to MELT FACES on Saturday.

Hopefully I’ll be there to rock out with you guys, once I’ve finished wiping all the shit off my dream…

Stay tuned folks. The Tiger’s hitting up Synergy one way or another and when he gets there, he’s meeting Pete and the guys from BRMC and getting the best fucking interview out of them anyone has ever gotten, EVER.

Amen.

-ST

07
Nov
11

Captain Stu Back With A Badass New Video

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Radass Videos
Tags: , , , , , ,

Captain Stu (2)Hey guys, fuck I feel terrible for not posting the last few days but like I said before, I’m getting F’ed right in the A at the moment, so I hardly have a minute to breathe.

It’s whisky-madness for your Tiger pal, running around like a crazy man, flying up and down to Joburg and back like a flippin yo-yo.

And in the midst of it all I totally missed the launched of Captain Stu’s new video for Siamese Twin, which is basically unforgivable.

The guys have shot an AMAZING video. It has everything that was awesome about being a kid – secret clubhouses, poker and playing Doctor-Doctor, check it:

 

 

The guys are playing a gig at Zula Bar in Cape Town on the 11th of November with Hog Hoggidy Hog, 340ml and Little Kings, then heading to Unit 11 in Durban on the 19th of November with The Trees and after that they’re hittin’ up Synergy Live Festival on the 27th of November.

Speaking of which, did you guys hear that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are playing at Synergy this year?!?! I’m not sure if I can handle that. They’re only basically one of my top 5 bands of all time right now.

Just buy the album Howl. Just buy it and we’ll continue this conversation. And also get Captain Stu’s EP Free Music of course. In fact, do that first Winking smile

Atta boy.

-ST