It’s been 9 years since Skin stood on my shoulders

Indeed:

An absolutely incredible Skunk Anansie performance at Rocking The Daisies, which was topped off with their iconic lead singer doing some upright crowd surfing, and standing on my shoulders while (probably unironically*) giving Weak a bit of a blast:

What a night that was.

Photos via my wife’s Nokia N95, if I remember correctly. Wow.

* I’d like to think so, at least.

Skin

Not the Skunk Anansie one, although that would have been pretty apt, given that it was about a year ago that she rocked us at Rocking The Daisies. Their lineup this year is underwhelming at best.

But I digress. Often.

Quota photo time, lest there be no chance of getting anything up later (careful now) and I rushed to my Flickr and somewhat randomly chose this one:

Folds of giraffe skin, still very much on the giraffe, at Paarl’s Giraffe House earlier this year. This was a fully grown giraffe, but it still appears to have a fair amount of spare skin. I thought that was something that animals grew into, like Colin has been doing.

Unsurprisingly, if memory serves me correctly, it did seem quite taut on his neck though.

More Flickry Giraffellove here.

Coming Home

The new Kaiser Chiefs album, Education, Education, Education & War is very, very nice and I’m loving the Travis vs The Killers feel to it. The latest single is this Travisy one – Coming Home – presented with a beautiful one take video shot in Blubberhouses, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

This was their first UK chart entry since 2008 – the same year that we saw them in South Africa at My Cokefest in Kenilworth. Interestingly, 30 Seconds To Mars were also there and we’re going to see them next month too.

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Check out the 2MP camera on my Sony W900i. Vintage, innit!

Next up from the album is my favourite track: the rather Killersy Meanwhile Up In Heaven, whose video will almost certainly get a blog post of its own here.

Part of me has this sneaky feeling that Ricky and the boys are an outside bet for Rocking The Daisies this year. New album, touring the US and then doing a few festivals til September – it all adds up. They’d be a great addition, especially since the announcement of the first international acts on the bill (Crystal Fighters and Rudimental) failed to pique my interest in any way, shape or form.

Post concert blues?

It’s probably just full on exhaustion, coupled with the disbelief of what actually occurred last night, but I’m not really able to function today. That said, we did take the opportunity to enjoy a childless meander back from Rocking the Daisies. And I’m back home in one piece, so it can’t be that bad.

Suffice to say, Skunk Anansie’s performance last night comprehensively knocked the Manic Street Preachers’ 2003 Glastonbury set from its comfortable spot on the throne of Best Gig I’ve Been To Land.

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Being right down at the front is always a bonus, and I was ready to be impressed after dreary Alt-J and the zany warm-up from The Hives. But Skin and the boys made it extra special, with a breathtakingly energetic and interactive performance, including her standing on my shoulders and holding my hand – this one here, goddammit! [holds up left hand] – while she belted out Weak.
I went back 15 years in an instant.

There was stage diving (some organised, most not so much), there was power and presence, and there was even some classic rock’n’roll violence as Skin ended the band’s one year tour by putting her microphone stand through the drum kit after their final song.
The gaggle of disbelieving road crew gathered round the damaged kit pointing and taking cellphone pictures afterwards suggested that it was a wholly impromptu and unexpected act.

This morning, I woke up with this in the room:

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A piece of memorabilia that I will certainly cherish and quite possibly frame.
If you look carefully, you can even make out the print of Skin’s studded silver boot. Sadly, having checked, there’s no such print on my jacket, but I’ve still got the memories.

I Hope You Get To Meet Your Hero they sang; last night, I kinda think I did.

RTD

Having increased the average age of the general population at Hudson’s Burger joint (the Claremont one) last week, and then attended a 21st birthday party on the weekend where we – once again – upped the average age a bit, we will be heading out to the Cloof Wine Estate this weekend for Rocking the Daisies.

At first, we thought that we weren’t going to be the oldest ones there, but then there were licencing issues (or… something) and suddenly, no under 18s are allowed. While this may seem to be a plus point on the whole mean age thing, what it actually means are fewer parents going along, and they were generally the ones who were our age.

It’s not like I care though. I quite like the fact that I was enjoying the headline act while the rest of the audience were still in nappies. And I. Cannot. Wait.

Of course, the old stuff is the stuff that everyone knows: Weak, Hedonism, LatelyBrazen, but the new stuff is every bit as good, as I mentioned here. They’re not past it. Really. And as ever, it’s overtly in-your-face political:

But that voice. Goosebumps, every time.

Skunk Anansie provided much of the soundtrack to my 1990s. Trips down to Uni in London took about one and a half albums each way. And then I remember watching my wife-to-be fly out of the country while Secretly completed my emotional destruction.

And yet, I’ve never seen them live. This weekend will be a big bucket list moment for me and I’m going to enjoy every single minute of it.

Incidentally, there’s an RTD app for your smartphone, which looks pretty good. Loads of information and some really neat features, like a GPS to find your tent and car. Here’s the link to the Android version, or scan this puppy (it’s not actually a puppy, obviously):

rtdapp