Scraping , shlurping the last bits of residue at the bottom of my chocolate milkshake, I still managed to suck up a bit of flavour at the bottom end of the summer.
Ant Ger,(his real name) and Dan Ger (his Hollywood name), made the journey outta suburbia to emmarentia dam, a public park, at night, in the rain. I think tony Maloney was scared of encountering a pack of man-eating banshees, but I chooned him to fear not, for I am the Russian bear hunter.
we went to indulge our ears with the rip rifling riffs of a sapling of the once salami purveyor family, dan patlansky. This oke, the height of a sergei bubka pole vault, and strewn with the gangly hair of krusty the clown, could wield his fender nimbly. His caloused tips extracting squeals, roars and metallic thrusts out of the catless gut. As the rain came a pouring down and patlansky played his melody, the halogen lights beamed us into sur-reality.
The 21st March was the day the world came to Alberton-a hairy, crusty mole on the backside of f*cked up southern Africa.
My coke fest expectations were those of licking a dogs balls. Sweaty, unpleasant, and rather salty. this coke fest was none at the coffee table, credit cards and blow. This was pure unadulterated euphoria. My expectations were totally severed, a head in a jam jar.
We, that was one RoLo, Feedy and Ane in the Hay, stood in the cheap seats. The day, hot and dry. The dust forming stalactites up our nostrils. it was a spelunkers dream.
I won’t mention anything before like 4pm, because it was totally sheeite.
The first of the international bands arrived on the platform to the shrieks of teens- tonsils red and clanging.
3rd rock from the.. uh I mean 30 seconds to Mars, a flash in the frying pan, a one hit wonder. They’re fronted by jay leno, uh I mean jared leto-a once rather respectable actor. But here he was rendering me sleepless in Alberton. The band were my sleeping pill. their syrupy, rehearsed rock made me ill at the bowels.
JL did surprise me however. Aside from his notorious yoddling he managed to turn ape man, mounting the scaffolding, and running a rampage through the hysterical crowd. For this act I gotta give him gambling coupons.
But as the crowd screamed ‘we want more.’, I responded with , ‘please not again.’
The Kaiser chiefs, the Kaiser f*ckin chiefs were an absolute cracker. They’re pure britishers, and I love them. Their eclectic form of rock/ pop rubs me up to blister. They’re so f*cking well oiled. Their beat is an eclectic ball of coloured plasticine. The Chiefs predicted a riot, but all they got was a b*tch slap across the face with an 18 inch cilbasa from the sober crowd. the spectators were Zombies in a b-grade movie. lacking lustre they were numb to the ripping riffs of a relevant band.
I didn’t need a receipt for services rendered by this band cos I wasn’t gonna ask for no refund. ai,
As my BP dropped to a lowly 80/100, I cracked open and chugged a half litre of ice cold coca cola. And as the sugary brown nectar slippy slided its way down my bone dry gullet, chris cornell and his trio of mega guitarists played the pulsating theme track to my salvation. After hearing Chris Cornell, I’m pretty sure, Jared Leto went home to his mommy with his head hung in shame and his thumb in his mouth.
Cornell, his chain saw voice and trio of guitarists are alchemists turning pure rock into musical gold. The world stopped spinning on its angled axis. It stood still and began beating a different rhythm.
Piet the hunter and his Martini managed to clothe us in stealth suits. And there we were in the golden O, the whole in the donut. It was gum boot territory but we didn’t give a rats rectum. And there we stood as our vision pixellated and we were no longer living reality. The Muse had radioed Huston and had landed.
Muse are gargantuan. They’re lightning, an epileptic fit. The kind of energy this band exudes mimicks a 7 year old high on red juice. They’re outta this world, they’re playing in a different league in a different galaxy. This rock band makes stonehenge look like a pebble. The back drop to their gig-the flashing graphic and imagery were psycho-delic, their music morphing animation. we drooled a flood. this trio of musicians sent us into a frenetic chemical eruption and blew us away splattering our senses onto the windscreen of our lives.
This gig was no archaeological dig, it was a lesson from a real school of rock.
Cry me a river
Korn, was some bone to chew on. I didn’t know until this day.
The bass, f*ck me, the bass, ripped at the apple core of my being, fragmenting my innards. The bassist slapped that guitar across the face of a back chatting teen. It was gigantic. The lead singer, dreaded and wearing at scottishers kilt, was a quart on the pint of a stage. His jeckyll and hide voice left me stunned, exposed and gaping. His eerie bag pipe blowing was a powerful exitude to a mind blowing eve.
Korn played it’s hibernating Goths like the piper of Hamlin the mesmerized rats.
They were the R50 note I found in my jeans 2 weeks after I’d rode them.
The day was long, I was ravenous-my stomach began waging war on my other organs. But the music was all the nutrition I really needed.
I believe I shoulda been born in the 60’s, to live through the great rock age, the age of real music when a guitar solo could move ones bowels to tip a richter scale and then finally end it all after Michael Jackson’s Thriller album.
That was a 12 hour session comparable with anything I saw in the Old World. It was phantasmagoric. I liked it like a lolly pop.
So I’m at my regular art class finger painting the night away. Some kid, a 14 year old tyke, is going on about his fledgling rugby football career. ‘geesus h Christ’, I belt, you train 6 days a frikking week?.’yeah he says, looking stunned at my Oscar wining reaction. ‘We’re in the gym 3 days and 3 days we’re chucking ball’. There’s dead silence-‘so how much do you bench press?’he inquisitively asks. ‘I stare blank, my brain function ceases, I look at my right arm muscle, he looks at it too. “oh, he retorts”.
Thanks for listening. the Russian bear hunter, master swordsman and 5th member of the Fantastic 4.
Ah what id do for sunny day in the park a Frisbee and a Scratch.
go on give it scratch
