I’ve been a big fan of the Kirstenbosch summer sunset concerts for many years and have discovered several of my favourite South African bands there. But over the last couple of summers, the whole world, its wife, kids, neighbours, parents and parents’ friends’ tennis partners have cottoned on to the Kirstenbosch sunset concerts. While I’m happy for the organisers, this massive popularity does have a couple of drawbacks.
So this summer, I thought my concert picnic days were numbered – until I discovered the Backsberg Picnic Concerts. In my opinion, they’re much better than the Kirstenbosch concerts. Here’s why:
1. Not a lot of people know about the Backsberg Picnics. This makes them better in several ways:
1a. A large percentage of the Kirstenbosch concerts are sold out before the day. To me, the whole point of summer in Cape Town is the ability to be spontaneous. Although you can book your tickets for Backsberg concerts in advance (and you’ll save R15 doing so) you don’t have to.
1b. You can park within 100 metres of your picnic spot. At the last Kirstenbosch concert, I noticed cars parked about a kilometre away from the bottom entrance gate (admittedly, it was Freshlyground performing that day). But lugging a picnic basket, blankets, etc. for a kay and then climbing that hill to the concert area is more exercise than I want to sign up for on a Sunday afternoon. Also, there is no hill at Backsberg. Bonus points.
1c. You don’t have to get territorial about your rug at Backsberg. At Kirstenbosch, there’s a constant struggle to arrive early enough to get space to pitch your rugs. Every square inch has to be ferociously guarded. Then you have to endure people stepping on you and your salad as they teeter through the tightly-packed patchwork of staked claims. At Backsberg, you can spread out and relax. No one will stand on you.
1d. Kirstenbosch feels like a typical concert: band on stage does performance then disappears, etc. Backsberg feels like an intimate private performance where you actually get to know the band. When the Getaway team went to see Hot Water (incidentally, one of our favorite live bands) in December, there were probably only 50 other people there. The lead singer was standing on the lawn next to us before the performance. I said hello to him (totally mingled). Afterwards, the band signed CDs for everyone and chatted over a nice glass of Backsberg wine. Try that at Kirstenbosch!
2. Although you’re not allowed to take your own booze, Backsberg serves wine – lovely chilled wine – in glasses. The great thing about Backsberg wine is not only that it’s really good, it’s also green. Backsberg’s the only carbon-neutral winery in South Africa (and one of only three in the world). They’ve also just released a range of fabulous great-value wine in PET bottles (that’s plastic, for the non-technical) called ‘Tread Lightly’. The idea is that the lighter packaging uses less fuel to transport. It’s also recyclable. Nice, innit?
3. You can sit in chairs. If you must. For me, the whole point of a picnic is that you sit on the ground on a rug, but i know there are people who aren’t too keen on such uncivilised behaviour. So feel free to bring a chair along.
4. There are no ‘no-smoking’ nazis. You can smoke. (The owner does.) And since you’re not going to be sitting right on top of your neighbors (their wives, friends, parents, kids, etc), it’s unlikely you’ll bother anyone.
5. I was torn about what to make point five. Six points would be messy. So you choose. Either it’s that the band line up is a bit more interesting than the Kirstenbosch programme, which tends to be big names and fairly mainstream (think Parlotones, Freshlyground, Zebra and Giraffe). Backsberg have artists like Albert Frost, aKing and Wrestlerish. (By the way, you should check out Wrestlerish’s stunning music video for Sleep.) Otherwise, it’s that if you book in advance, Backsberg concerts are R10 cheaper (Kirstenbosch concerts are R95). Put a few friends in one car and that more than covers the extra petrol.
Speaking of petrol, in the interests of objectivity, I will admit that there is perhaps one point that’s not in Backsberg’s favour. Kirstenbosch is a 10-minute drive from Cape Town city centre; Backsberg is a 30-minute drive (take the Klapmuts turn-off from the N1 towards Paarl). But I’m willing to bet that if you set off for Kirstenbosch at the same time that I start for Backsberg, I’ll be sitting on the lawn drinking chilled Sauvignon Blanc while you’re still stuck in the traffic jam or lugging your basket along the side of the road…
See you at Backsberg in January!
A few facts:
Tickets for Backsberg Picnic concerts can be bought in advance from Ticketbreak.co.za or Musica and cost R85 or R150 with a picnic included. Otherwise, they cost R100. Kids under 12 get in free.
Gates open at 3pm and concerts usually start around 5ish. The venue is on the lawns in front of Backsberg Wine estate on Simondium Road.
The Backsberg picnic concert line-up for 2011
9 Jan: James Stuart
16 Jan: aKing (Laudo)
23 Jan: Albert Frost
30 Jan: Robin Auld
6 Feb: Wrestlerish
13 Feb: Schalk Joubert & Friends
