This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending my first Francois van Coke show. I think most people my age were still listening to Koos Kombuis, Johannes Kerkorrel and maybe some Karen Zoid as our mainstream alternative Afrikaans music not believing that anyone else had anything real to add to the struggle.
So imagine my surprise when I dragged Gerhard along to this show, and Francois van Coke and his two man band managed to rock in Afrikaans. People could never quite manage that and always sounded like they were chocking on broccoli when attempting to rock in Afrikaans. I was blown away. What struck me even more is that it seemed as if Francois van Coke in some of his many guises managed to attract diverse crowds, not bad for an Afrikaans guy right.
We missed the rise of Fokofpolisiekar, probably because we were so consumed with raising our two rockers at home, and probably because Liam and Luka were at a particularly impressionable age where we did not want to even whisper words like Fokofpolisiekar to each other let alone say it out loud. Can you imagine me shouting over the nappybag on my way to do the morning nursery school run asking Gerhard to bring the Fokofpolisiekar CD? Another reason that comes to mind is that there has been a transition from CD’s with CD covers to first MP3’s and now services like Google Play Music allowing some measure of discreetness. Google Play Music is to music what the Kindle is to books, no grown woman should ever be seen dead or alive reading smut like “Fifty Shades of Grey”. Just picture my over eager first time reader Liam last year reading everything and anything including the manufacturers notes on toilet paper, the instructions on the coffee filter box, the warning labels on the vitamin bottle, picking up a bright coloured CD case and slowly sounding out the word F O K O F P O L I S I E K A R…can you spell disaster? We would have been hauled in front of the school principal, a good god fearing woman and I don’t think our little Liam’s squeaky clean reputation would have survived this. Calling this band the ‘Karre’ like so many prim and proper radio stations tried to do would also not have worked, it’s a bit weird and you end up lying to your kids. I also don’t want Liam to be a total geek later on in life referring to Fokofpolisiekar as the “Karre”.
So imagine my surprise when I dragged Gerhard along to this show, and Francois van Coke and his two man band managed to rock in Afrikaans. People could never quite manage that and always sounded like they were chocking on broccoli when attempting to rock in Afrikaans. I was blown away. What struck me even more is that it seemed as if Francois van Coke in some of his many guises managed to attract diverse crowds, not bad for an Afrikaans guy right.
We missed the rise of Fokofpolisiekar, probably because we were so consumed with raising our two rockers at home, and probably because Liam and Luka were at a particularly impressionable age where we did not want to even whisper words like Fokofpolisiekar to each other let alone say it out loud. Can you imagine me shouting over the nappybag on my way to do the morning nursery school run asking Gerhard to bring the Fokofpolisiekar CD? Another reason that comes to mind is that there has been a transition from CD’s with CD covers to first MP3’s and now services like Google Play Music allowing some measure of discreetness. Google Play Music is to music what the Kindle is to books, no grown woman should ever be seen dead or alive reading smut like “Fifty Shades of Grey”. Just picture my over eager first time reader Liam last year reading everything and anything including the manufacturers notes on toilet paper, the instructions on the coffee filter box, the warning labels on the vitamin bottle, picking up a bright coloured CD case and slowly sounding out the word F O K O F P O L I S I E K A R…can you spell disaster? We would have been hauled in front of the school principal, a good god fearing woman and I don’t think our little Liam’s squeaky clean reputation would have survived this. Calling this band the ‘Karre’ like so many prim and proper radio stations tried to do would also not have worked, it’s a bit weird and you end up lying to your kids. I also don’t want Liam to be a total geek later on in life referring to Fokofpolisiekar as the “Karre”.
Anyhow, the theatre was packed to capacity, the (younger) crowd went ballistic, the older crowd (ok Gerhard and I) clapped along with enthusiasm bearing in mind that we did not know a single song, it pains me to admit that we were probably (ok definitely) the oldest people there by a mile. But you know what, it did not matter, especially when Karen Zoid made a guest appearance and they sang their hit song.
Afrikaans will never die for it is the language that we all live in, love in, die in. I am just not convinced that my crowd are quite convinced of the rock merits of Afrikaans. They all (Luka included) are classic rockers and some Afrikaans music is just a tad too fluffy for them. Long live the Afrikaans, and whatever other language rocks your boat, as long as the rock is classical and as long as in Luka’s last words there is an “electricity guitar”.
Note: I shamelessly enjoyed typing out the words Fokofpolisiekar six times during the writing of this piece
Afrikaans will never die for it is the language that we all live in, love in, die in. I am just not convinced that my crowd are quite convinced of the rock merits of Afrikaans. They all (Luka included) are classic rockers and some Afrikaans music is just a tad too fluffy for them. Long live the Afrikaans, and whatever other language rocks your boat, as long as the rock is classical and as long as in Luka’s last words there is an “electricity guitar”.
Note: I shamelessly enjoyed typing out the words Fokofpolisiekar six times during the writing of this piece
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