The dust, oh, the dust. This year the iconic, three day festival that exemplifies pure
South African “skiet, skop en donner’ attitude, Oppikoppi, celebrated its 20th year; a
huge milestone that once again had thousands of rough and ready festival-goers
stream to a remote farm near Northam, Limpopo to fare the filth, camp in what can
only be described as “beyond Thunderdome’ conditions, and rock their heart out to
local and international music.
Oppikoppi has its origins in 1995 with only 27 local artists performing to a small
enclave of music enthusiasts. Rock music was, for want of a better phrase, in its
infancy in South Africa at the dawn of our democracy, mostly due to the insular
atmosphere that apartheid thrust upon us. However, Oppikoppi has been hailed as
the festival that kick started the rock music scene in South Africa and created
fertile ground for the plethora of artists that we enjoy here today.
Of course, as the festival grows, so does its technical requirements. The festival
now boasts several stages – six, in fact – scattered around and on top of the
infamous koppie where it all started. This year two companies were involved in
supplying the lighting and sound for the four stages in the main entertainment area
at the foot of the koppie: Blue Array Productions, headed up by Kobus van Rensburg
and Marinus Visser who handled the audio requirements and Stage Effects, headed
up by Theo Papenfus, who handled the lighting and visual systems.
The Bruilof stage
The Bruilof stage is the first stage you are presented with as you walk into the
festival from the East end through the media and VIP areas and in part why I was
there – to work with local psychedelic post-rockers albinobeach. As mentioned, it is
a simple 8m x 6m x 4.5m stage structure with a quasi-cubic roof built out of truss
and is probably the smallest of the four stages in the main entertainment area. The
stage structure itself was supplied by Stage Effects.
Sound check was a pretty laid back and easy affair. Local freelancer Gavan Eckhart
handled FOH duties while I handled on-stage affairs such as placing microphones,
helping to get tones going on the unfamiliar amplifiers, getting monitors placed in
the right position and making sure the backline was placed where it needed to be.
Why two sound engineers? We thought there was going to be a monitor console!
There wasn’t, obviously, because monitors and FOH were being handled by one
console – a Soundcraft Si Compact 24, supplied by Blue Array. In fact, from here
on out, all audio gear mentioned was supplied by them.
The rest of the audio kit was quite simple, being that it was the smallest stage of
the four. There were four JBL VRX 932A line array elements a side with three JBL
SRX 728s a side; all powered by six Crown IT5000HD amplifiers. Eight self-
powered JBL PRX 615s were supplied for monitors.
Despite the otherwise modest system, the coverage was good and the system was
balanced well. I walked around quite extensively and was very surprised at how
well the listening area was covered. The VRXs have always been quite bright to my
ears but in outdoor applications where you need the throw, that sometimes comes
in handy.
Lighting control was achieved via an Avolites Pearl Tiger and a Martin optical
splitter, supplied by Stage Effects. Hazing came courtesy of a JEM Magnum 1800.
Fixtures used at Bruilof included just eight Martin MAC250 Entours and eight Robe
REDWASH 3-192 LED RGBs.
The James Philips stage
The next stage, if you’re heading East from the Bruilof stage, is the James Philips
stage. The James Philips stage is a permanent structure and the original main
stage at Oppikoppi in the early years that features a brick foundation and a lapa-
style thatched roof which gives it an uncannily African feel.
At this point we caught Newtown Knife Gang, the explosive metalcore emo-punk
quintet that was ripping the crowd to shreds with their cutting energy. I must say
that the sound quality of the James Philips stage in the past, for one reason or
another, never quite hit the spot for me but this year it seemed to have improved
dramatically. This piqued my interest and made me wonder what kit was up there
so I moved in for a squizz.
Well, the main PA was a d&b Q1 with 14 enclosures a side while six further Q1s
(three a side) were stacked for front fill. Subwoofers included 12 d&b B2s stacked
in a tight centre cluster, which made sense since the shape of the surrounding
topography tends to concentrate the crowd in power alley. The system was
powered by eight networked D80 amps running on AES3 at 48kHz. The FOH console
was a Soundcraft Vi1.
Monitors included eight d&b M4 wedges and two d&B QSUBS for the drums, powered
by three D80 amplifiers. The monitor console was also a Vi1.
The lighting rig was controlled via an Avolites Pearl 2008 along with an Electron 6
channel dimmer and one Martin optical splitter. A JEM ZR44 handled hazing. The
rest of the lighting fixtures included:
• 12 x Martin MAC350 Entours
• 12 x Martin MAC600s
• 4 x four cell Moles
Wesley’s Dome
Wesley’s dome is the next stage when travelling farther Eastward, past the food
stalls and into the next, larger entertainment area. This could be thought of as the
“main’ stage of Oppikoppi as it’s a massive orbital dome stage structure reminiscent
of such that you would see at Glastonbury, supplied by Wesley Groenewald of Orbit
Stage Structures in Bloemfontein. It is named after Groenewald himself.
Wesley’s stage is where the “big guns’ are pulled out, along with all the stops. At
this point at about 21H00 local masked metallers Boargasm was unleashing their
unique brand of trashy metal upon the slowly melting faces of the frenetic crowd
and, despite standing about 60 metres from the stage, the sound was just chest-
punishing.
Wesley’s Dome featured a full d&b Audiotechnik J-series system flown 16 elements
a side along with eight J-Subs a side. On the floor was a centre cluster stack of
twelve d&b B2s. An additional six Q7 enclosures were spaced along the stage edge
for front fill while a staggering 41 d&b D12 amplifiers powered the system, fed via
an R70 CAN bus network interface converted from LAN to SC-multimode fibre via
media converters at 96kHz on the AES3 protocol.
The FOH console of choice was a Soundcraft Vi6 with dual redundant MADI fibre
connections to a Vi6 stage rack (64 in/32 out). A Waves Multirack was integrated to
run plugins on a MacBook Pro via an RME MADI FX in a thunderbolt chassis. System
processing was accomplished via two Lake LM44 processors.
Monitor world featured two consoles: a Soundcraft Vi1 connected to a Vi6 stage
rack via MADI fibre and a Midas Pro2 with 48 in/24 out. Monitors included eight
d&B M2 wedges, two M4 wedges and four QSUBS; all powered via eight D12
amplifiers. A further four JBL VRX 932As and two JBL SRX 728 subs were used for
side fills, powered by two Crown IT5000 amplifiers.
Lighting control was handled by an Avolites Sapphire Touch console, an Avolites T2
dimmer and four LSC optical splitters. Lighting fixtures supplied included:
• 12 x Martin MAC Viper Profile
• 8 x Martin MAC Viper Wash
• 32 x Martin MAC101 LED RGB
• 8 x Martin Atomic Strobe/colour scrollers
• 6 x Robe Robin 600E BEAM
• 4 x 8 Cell Mole
• 2 x 2kW Super Trouper long throw follow spots
Two JEM 24/7 smoke machines and an MDG atmospheric haze generator handled,
well, smoke and haze.
Visual elements were also a big part of the show and included a Vuepix 3.6m x
6.4m P6 LED screen hung as a backdrop inside the dome. Two Christie LX1500
projectors were deployed for projection while Arkaos MediaMaster Pro and a Folsom
Image Pro/3G handled video processing, scaling and switching.
The Skellum stage
The skellum stage is the stage in the Far East of the festival and where we ended
up around midnight. Local metal heads the Drift were laying down their unique
brand of grindy metal and, if I’m honest, I felt this was the best sounding stage of
the festival.
The Skellum stage featured a full d&b Q-series system flown six elements a side
along with sixteen ground-stacked QSUBS powered by five networked D80
amplifiers running at 48kHz over AES3. The FOH console was a Soundcraft Vi1.
Monitors included eight d&b MAX wedges powered by three D12 amplifiers. A
Yamaha LS-9 handled monitor duties.
Lighting for the Skellum stage was controlled via an Avolites Pearl Tiger and a
Martin optical splitter. A JEM Magnum 1800 smoke machine handled hazing.
Lighting fixtures included four Martin MAC250 Entours and 10 Versa-light 3W LED
battons.
The wrap
Oppikoppi is about much more than the music. While a lot more went on than can
explain in the pages that I was afforded to write this article, the main attractions
were undoubtedly the two main stages: Wesley’s Dome and the James Philips
stage. Year on year the quality and the attendance of the festival improve and
alongside them, so does the quality of the technical aspects of the show. If this is
any indication of what we’re to expect of the future, the future looks good for
Oppikoppi.
