October 10, 2011
One Day Later.
Rocking the Daisies 2011. Featuring Shaun Oakes.
Rocking the Daisies happened this weekend, and I was there. Here with some random thoughts on the festival.
- The organisation gets better and better. There were no long queues, toilets were clean, and I even noticed them removing the sewage late at night whilst everyone was sleeping. Everyone except me that is. I wasn’t sleeping, otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed them removing the sewage and this point would have been null and void. Obviously.
- Lark, who finished things off on Saturday night at the main stage, left me feeling that they were both utterly brilliant and incredibly annoying at the same time. Watching them perform is kind of like sleeping with an ugly chick. You enjoy it, yet you also feel slightly angry with yourself. Can’t explain it.*
- Branded tents were all the rage this year. There was something like 800 branded marquees and tents, from Ray Ban to Fish Eagle to Peter f**king Stuyvesant. (how did a cigarette brand pull that off? Are they allowed to do that?) I am obviously exaggerating about there being 800 marquees there, but there were honestly loads of them, which I guess helps pay for the organisation mentioned in point 1, so in essence it’s a good thing.
- The electro tent seemed to give off a bit of a gay vibe late in the night. At about 3am Saturday morning, I was jamming to the three (or was it four?) DJ’s who looked like they stepped off the set of the movie Tron Legacy, when I noticed the male / female split in the crowd was about 65-35 in favour of guys. To my left was a muscular dude with a sailor hat, no top, and a smile, and to my right was a dude with a thick moustache and thicker scarf, who seemed keen to encroach in my personal space. Anyone else notice this vibe?
- Everyone seemed reasonably chilled. I didn’t notice any fights or flare-ups. There was an incident with a bit of a pick pocketing syndicate who entered and were trying to steal shit, but as far as I know, they were caught. In fact, the closest thing to a fight I heard about was a chick I know who had her camera stolen and clocked the guy in the face when the police grabbed him. Otherwise everyone seemed to get along.
- The Springboks should really have put the Wallabies away on Sunday morning. This kind of killed the vibe for everyone for a little bit. We all sort of just floated around not saying a word for a while.
- Blowing my nose on Sunday morning was both disturbing and strangely therapeutic. No need to elaborate on that one.
That is all.
Oakes signing off.
* I don’t really know what it’s like to sleep with an ugly chick. I have only ever slept with 9’s and swimsuit models.
Hey Shaun, I saw you at Daisies and wanted to come up to you and say hi, but then I realised I don’t actually know you. Ya, I dug Lark’s vibe as well, they kind of reminded me of Evanescence, in a roundabout way.
You should have dressed in drag and gone into the Brutal Fruit Daisy Den for ladies. Nothing in the world will convince me to drink brutal fruit (okay maybe threat of torture or lots of free shoes) but that’s not the point.
The point is that there were LOTS of hot showers, couches with coffee tables filled with bowls of sweets and fruit. There were chandeliers. There were mirrors with lights and hairdryers and ghds. There were OPI nail polish stations.
In short, it made sure that none of the guys knew what it felt like to sleep with an ugly chick. Because with a GHD and a make up mirror, a 5 can become an 8 in a matter of minutes.