My Coke Fest 2008

-

5FM and Coke have announced the first few acts performing at My Coke Fest 2008, the all-day rock festival that is becoming a much anticipated annual event in South Africa.

Next year's line-up:

Korn
Muse
Chris Cornell
Kaiser Chiefs
Good Charlotte
Prime Circle

Tour dates:
Friday, 21 March 2008 - New Market Racetrack, Johannesburg (Gates open at 10h00)
Monday, 24 March 2008 - Kenilworth Racetrack, Cape Town (Gates open at 10h00)

Ticket prices:
Golden Circle - R600.00 - INCLUDING Computicket service charges
General Admission - R400.00- INCLUDING Computicket service charges
General Admission (Student) - R330.00- INCLUDING Computicket service charges

Bookings open at Computicket from 9am this Friday, 26 October 2007.

-----------

For the 2nd year running, Durbanites have been shut out, denied of their own concert. And at the moment I personally can't decide if I'm going to make the trek to Joburg again.

On the one hand it would be awesome to see Korn live. I'm not the biggest fan of the band but I own their Greatest Hits, and some of their early pivotal albums, so I know all the songs that matter. And Korn truly are alternate rock icons.


I loved Good Charlotte's Chronicles of Life and Death but their new album hasn't done much for me - maybe it's just too samey, or maybe it's been contaminated by the associated stench of the lead singer's girlfriend, Nicole Richie. Blergh.

I would really like to see Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell, even if just to watch him perform You Know My Name, the kickass Bond song from Casino Royale, which still gets regularly played on my iPod.

As for Brit indie rockers Kaiser Chiefs and popular local boys Prime Circle, they're fine, if a bit flavourless. I know their radio-played songs and that's about it. Nothing they've done has ever thrilled me to the point of motivating me to acquire their albums.

And as for Muse, I seriously have to ask "Who?" I know the band has a cult following even in SA (I've heard the name often enough in "My favourite music" discussions), and I know Muse has won plenty of Best Live Act accolades at the Brit Awards. However, I honestly couldn't name a single one of their songs off the top of my head.

It's a prime example of the irony behind My Coke Fest. 5FM's desire to steal away Radio Metro's listeners has meant that rock has taken a back seat to R&B on the playlist (well, at least until recently - I'll give 5FM credit for that).

As a result radio listeners are subjected far more often to Rihanna wailing about being a murderer or umbrellas, than we are exposed to up-and-coming rock acts. So when it comes time for My Coke Fest, many of the bands brought out have received little to no airplay by the station. This means that the audience will stand there unresponsive, waiting for the one song they DO know, while the band rocks out... unless the audience members have made the effort to discover the group on their own. And that's just wrong. The bands have come so far - they deserve to be playing in front of audiences who appreciate them.

Click here to read the official My Coke Fest 2008 press release on the 5FM website.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding
Read more