Town & music

On Saturday we got up early-ish and went for a wander round the centre of town, a mission which most white South Africans would not accept. We started off up the Carlton Centre tower which affords views over the whole of Joburg (city as far as the eye can see to the north, looking south it ends abruptly in a goldmine's slag heap). You can also see onto the rooves of surrounding buildings, which host whole families. Then we went for a walk down through the town, where we played spot the white person, I think we saw three but one of those we weren't sure about. We skirted the edge of what I think was called Library Gardens, we were going to go on but I wasn't keen on passing the trade union demo and being identified as the enemy. Then we reached the old stock exchange, which along with the rest of the business district upped and left in the 80s and 90s for the northern suburbs, abandoning the office buildings, many of which are now inhabited and making for an exciting if tense tour of the district.

After lunch in the chinatown we left as soon as we got back for a music festival called Sonic Summer. We got there early afternoon as it was all getting started, beautiful sunshine, on a riverbank, and a reasonably priced bar tent. Then as the bands got started... so did the thunderstorm. Added a new dimension to the experience.

First two headliners were called Locnville and Jax Panik, they were both dreadful. The former were teenage boys jumping around and the latter wearing masks singing about something unmemorable. Then were Goldfish who were the best, dance act whose songs I recognised from the radio here. They played their tracks and saxophone, double bass and flute over the top.

The previous night Carrie and I had looked up some of the bands on youtube and had watched the next band's video and both woke up humming it. Brace yourselves. They were called Die Antwoord (the answer, probably) and ingratiated themselves with the crowd by advising us to go forth and multiply. They were pretty odd. When we mentioned them the next day they were apparently a reason to be ashamed to be South African when they toured in Europe.

He's a ninja. And he's got your nose.

I thought they were funny. Sandra didn't. It was difficult to tell what they were on about because when it wasn't in Afrikaans it was indistinguishable from it through the heavy accent. They had the crowd entertained though, apart from us who fled the storm for the fifth time. The beer stand was a shed with three sides, and in front of the open side a large tent with benches, which threatened to blow away and so was taken down some time during Goldfish. So we jumped into our taxi and tried to warm up. The festival was good, but next time we might pay more attention to who's playing before going.