This little chilli is not so chocolate coated this morning!
5fm and Big Concerts' Coca-Cola Colab Massive Mix on Saturday showcased the most fantastic bands and the worst event organisation ever seen in South Africa.
Did someone actually sit down and think to themselves "Hmmm... 45 000 people... I'm sure that 2 beer gardens and 2 food stations will be just fine"?
We queued for about 45 minutes to buy empty plastic cups, and for another hour before giving up on being able to buy beer! Not that I particularly expected to have no queue, but a chap four people in front of us had waited for 2 and a half hours to buy two beers - that is how slowly the queue was moving!
The queues for food and cooldrinks were much the same. In fact the only thing that any of our party of four consumed, bar water obtained from the bathroom taps using our plastic cups, in the entire 12 hour concert was a two litre bottle of coke that we managed to buy off one of the rare roving drinks salesmen.
The "sold out" golden circle was filled beyond capacity - this owing to the easily bribed "security" monitoring the entrances to it. A standing room ticket (R395.00) and a R50.00 bribe got a number of people into the area reserved for people who had paid R525.00 for their tickets.
Not to mention the power cuts during Collective Soul's performance. (A very big chocolatey kiss to Ed Roland - lead singer for the band - for giving the sound guys the finger... although it should maybe have been aimed at the production manager and coordinator instead.)
One big fat, inedible chilli to the 5fm DJ (Koula, I think, but my dehydrated brain may have been hallucinating) who actually had the audacity to get up on stage to tell the audience that "We hear you've all been complaining that you can't get any water... well we know." No "Sorry guys, we're trying to organise something", but rather "I'm happy sitting in my 5fm tent and I don't really give a f*^% about you lot."
Lots of chocolate for the bands though. Didn't see Flat Stanley, The Finkelsteins or Arno Carstens (missed the latter two standing the in the beer queue) but Karen Zoid and Prime Circle were as awesome as ever. A Simple Plan and Seether blew my mind, Collective Soul almost acquired another panting groupie backstage, and Metallica... there are just no words. And the Parlotones, who got to play to a crowd of around 2000 after Metallica finished, did a really great job getting me back on my poor exhausted feet.
Hmmm, and lots of chocolate for the medics who would have had to deal with all the dehydration cases yesterday!
5fm... you owe your listeners a major apology for your attitude yesterday, Big Concerts... you owe everyone who bought tickets a major apology for your shoddy organisation, and until those are issued... to put it as A Simple Plan would, f*^% both of you too!
