Music, food spectacular
DStv Delicious Festival was a mish-mash of great sounds and irritatingly slow wi-fi
THERE’S something about food and music which work well together, especially when people are gathered to celebrate an occasion.
Such was the case at the weekend with the DStv Delicious Festival.
The event, at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit, was two days of tasting gourmet food plus great music with two stages of entertainment.
If this was your first time attending, though, it may have left a sour taste with the long queues at the food stalls.
The Delicious Lounge, in association with Tanqueray and Johnnie Walker, was the marquee of choice for many who wanted to be centre stage for the entertainment. Performers, including Simphiwe Dana, also used the marquee as their choice for mingling with friends and fans.
The festival didn’t use the usual Howler system for payments, instead choosing Visa for “quick and easy” payments. But the system was slow to work on Saturday as the Wi-Fi signal would barely connect, making the food queues even longer with people having to swipe over and over because of the machines being offline.
Proudly South African had its own foodie village – a strip of homemade delicacies from local businesses. It catered for all, from Seven Khalaz Catering with their pap balls and curry, Why Cook with their dumpling burgers and Kota King giving a taste of their famous township sphatlo, to the traditional food from Blomplek, whose menu included mogodu, ox head, samp, ribs and wings. Products like Sihle’s Brew, Darling Sweet, Ya Mama Gemmer and Makhamisa Foods were also on sale for food lovers to try.
More than 20 musicians were on stage to entertain festival-goers.
On Saturday, the Channel O music special performances saw the likes of Mshoza, Thebe and Trompies get music lovers on their feet.
The Womandla stage had Lira, Dana and Amanda Black sing a few songs from their catalogues for just over an hour. Later, Jordan Rakei and D’Influence had fans dancing all night.
The Vodacom Dance Arena stage was situated just below the main stage, which was problematic as the sounds often clashed with each other. Standing about 300m away from the main stage would allow you to hear sets on both stages. If you didn’t know whether to listen to a mix from Oskido, DJ Fresh and Christos, or to be focused on the main stage, you could position yourself nicely a short distance from the stages. Hopefully next year they will not have the stages so close together.
Louie Vega closed the event on Saturday while Erykah Badu closed off Sunday.