Splish Splash

A farm near Underberg, a ceaseless supply of gumboots, floating restrooms, more tents than stars in the night sky and rhythm in the ground. It’s the ultimate outdoor music bonanza! It’s Splashy fen!

Splashy fen has been going strong for over 2 decades now, proudly attaining the title of South Africa’s longest running music festival. This cosmopolitan of culture, creativity and composition, wrapped up snugly within the blanket of mother nature is an experience that one needs to appreciate first hand! Quite simply, it’s something you really have to “do” before you die, like mastering the art of using chopsticks and implementing a hybrid economic system...yes after getting the British accent down those are my ultimate bucket list place keepers.

This four-day-line-up showcases a hand picked selection of some of the finest musical acts in the land. Artists found in this line up include Syd Kitchen, Tony Cox, Nibs van der Spuy, Miriam Backhouse and the Rudimentals. I guess it would be rude not to mention the diversity of the food on sale, the arts and crafts stores and the leisure activities all available at your fingertips, but it would fall on deaf ears. This is purely for music enthusiasts who are willing to put their bodies through a four day bender ‘for the love of song.’ This is a quote that many aspire to live by, “Dance as though no one is watching and sing as though no one can hear you.” In terms of ‘living Splashy’, you would dance as though no one is watching and if they are, who cares? ...and what’s the point of singing if no one can hear?  Are you feeling the splashy vibe?

The Beat of the Street

You’re having an absolute ‘shitter’ of a day, everything that could possibly have gone wrong has and even the things that couldn’t go wrong, have too! You try your best to sprinkle any sense of logic left onto your ‘screw the world’ campaign and just as you are about to delete all your Facebook friends you hear a song. A song that changes everything.  A song that takes you back to a time when playing outside did not mean going to Splashy Fen and poppers were crackers. A song that not only pulls at your heart strings, but actually yanks them right out. A song that is directly connected to the muscles that make you smile, because for some reason you cannot remember and will never remember this song means something to you. Why is it as humans, we feel such a strong bond to music? Well, if you think about it, music is the first part of the world we are exposed to before WE are even exposed to it! From the security of our mother’s womb we listen to her heartbeat and synchronize our own to that of the repetitive rhythm created.

So keeping all this in mind, don’t you think your selection of music is just as important as the bite sized emotions attached to them? If you agree, then you need to spoil yourself to some Kwaicore. What exactly is Kwaicore? Online in the blogosphere you will find it being described as a break through genre. A mixing pot of both Kwaito and Hardcore Punk, that leaves the audience frothing for more…but Kwaicore is so much more than just music. Kwaicore is journey that one can only travel barefoot. It is a sense of identity. It is freedom! Okay, so maybe I'm getting a bit carried away...let me rather describe the feeling that you get when allowing your speakers to vibrate to his mix. It's the same feeling you get when you find money in your jean pockets, you know that feeling that trumps world peace? Kwaicore is loud! It pulls you into its sound and keeps you there just long enough to allow your troubles to fall to the ground like petals doing a suicide plunge off a dying plant. It leaves you finding beats in footsteps, rhyme in the rain and sound in traffic. Think of Kwaicore as the urban heartbeat of Africa!