Splashy Fen Tour Diary

Easter, as it does every year – snuck up on us, bowling everyone over with its splurge of public holidays and a cesation of deadlines and productivity.
Our April schedule had been manic and with our second appearance at South Africa’s most established Music Festival, we were struggling to find time to fit everything in… production meetings, rehearsals, equipment overhauls, booking flights and sourcing rental cars in Durban on the long Easter Weekend (which let me tell you, is about as difficult as getting a rich man through the eye of a needle)
Friday night found us raising the roof at Cape Town’s Knoxville – quite literally as one friend of ours put it; “I like your music but I don’t like it when the building shakes!” so with our ears ringing we kicked off Easter Weekend with a bang.  I mentioned before the difficulty of finding a car to rent – difficulty assumes there was a positive outcome… there wasn’t. Not a single car was to be found across all the rental companies in Durban, not even a rickshaw.
As Luck would have it (hahaha) SMG Durban and our long standing friend Peter Calley  – who handles Mini in KZN came to our rescue with a stunning Mini Clubman – which if you know cars; is the larger version of the Cooper. A tight squeeze fitting 4 people (we had our engineer in tow), and all our equipment into the car for the 2 and a half hour journey to the Underberg. It’s a testament to the design how much you can squash into a Mini!

Arriving at dusk to a jam-packed tent city, we negotiated our way along the rutted dirt road to the Grant Erskine Stage. Capacity; 10 000.

View of Splashy Fen

Bitterly cold and travel weary we sought shelter in the band backstage area and managed to bump into Vusi Mahlesela who we were sharing the stage with – such an awesome, humble man who makes the most incredible music! Quite an honour!

GoodLuck with legendary Vusi Mahlasela

Having touched base with Festival founder and organiser Pedro Carlo, we treked back to our log cabin over looking the “Fen” to relax around a roaring log fire and wait for midnight.

Goodluck Splashy crowd

Walking onto stage having just watched BOO! (Awesome band ft Chris Chameleon) was a goose-bump moment for all of us…  Splashy Fen welcomed us with open arms!

Check out this video of London Sixteen66 (Wes Clarke Remix):

http://www.facebook.com/v/10150176983746681

Goodluck KDAY Experience 2011

The K-Day Weekend Report:

Under Pressure plays in the background as the band steam rolls through final album touch ups, remix reviews, video preproduction and a weekend with 7 gigs in a row…

Flying in from Jozi on Saturday morning – having notched up Gig 1 the night before, Ben, Jules and Raiven sped through baggage collection and down the N1 into the searing heat of the Paarl valley.  Tuning into 94.5 fm the DJ announces ticket sales have exceeded 10500… there’s a noticable change in the speed Ben’s driving and conversation dries up as the bushes slow from a blur to a rush. This will be GoodLuck’s biggest performance to date.

The schedule for the weekend looks like something out of a presidential campaign tour… Johannesburg and Cape Town are getting the royal treatment this long weekend as GoodLuck juggle Kfm’s infamous Kday and Jozi’s Top Gear festivities… there’s a lot of flying ahead of us!

Finally entering the Val de Vie Estate and the temperature is soaring, its 11am and already in the high 30’s… the grounds are festooned with multicoloured umbrellas and seething with over 10000 Capetonians all here to listen to some of South Africa’s best musical talent; Art Matthews, Prime Circle, Goldfish, Liquid Deep and Freshly Ground to name a few.

Ushered backstage and into the cool of our airconditioned trailor, we take a few minutes to prepare for the show ahead. In what feels like a blink of an eye – knocking on our door calls us to stage to setup our equiptment and be on stand by… things are very professional at K-Day – we’re more used to; “oh are you ready to play now?” – in a flurry of stage hands we’re whisked onstage and into the scorching sun. The temperature is now in the 40’s and its pouring “gear melting” heat down onto us; Ben’s drum bubbles up as the rubber expands and Raiven’s keyboard loses its LED screen! The stage painted black blisters the soles of bare feet and radiates heat like a furnace.

Its hot. Like an oven door’s been opened.

A sea of umbrellas and glistening, sweating people spread out on the Polo field roar in aproval as the band drops into London Sixteen66. Jules soon has the audience, shockingly – on their feet grinding to the beat and chanting LaLaaLalaLaa with her as she sings out the chorus! Fast forward to the song the crowd has been waiting for and Matthew Moolman graces the stage to sing the duet with Jules on Taking it Easy… Val de Vie rocks to the sound of 10 000 people singing “we’re taking it eeeaasssyyy”! The performance speeds by in blur of sweat and melting instruments and all too soon the band are recovering in the shade of backstage before dashing off to sign autographs to the queing fans.

K-Day has rocked, burnt and melted its audience and GoodLuck are blown away by the response to their performance. “You’d think people would just sit there and watch!” gasps Jules mid signing of a sweaty T-shirt, “I can’t believe they danced the whole show!”

Hundreds of photographs, hugs and signatures later and the band are bundled back into their car, AC pumping at full capacity – its now 44’ in the sun, and the journey continues; off to Jozi!