A revelation!

Last night I made my way home from Pukkelpop in Belgium. I could easily rant on about the differences between continental festivals and those found on our lovely wet isle, I’d rather just say something nice. Normally at festivals I try and see as many bands as possible, even if that means seeing three acts for twenty minutes a piece. This time around I tried to see as many full shows as possible. While some shows weren’t worth sticking around for, others were a delight. I also made an effort to see more acts about whom I knew very little. One such act was South Africa’s MaxNormal.tv. I wandered into the Wablief? tent (generally home to non-English speaking acts) on Thursday afternoon, not quite sure what to expect. Behind a laptop was a diminutive blonde dressed in chav-chic, on the decks was a stocky guy in a Hawaiian shirt, and rapping away at the front of the stage was MaxNormal, wearing a wife-beater, short shorts, and a futuristic visor of which Róisín Murphy might have been jealous. The ramshackle show consisted of incomprehensible Afrikaans, heavily-accented rapping in English, and a lot of bleepy electro-tech-beats that sat perfectly with the DIY effects on show. The highlihght was definitely a track called Rap Made Easy, during which Max attempts, Mr Motivator style, to teach the listener/gig-goer how to rap. The lyrics were projected at the back of the stage, but alas they were a few seconds behind the lyrics. Rather than take away from their show, it only added to the cozy charm of this bizarre ensemble. I was so taken with them that I bought a tee shirt, and even managed to get hold of their CD, Good Morning South Africa. While this kind of music might not stick around forever, it’s great to know that there will always be someone to make chirpy, upbeat music for kids to dance to at raves and house parties. At the end of this performance I felt the same sort of excitement I felt the first time I saw Bonde do Rolê. If only MaxNormal.tv had someone like Diplo behind them, who knows how far they could go.