Oppikoppi 2014: Odyssey

Shewee. Second Oppi done and dusted (quite literally). I left work a little early on Thursday and we headed thru to Northam. This year we had booked in to the Kreef Hotel. That was kinda a last minute decision (a couple of weeks ago), luckily there was still space.

This year's Oppi was quite different to last year's, but also quite similar. Let me try to explain. Last year, I thought it was all "themed" for Bewilderbeast. This year I realised how little there changes. The food stalls were almost all in the exact same places, the stages were hardly different at all. In fact it would be harder to try and tell you what had actually changed ...

So I found that a little disappointing, honestly. I guess I expected the whole thing to be a lot more themed each year, for the stages to be underlying the same but done up differently.

This year's line up also didn't feel as good as last years. The things I was super looking forward to were Wonderboom (on Thursday night at midnight!), Shortstraw (last year's Oppi discovery!) and Editors (this year's big headline act, although I only know 2 of their songs). The rest was pretty much fluff.



It was different staying in Kreef vs. Mordor. We definitely didn't feel as dusty this year ... we had showers available but didn't end up using them. The serious perk was having toilets so nearby! The *serious* downside was the density of the population in Kreef. We were packed like sardines. Oppi is noisy. I get it. But usually there is still some space between you and the next campsite. In Kreef, although we were next door to our friends, we were across from quite possibly the noisiest people in the whole camp! These people literally did not leave their camp for the whole day on Friday, they sat outside their tent (so in the walkway between where our tent and their tent both opened) getting more and more drunk and louder and louder.

Not much of a problem when we weren't there, but when we headed back to our tent in the midday to get out of the heat and catch up on some sleep it was rather annoying.

At Kreef breakfast is included too. There are long queues for this (and the showers, we heard someone queued for an hour & half :/). We only ate breakfast there on Friday morning and it was pretty decent: eggs, bacon, sausages, orange juice etc.

We visited our friend's camp in Mordor on both Friday and Saturday ... they couldn't visit us in Kreef. And we pretty much bumped into people on and off in the main area, depending on who was watching who ...

We started on Thursday with a very disappointing Squeal on the James Phillips Stage (below left) and then we caught The Kiffness on the Red Bull Stage (which was our surprise band of this year) (below right). We ended the evening off with Wonderboom (one of my favourites!) on the James Phillips stage. The Trucker reckons Cito is such a poser. I was impressed at how he was exactly as I remembered from the first time I saw him at Up The Creek in 2004! Well, minus the long hair, obvs.



I must say, I was disappointed with the sound on the James Phillips stage this year, and EVERYBODY seemed to be playing there. Literally, Editors was the only band we really went to watch on Wesley's Dome Stage properly. And they were fantastic. The sound was much better there ...

On Friday there was nothing really interesting on till late afternoon. And nothing we HAD to see at all that day :/ We did wander up and sort of watch some Gangs of  Ballet, Zebra & Giraffe and Springbok Nude Girls (who were wearing dresses and a lot less coherent than I expected).

On Saturday we had another lazy day (so glad I took my kindle!) and didn't have our eye on anything till Shortstraw on the James Phillips stage (below left) and then Editors on Wesley's Dome (below right). Editors put on a fantastic polished show. We had a great position near to the stage with plenty of space. But that lead singer is a bit odd. Very bendy, is probably the best description ... but what a great voice.



On Sunday we were up at 5am (the music was still going!) and home before 8am (with a quick Wimpy Harties stop for toasted sandwiches). We did a lot of washing, we showered, we did our grocery shopping and we took Pepper for a walk. And then we napped.

It was a good weekend :)