It was that time of the year again, and to be honest I didn’t even know that it was. I was planning on spending my Saturday lazing about, but at about 10am on the day of the show I got a message from Keenan, from Wildernessking asking if I’d be willing to shoot their set. I then remembered how much fun it is shooting M4A events, where there are always solid attendee numbers. I was quick to accept the invitation and began charging my batteries and formatting my CF card. As luck would have it, the M4A bi-annual events (Summerfest & Winterfest) take place at Klein Libertas in Stellenbosch, a short drive from Somerset West.
After arriving and paying the entrance fee, I battled my social anxiety and passed through the hoards of unfamiliar faces, all dressed in the blackest of blacks. I scanned for familiar faces, but took a while before I recognized and spoke to a few friends and acquaintances.
The bands started quite promptly, a pleasant surprise for any show- and it seems I missed Thread of Omen as I couldn’t find any images of the set on my camera.
I’m not going to go into detail about each bands performance, there’s enough reviews out there. Instead I’m going to make this a photo-journalism entry and allow the images to speak instead, and a few videos (I brought along a GoPro in case the urge to film came along).
But the first band on stage when I was there was Rukuz…
Followed by my friends in Subvers, with Scott Miller filling in on drums…
Arc Reactor was next…
And at 20:00 Beeldenstorm’s set began…
Then it was Adorned in Ash, a female fronted band from Gauteng…
Followed by Sindulgence at 21:30…
At 22:30 Wildernessking’s set began
And finally was Nebula Disrupt, with some pretty cool corpse paint.
Between the performances, the outside stage played host to some burlesque dancing. Which while great in itself, was coupled with homophobic slurs by the outside DJ. But the girls’ routines seems flawless and the crowed seemed to appreciated it.
I find that shooting these events always ends up introducing me to new people and making some new connections, I need to be more disciplined in going to more of these events to shoot!
