Posts Tagged ‘up the creek’

Unless you’re Vishnu, chances are you missed out on something at this year’s Up The Creek festival, such was the manic energy of the place. All the familiar faces from the event’s last incarnation in 2005 were there, plus a few new ones. ‘Bout time, too; we’d been saving a Black Label quart for a special occasion, and my tattooed girlfriend just won a beer bet…

It was carnage, at first. Then came the retrospective solitude, the kind spent behind the ablutions with a territorially marked puking space. Having missed all the name-pulling bands on the Friday due to covering The Womens’ Show (I know: wtf), we stumbled upon a wayward drinks voucher as we arrived. Let’s face it. In situations like this, nothing can be done to salvage the situation but get busy deleting that voucher’s validity. After all, nobody honest has the ability to truly appreciate that evening’s lineup of Taxi Violence, Dan Patlansky, Van Coke Kartel and Prime Circle in a state of parent-like sobriety. Where’s the bar.

DNA Strings surprising the 2008 Up The Creek Festival More Vids | Submit Vids

When we woke up, the sun was setting. Excellent. Just in time to catch the good stuff. First off, Taxi still bring the Violence, opening their set this time with an angle-grinder-weilding weirdo and a cover of Feel Good Hit of the Summer by Queens of the Stone Age. Nothing wrong with that, especially when the four-piece hard rock outfit sees fit to demonstrate their abilities on each others’ instruments. George drives that kit like he stole it, and despite being on his way out of the band, Loedi has some frontman in him yet…

They say Dan Patlansky’s mastered the guitar. We didn’t get the chance to slur out an interview with the guy, but we did catch his act at the Table Mountain Blues Summit, and got a piece of him again now. Yeah, the 26ish-year-old Saffa has a couple of licks to dominate the ordinary, soggy, Wonderwall-covering Melrose advert guitarist, and he’s definitely worth checking out before some international bigwig decides “I’m taking that, thank you.” If blues is your thang, do yourself this one favour.

Gotta say, tho, it was DNA Strings that converted the ordinary rockaholics into a state of undivided attention, and got the peripherals at the fringes of the trademark Up The Creek central stage canopy pushing in to get a look, waterblommetjie stew in one hand and Amstel in the other.

Bringing a vocal-free 45-minute-set to the crowd, we were quite impressed with the ability of what is essentially a soundtrack band to dominate the live set. A sense of humour and passion overlays their stuff, and you can tell just by watching them that they’ve got a freehold over their music, their act and themselves. Uplifting stuff with a Gaelic pizzicato or two. Since the five-piece violin-fronted instrumental act is reputedly as busy as a pack of gorillas on viagra, you won’t have to look far to catch them live.

After donating our breakfasts back to the earth, the main crowd slumped together to catch the unspoken highlight of Up the Creek. Two guys who are unafraid of strapping raw bacon onto the face of a guy who they’ve named Denver, while pushing their faces into his crotch and re-enacting the nativity play with creative license. “Hands aap, who’s hung ova?” Three or four hands. “I can’t belivv it, guy. Afta seein so many pipple actin like-a blerrie assholes las night, only three of them’s got a hungover.” Welcome back Corné and Twakkie, everyone.

As mentioned, there’s only so much you can stick into a piece like this, so the rest of it goes out in thanks to the UTC crew for re-opening their doors on an unabashedly South African festival and giving people like us something to chat about on Facebook. With a smash-bang-crash straight from the good ol’ days, welcome back, Up The Creek!

More news…

“I can’t belivv it, guy. Afta seein so many pipple actin like-a blerrie assholes las night, only three of them’s got a hungover.”

If you’re still hungover from New Years Eve but still wanna have a good time, think about joining a couple thousand others in the bush for the reborn, revamped and revisted 2008 Up the Creek Music Fest! There’s water for your daughter, juice to make you loose and a sucker to make you wakker. And cappuccinos to make you…ok, nothing rhymes with cappucino.

Wtf?! Just when we’d hung up our mud-stained trophy shoes and tossed out our collection of crinkled Savannah lids, Up the Creek Festival has announced that it’s coming out of retirement to put on another weekend of chaos out in Swellendam from February 1st – 3rd, 2008. Awesome band lineup, too.

Up the Creek, this time with a paddle. More Vids | Submit Vids

Thanks to the resourceful people over at UTCHQ (Up The Creek Headquarters – get with it , we’ll be removing the abovementioned sponsor from the festival’s title and going it alone this year. Ladies, gentlemen and people from Stellenbosch, for the first time in two ‘agonizing’ years, we present to you the 2008 Up the Creek South African Music and Entertainment Festival.

Up The Creek Music festival emanated from humble beginnings in 1990. The basic ingredients were simple – a river camp, an eclectic group of friends with many hidden talents and a handful of intrepid river guides. Mix all of the above and the result – a weekend-long jamming session – around the proverbial campfires and under African skies.

These unofficial gatherings soon blossomed into a fully-fledged festival and Up the Creek established itself as one of the countries’s most loved, eclectic and premium music and comedy festivals. The festival attracted sponsorship for many years and became a firm favourite on the entertainment landscape.

In 2006 sponsorship ran dry and the festival was put on hold for an agonizing 2 years. The organizers received a stream of emails from insane fans who had claimed to have caught yet another incurable fever – namely ‘whynocreekalitis’.

So due to our search for a cure and popular demand the festival is back. This is the festival-with-a-difference – the one where you have 18 of the country’s top homegrown bands on tap throughout a MEGA weekend campout. Where you may just pitch your tent next to your favourite lead vocalist! The Festival where, when the music stops – thee Most Amazing Show – cracks you up! The one where you can chill down after appreciating the above-mentioned talent in the gorgeous Breede River and warm up with hot showers & cappuccinos AND have the Sunday paper delivered to your tent flap! Now that’s bush comfort.

Great to be back! Hit the the official UTC site for more.

FRI 1 FEB

19h00 – 20h00 Bed on Bricks
20h00 – 21h00 Love Jones
21h00 – 22h00 Foto na Dans
22h00 – 23h00 Wonderboom
23h00 – 00h00 The Parlotones
00h00 – 01h00 Flat Stanley

SAT 2 FEB

15h00 – 16h00 Ryno Velvet
16h00 – 17h00 Southern Gypsey Queen
17h00 – 18h00 Perez
18h00 – 19h00 Akkedis
19h00 – 20h00 Valiant Swart
20h00 – 21h00 DNA Strings
21h00 – 22h00 Taxi Violence
22h00 – 23h00 Prime Circle
23h00 – 00h00 Dan Patlansky
00h00 – 01h00 Van Coke Kartel

SUN 3 FEB

10h00 – 11h00 Harris Tweed
11h00 – 12h00 Boulevard Blues Band
12h00 – 13h00 DNA Strings
13h00 – 14h00 Lara Frances
More bands…