Hope In Love

Dec ’09 – Jan 10 holidays
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Holidays started at 5pm on December 22nd – last day of work for 2009. On the 23rd I moved my stuff out of my flat, but didn’t have keys to my new flat yet so I stashed my stuff in the Anderson’s garage…yay for church being church! then my sister and i boarded a bus and drove 12 hours to Thaba Nchu in the Free State to my grandmothers house, which is where i grew up. so many childhood memories…and yet my small little town keeps growing and i barely recognise some of the places anymore…guess that’s what happens when you don’t go home in 5 years. we spent Christmas in the Free State surrounded by my grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc…then on the 29th we boarded the bus again and headed to Howick, Kwa-Zulu Natal for “Arise Fest”. It should have been an 8 hr journey, but because of delays ended up being 14 hrs…oh, and actually the bus only took us as far as Peitermaritzburg (mouthful) and then my friend Katie picked us up from there and we went with her to Howick.

i generally don’t celebrate new year’s day/eve/whatever…for me it’s just another day/eve/whatever. i was born on april 4th, therefore for me the year ends on the the 3rd and starts on the 4th…of April, that is. i actually just prefer sleeping on the 31st rather than doing the whole count-down thing. i don’t mind going out on that night…but then it’s like a normal going out night. well, this year Arise Fest – a christian music festival – was organised from Dec 30 to Jan 1st so I decided to go because i’m a live music junkie – turned out to be the best thing i could have done. i was introduced to much new music…and they were all south african musicians/bands. anyway, i think i’m gonna take a break from buying international music and get more acquainted with the local scene.

as i said, it was a christian music festival so most of the bands i’d never even heard of…no christian music stations in my town…and they are local so they don’t get any airplay on TBN. i decided to go cos John Ellis (formally of Tree63) and New Altum (one of my favorite bands right now) were playing, but i was genuinely and pleasantly surprised by all the talent that i encountered. i’ll list the bands at the end of this post. Arise Fest was organised by Arise Ministries who apparently do a lot of youth events in KZN…check them out if you live in that area. anyway, so we brought 2010 in with worship, and i hope to daily live in worship till there are no more calendars to buy.

on Jan 1st we went with Katie back to her house for breakfast and oh my stomach! i usually don’t eat breakfast, but on that day i ate! such a feast! thank you so much to the Wirth’s for their hospitality and the lifts from the bus station to howick, and back again. again with church being church…love!

ok so noon’ish we boarded the bus once more and headed back to Free State. got there in the evening, went straight to bed and woke up to a very rainy, wet morning so stayed indoors the whole day. the next day – the 3rd – we loaded up the car and began our 9 hr trip to Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. I then spent the next few days either sleeping, reading, or on the beach watching surfers do their thing. was super awesome. i have to say, Summerstrand beach in PE has sealed it’s place as my favorite beach i’ve been to so far (side note: summer strand beach? summer – english; strand – afrikaans for beach; summerbeach beach? and why the double language? anywho…) the highlight of PE though, has to be when I got to watch my cousin and his band (New Afro Teens) open for an international artist – Puff Johnson, whom I don’t know but apparently she’s big on the R & B scene…but yea, my cuz (Melikhaya) has a VOICE!!! Talent in that kid! Anyway, early on the morning of the 10th of Jan my mom and I packed up our bags, said goodbye to my dad, sister and brother and headed back to the Western Cape, she to Cape Town, I to Stellenbosch. another 9 hr trip – of which I drove 6 hrs. I then moved some of my stuff into the new flat, met my new flatmates and…well, the rest – as they say – is chemistry.

List of Bands from Arise Fest
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the more church-worshippy vibes
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John Ellis (love love love John Ellis live, he makes being on stage look fun…but then he dissed me and my sister in front of hundreds of people – not cool, Johnny, not cool)
5 Fold(have heard Brad Klynsmith’s solo stuff before and still love “let me found…” and “Majesty”)
Hilton Greig Band
Harbourlight (bagged me a new autographed cd and they provided me with a soundtrack to my drive from PE to Stell)
Tomfoolish
Tracing Sunday (lead singer/guitarist is also lead for Arise Band and was main organiser for the festival if i’m not mistaken)
Arise Band (played us into the new year which was awesome. i would have been bummed if they had stopped to do the countdown cos…worshipping is so much more yay than changing a calendar!)

the more hardcore stuff
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New Altum (bagged me a pin…and a future_glasses tank – read about future_glasses here)
Truth Revealed
Show and Tell (the event managers had to stop their set cos things got kinda out of hand in the mosh pit and things were being thrown and hecticness)

for the less hardcore rock lovers among us
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Coals of Juniper (instrumental)
Scarlet Hill
the Ranks (bagged me a new t-shirt)
jersey

for the dancing fools
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superlative
Cr8 (dj)

and the hip-hoppers
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Remix’d

The accoustic sessions:
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Arlyn Culwick (accompanied by Stephen Wirth) – Arlyn’s voice is UH-MAZING!!! Wow! Also, got a cd of him covering Donovan’s “Young but growing”.
Miles – his guitaring left me speechless…oh my wowness!!!
Molly And I – who were also the Ranks, with lead/drummer switching and bassist and keyboardist switching…classic.

Crossingpoint (another hardcore one) was on the line-up but ended up not playing because the first night things went on way past the planned stopping time (i heard some people from another camp next to us came and complained about the noise and the lateness)…but it’s all good cos they sent me a tweet and apologised for not playing (shweeet!!!)

- Did I leave out anyone?

Anyway, I tweeted about Arise as much as I could and took as many pics as I could before the battery on my phone gave out on me so if you’re on twitter search for #arisefest. I also posted a few pics on my flickr page.