[Design Indaba 2010] "What the....are you doing at my party?!"

I'm not sure what the mental institution theme had to do with the 2010 Design Indaba, but it was entertaining...sort of. Dressed in white with fibre optic material streaming from their hair and armed with tissue boxes they strolled around saying things, and I'm guessing here, mentally disturbed people would say like, "Everyday is my birthday" or "What the f$*k are you doing at my party?!" or reading excerpts from the bible verbatim while holding the book upside down.

The 'dispensary' was packed to the brim with Grolsch, sponsors of DI 2010. In order to get a pic snapped at the lumo Grolsch corner you needed to have the brand in hand so we swiped an empty bottle from the bar counter but instead of the Star Wars lightsaber scene we wanted, we had to settle for something much less imaginative. We also managed to catch some party people snaps until the batteries in our camera abruptly said hell no, we won't...g..g...goo-o...

Dans, dans, dans

Entertainment on-stage for the night included the likes of Magic Carpet Ride ft. RJ Benjamin and Craig de Sousa on the decks and experimetal electro pop-maestros, Popskarr. Belguim's "IAmWave's" moves made the ladies all hot and bothered so they settled for stroking his calves. Together with SA's DJ Lapse they make up Popskarr. They were followed by pirate of the caravan park, Jack Parow.

Photographer: Andrew Brauteseth

I'd heard Parow's music and seen his videos on Youtube but this was the first time I'd seen him live. He's everything you'd expect him to be - decked in his signature tiger-print, extra long peaked cap, rolled up socks and Casper the Friendly Ghost shorts - he's raw, spirited (in more ways than one) and unapologetic, spitting out unadulterated rhymes that you probably won't find played on most radio stations. Thinking the Afrikaans rapstar would be the best of the rest for the night I was surprised when the Krushed & Sorted trio started their AV set.

Jungle Book meets The Muppets meets the A-Team - the crowd loved it and went berserk dancing and cheering for what, I think, was the most awesome performance of the evening. The synced audio-video mash-ups were tighter than tight and none I'd witnessed before; seriously, they even blew Parow's cap off. The group, consisting of Fletcher, VJ Grrrl, and Mr Sakitumi, threw everything but the kitchen sink into their set and we loved it. Taking us back to fond childhood memories of Dumbo and the Jungle Book I could hear echoes of Louis Prima's "I wanna be like you" emanating from the crowd. A zoned out foursome in the frontrow, who were smoking something naughty, were awestruck by the visuals just about blinking from time to time. There was a whole lot of swinging and jiving, twisting and shouting thrown into the mix with a dash of Blur's Song 2 and Nirvana's Smell's Like Teen Spirit. All that was missing was an Asian guy playing a drum solo on an electric keyboard...oh wait, they had that too.

While we didn't stay to catch Goodluck and Anthea, I, for one, left the party inspired. Now if only Krushed & Sorted had a Facebook page so I can become a 'real' fan!