This weekend I went to my second Flamjangled Tea Party festival in Durbanville. Last year I had a brilliant time and I returned this year with high expectations. I was not disappointed.
This is no ordinary music festival. With performers like Mr Pantoffels, Moody Bloom, The Great Vernoni, Capt FieldMouse and The Sneaky Possums, a crazy dress up theme, a door leading to nowhere in the middle of a field, cleaners dressed in full body suits and wearing stilts, and an anything-goes vibe, it’s the most unmainstream event that I know of in Cape Town. It was like spending a weekend in fabulous alternate universe of tea, tents, feathers, glitter, balkan music and beer.
In addition to the wonderfully fabulous decor, dressed up festival-goers, the music (especially in the Night Owl Haunt and on Sunday afternoon) was great and the food better than most other festivals. I loved Good Luck, Nomadic Orchestra, Jeremy Loops and TobyTeaScones and my foodie favourites were the organic vegetarian treats from Portobello (chai tea, the BEST date crunchies, awesome samoosas and delicious curry rotis).
Here are 10 reasons why the Flamjangled Tea Party is pretty unique:
1. A pair of giant praying mantises dancing to balkan beats attracts no special attention.
2. A tiny girl with a big horse’s head sticking out of her stomach, a little boy dressed in a ninja/Matrix outfit, a girl who wore ever-changing animal costumes and a four-year-old dressed as an 18th-century lady were just a few of the fantastic and bizarrely dressed up children at the festival.
3. The best-dressed competition on Saturday night (which the giant praying mantises won) saw giant cupcakes, lit up octopusses, ‘Monkey Man’, and various other outrageous characters was like a children’s party on acid. In a good way.
4. On Saturday afternoon there was a competition to find who could make the weirdest sound. The prize was a tiny orange bird.
5. The Miniscule of Sound – the world’s tiniest (and best) club is a 2 metre by 2 metre tent with mirror ball, laser lights and a DJ playing awesome dance tunes.
6. By 3 am you’re dancing with a Canadian man (nicknamed THOR) with a hairy chest and midriff t-shirt cut off above the nipple line and blonde wig who keeps hugging your boyfriend and telling you how much he loves your hair and you don’t find this weird. At around the same time of the morning, a monkey puppet operated by a guy in a pirate hat was giving out free hugs and kisses. This was also received without any strange looks.
7. On Saturday night, instead of a band playing at 8 pm, there’s a Charleston dance lesson. (This proved rather complicated for the intoxicated crowd, but was fun nonetheless).
8. The MC (whom I know is from Joburg) spoke in an Irish accent all weekend and managed to be funny AND coherent all the way until Sunday afternoon, despite the fact that he had a drink in his hand the entire time. I actually woke up to him telling people jokes with his impeccable Irish accent right outside my tent early on Sunday, with a Castle in hand.
9. As previously mentioned, the cleaners at the festival weren’t dressed ordinarily. There was one in a mime’s costume pretending to be some sort of animal as she was picking up paper napkins and cans from the floor, and others in full bodysuits with no mouths (kind of creepy) wearing stilts and bending down for cups and plates.
10. There are more tea options than types of beer – everything from darjeeling, red cappuccino, iced chai lattes and earl grey – it is a tea party after all.
There was a lot going on. I overheard one guy in passing on his way back to the campsite from the main stage, who was telling his friend that he had to get back to ‘chill in my tent. There are like waaay too many stimuli here dude.’ That pretty much sums it up.
If you only go to one festival next summer in Cape Town, Flamjangled Tea Party has to be it. Returning to Cape Town on Sunday afternoon seemed like coming back to reality from a surreal hallucinogenic trip.
Flamjangled Tea Party was held on Contermanskloof Wine Farm in Durbanville this year, which was a 30-minute drive from Cape Town. Tickets this year ranged from R200 to R380.
Website: www.theteaparty.co.za
Here’s my blog about last year’s festival: 10 things I love about Flamjangled.
