Blah Blah Bar hosts its first ever music festival!


The Interplanetary Folk Festival starts on Monday, 26th of September until Sunday, 2 October and features an out of this world line-up of the finest folk musicians.

Since it's conception, Blah Blah Bar has been involved in booking unconventional, very unique and diverse music events featuring live performances in almost every genre ranging from chamber music, jazz, to the very eccentric experimental genre  such as 'noise music'. Artists that have graced the Blah Blah stage include The Shh Art Ensemble, Juliana Venter, Hilton Schilder, Mark Fransman, Steve Newman, Simba Morri, Valiant Swart, Sannie Fox and Mr Cat & The Jackal among many others.

It has also been at the core of Blah Blah Bar to host live shows that push the envelope and that are truly one of a kind, such as Counterpoint and Co-lab showcases. Building on this reputation of coordinating and presenting pioneering and innovative entertainment experiences, the next natural step towards reinvigorating the local non-commercial/'underground' music scene became apparent - Hosting one of the first week-long folk music festivals in the heart of Cape Town's vibey Kloof street.

As the festival's name implies, Interplanetary Folk Festival is focused on an inclusive theme of South African Folk that reflects the vibrant diversity that is synonymous with South Africa's many flavours and music tastes. Each artist on the bill was handpicked to reflect this. Qadasi, MXO and Luna Paige are some of the artists on the line-up who will be performing at Blah Blah for the first time ever.

The full line-up includes: Derek Gripper, Gert Vlok Nel, Guy Buttery, Steve Newman & Hilton Schilder, Riku Lӓtti & Churchill Naude, Ottoman Slap, Mxo & Sliq Angel, Simon Van Gend Band, Luna Paige (Schalk Joubert & Ronan Skillen), Mr Cat & The Jackal, Dizu Plaatjies Ensemble, Roxton Met Herki, Laurie Levine & Josie Field, Anton Goosen, & Paige Mac .

The festival’s aim to challenge the idea that folk music is narrative based, made by hippies using acoustic instruments, and singing in English.

“From the outset, INTERPLANETARY FOLK will be as inclusive as possible, in the hope of changing the perception of what folk music is, and drawing new audiences. Hence you will find that we have invited Maskandi, Afrikaans, ethno-country and many other diverse practitioners to join our line-up of the usual Folk suspects.” says Carsten Rasch, owner of the Blah Blah Bar and organiser of the Festival.

The festival features a very special initiative as well and has selected some of the artists who will host comprehensive music  workshops at the venue everyday between 14h00 – 16:00 from Tuesday, 27 September until  Saturday, 1 October. A separate press release will be issued as soon as we have confirmation from all the participants.

Tickets are available on Quicket and are R120 per show and there are Special Discounts on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday , Friday and Sunday: R180.00 if you book for both the 18:30 and 20:00 shows (that’s a R60 discount!).  You will also get 10% off your dinner bill when you present your Quicket ticket, valid for any show.

For more info check out the event page on Blah Blah Bar's Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/BlahBlahBarCPT/

or go the Festival website: Interplanetary Folk

To date, more than 300 performances have been hosted and more 40 000 people have passed through the Blah Blah doors. The audiences it attracts are creative, multi-racial and cross-generation, as was the intention. It also serves an excellent pizza…

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