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Rock Werchter
30th June - 4th July 2010
***WARNING: This is a bloody long one***
We got into Brussels around 11.30am, and after walking almost 2km through the airport to collect our bags we were on a train into the city. Matt, Jodie and Brendan (Jodie's cousin, freshly arrived from Melbourne into London) had got into Brussels a bit earlier than us and had headed out to the Herge Museum out of Brussels. We found the hotel easy as and decided to just grab some lunch and supermarket supplies for the next 4 days before just hanging out at the hotel for the afternoon.
When the others arrived back late afternoon we decided we should pack our bags for the festival (as we were each leaving a bag at the hotel and not taking it to Werchter) Our gigantic room was covered in clothes and stuff, just strewn everywhere and anywhere. After we'd mostly got it all packed up we went on a little walk to find a café where they apparently do good steaks - Matt and Jodie had found it earlier. They weren't wrong, they were amazing. We picked up a few extra beers before heading back to the hotel to get a semi-early night.
Next morning we were up, showered and at the train station by about 8am. We loaded ourselves onto the early morning commuter train, wedged in with other festival goers and people in business attire and made the 30minute journey back out to Leuven. By the time we arrived the queue for the shuttle buses to the festival was already quite long, but with some major work, and heaps more organisation that last year the queue moved fairly quickly and we were all on a bus about an hour later. We decided to set up camp in A4 again, and after another 1.5hours waiting in the line to get in, and finding the perfect spot (We had chosen one place but after Jodie noticed it was right next to a group of about 10 Aussie girls we moved!!) we had our little tent city happening.
Setting up the tents was thirsty work so we did the walk up toward the festival site, seeing what had changed from last year. It was mostly the same, but we thought that there was maybe a few less food vans and definitely way less market stalls. We beered it up at a few places along the road before going in to the festival site early in order to get our merchandise and a locker to store away laptops and passports. We bought our t-shirts (Dan couldn't buy one last year because 2009 is an odd number?!?!) and went to go get a locker, only to find that they didn't open until 6pm!!! That was a slight joke, so we'd have to carry around our stuff with us until they opened several hours later (Matt didn't have to carry his laptop, it was taken off him at the security gate and put in a secure cargo container - mine was fine to bring in though!!) As bands weren't starting for a couple of hours we headed back out to have some lunch and a couple of beers.
Well hydrated again after the draining process of setting up we headed back for the start of the music. We found a spot on the lawn and enjoyed the first band, a local Belgian hip-hop band called De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig (Which I got laughed at a lot by our local friends when I tried to pronounce this!!).
They were followed by a band Matt had been looking forward to, Skunk Anansie, so he disappeared off to the D barrier for a bit - I didn't know much of their music but had a fun time anyway. Following Skunk Anansie was French band, Pheonix. I only knew a few of their songs (Thanks to not listening to JJJ anymore, my current music knowledge is s***), but thoroughly enjoyed them.
Between bands, someone thought it to be a good idea if I gave Matt a haircut. Out come the trusted Swiss Army knife, and much to Jodie's disgust I started to give Matt a little trim. After doing just the bottom bit, I freaked out that Jodie was going to kill me and I had to stop.
They were followed by Stereophonics, who before seeing I would've said that I didn't know any of their songs, but after listening to their set I realised that I knew quite a few, and I really really liked them.
We were all a bit excited for the next band, Matt Bellamy and his pals from Muse. Having not seen them before I was really impressed with what I saw, they got the crowd going pretty well and played lots of songs that I like, plus quite a few older ones. Speaking to Matt after who'd seen them quite a few times before he said 'good, but not as good as other times'.
Faithless were on after Muse, but it was nearing 1am, and after a long and hot day I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer so we missed them (Although we heard most of the set from the tent!)
Next morning we were again up with the sun, and I had to relocate out of the sauna tent to the grass outside of the tent for some extra sleep. Once we'd dressed we headed up in search of breakfast (The beans we bought to have with our waffles had a rather questionable chunk of 'meat' in it and I refused to eat it). Korea Snacks again did their lovely egg and bacon sanga, so I purchased. We happened to find our favourite beer tent from last year, although this year they had significantly downsized and now served food. They were the best simply because they served pints and they didn't advertise the price of their beer (All the tents have to charge the same price) which meant that they sold it a little bit cheaper than the rest, very discretely though.
We ate our breakfast there and had some mid-morning drinks and got chatting to 2 guys that were sitting in there. They were Belgian guys, Steven and Miguel, and I think they might've had a little bit more to drink than us; they were highly entertaining though. We spent a good couple of ours there, making friends with the bar staff too before heading back into the festival site. None of us were that excited by much of the music early in the day, so we found a nice bench up the back and played cards and just hung out. It was an awesome atmosphere that day because Holland was playing Brazil in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. There were seas of orange everywhere throughout the crowd, and listening to them cheer whenever a goal was scored was cool. The little orange people were so happy when they won and earned themselves a spot in the semi-final.
We set off around 7pm to go over to the Pyramid stage to see Jack Johnson who decided to start his set 10 minutes early. He was very cool, very laid back, and the crowd really got into him. I managed to go and find my other friend Alicia who had gone to the festival with about 12 other people. Said my hello's to them and went back in time to find the others just before Jack's set finished.
We hung around on the pyramid stage after Jack had finished for a bit of a mega cupping session (Picking up cups to collect free drink tickets), but this year we also did bottles too. Matt stayed on the rug while Jodie and Dan did cups and I did bottles. The Pyramid Stage after a band is a gold mine for plastic. I was returning to Matt every 30 seconds with bags full of bottles and just kept dumping them on in. He looked quite happy, sitting on his mat surrounded by hundreds of plastic bottles. After 30 minutes we went and cashed in and ended up with maybe 12 free drinks. Not too bad. While cashing in, Matt found the Coca-Cola stand where girls were demonstrating some new head shaver, and was very close to just going in and getting it all shaved off. Dan didn't try to stop him, he just chickened out!!!
By the time we'd finished cupping the next band was taking to the Pyramid Stage. None of us had heard of them before, but within 10 seconds of the first song, Dan and Matt were dancing. They were called The Specials. An old school, ska band, which had reformed for a string of concerts. The average age of them was well into the 50's, and there were at least 7 of them on stage. They were quite fun, Dan and Matt thinking so more than me; dancing for pretty much the full 45 minutes. The average age of the crowd was also significantly older too. There was lots of old guys there grooving away too!
At 10:30 we raced over from the Pyramid Stage to the Main stage just in time to see Green Day take the stage. The entered with bangs of fireworks and a very impressive stage set up. They had the crowd going right from the start, and played heaps of their old, awesome songs. They pulled heaps of people out of the crowd to join in with their antics, but the best was when they got girls out of the crowd to sing. Billie-Joe got this one girl out over the barrier and was almost on the stage when he looked at her and says, "Nah, not you, go back", the poor girl was heartbroken. After a couple of other girls had got up and sung, they got the poor rejected girl back and let her sing. And because of the humiliation she suffered Billie-Joe thought it appropriate to give her his guitar to keep. Wow. He continued to play with the crowd, firing a t-shirts into the crowd with a t-shirt gun, getting about 100 people up on stage to sing a weird medley of songs; 'Shout', 'Always look on the bright side of life' & 'Hey Jude'. 2.5 hours later, and after setting off hundreds of lots of fireworks, and 2 encores, they finally ended and we joined the death march back to the campgrounds. I was looking forward to Green Day before they played,but loved them so much, mainly because of Billie-Joe's antics on stage. They were amazing. 5 stars.
At the end of our death march we stumbled across Matt and Jodie set up in a bar near the camp playing cards (They left Green Day about halfway through), but we said goodnight and headed back to the campsite. By the time we'd brushed our teeth and got organised they returned back. Not long after we'd all gotten into bed, the Bogan Aussie boys, camped next to us returned, drunk. They decided that they'd make friends with the Dutch, and they wanted to educate them on what 'Schoolies' is. Because apparently being at Werchter is just like being at Schoolies. They spent the next 2 hours shouting 'Schoolies' before putting toilet paper on all the tents surrounding them (ours included). The girls then felt guilty about the mess they'd made and went and picked most of it off. Dan slept through the whole display of boganess and stupidity which lasted through the night, when I finally got some sleep.
The next morning, things were a little tense between Jodie and cousin Brendan. He'd returned to the camp after the Bogan Aussies had shut up and become friends with another guy camped behind us who had a guitar. They thought that the middle of the night was an appropriate time to play songs, Jodie did not as it was right at her head. I think I heard them, but it was a welcome relief to the f***wit Aussie's shouting 'schoolies' every 2 seconds. Jodie needed to tell Brendan and Guitar Boy to be quiet, which led to a tense morning. I also can't believe that Matt and Jodie slept right through the other dickheads behind us.
Morning time meant Korea Snacks breakfast and beers with our new buddies. This took up most of the morning and afterwards we headed up to the festival site for our busiest day yet.
We arrived just to catch the end of Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins playing with his new band Taylor Hawkins & The Coattail Riders. Soon after they finished it started bucketing down with rain. Everyone raced in every direction for ponchos (Dan and I were prepared), and although it was heavy it only lasted for about 20 minutes. We found a patch of relatively dry turf and sat there for Australian Band Temper Trap. They weren't that exciting, but easy to listen to while waiting for the next band.
We had a bit of a gap between Temper Trap and the next band we wanted to see, so we fed up, cupped up and had a few drinks before the music started again. I was really looking forward to seeing Beth Ditto and her band The Gossip, mostly because I was interested in seeing that the large girl would get up to, and more importantly what hideous outfit she'd have on. She has been known for getting down to her undies on more than one occasion, and she does not have the stereotypical celebrity body. She didn't disappoint, sporting a terrible haircut with god-awful makeup, and a rather boring summer dress. Her on stage banter was quite fun, she really embraced the whole soccer vibe singing 'ole ole ole' a few too many times, and during the set when a large cheer went up from the crowd, she mistook it as someone scoring a goal - it was actually a girl flashing her boobs which was up on the big screens. Oops. She told the crowd how much she wanted to eat fried chicken and if anyone had some to send it up. She ended up getting a bagel of some sorts, which we politely scoffed down. Although she's a little bit nuts, that woman can sing. They were absolutely amazing, even though I only knew the songs off the latest album, the rest was thoroughly enjoyable.After they were done we all toddled back off to the Pyramid stage.
Florence + the Machine was next. I was looking forward to seeing her, and I was quite impressed. She played mostly the songs off her one album, but played one new song. Towards the end she tore her dress, but continued to ask everyone to "Jump, Go on try it, it's fun!". She's a little bit quirky, but that's to be expected for a Redheaded, Welsh woman (I hear there's another one of those now leading Australia!!!). While we were watching Florence, during the gaps in her set we were able to catch snippets of a band I was really disappointed to have to miss, The Ting Tings. They sounded fun, but Florence was awesome, so I'm not regretting my decision at all.
We also had another decision to make after Florence, but it was a bit easier. We opted to miss the 2nd Australian band of the day Empire of the Sun, in order to check out everyone's favourite pop star, Pink! She's so far the only person to have brought her own crane to the festival, and arrived on stage by falling, or flying (She had wings on) out of it from a great height, complete with big bangs and sparkle stuff. Even if you're not of a fan of her music, you would've completely enjoyed her show. Because that's what it was, a show. She had all sorts of dancers and weird costumes, combined with some cheap theatrics, but it was absolutely brilliant. She only played all the big songs that everyone could sing along with, as well as some awesome covers. We loved mix of Police's,"Roxanne", with Green day's, "Basket case" (?) but the one that got the boys really singing was the 4 Non Blondes, "What's going on". It was brilliant.
At stages throughout the show, she changed her costume frequently, which pretty much meant just taking another layer of clothing off - none of us were too disappointed with that, she's got an awesome body. Halfway through she jumped into a massive big Zorb ball (Big inflatable ball) and rolled her way around the entire mosh pit, before finishing up the show by getting correctly (unlike in Nurnberg) wired up and floating around all over the place. All with a pretty solid fireworks display. I would've loved to be in the D-Barrier for it, as I'm sure there were quite a few hungry Rammstein fans waiting for their German metal band to start. She even made comment that she's sure that she's the first Pop singer to open for Rammstein. The only disappointing thing about her set was that it only lasted just over an hour - short for a major headline act - and a lot of that time was costume changes and setting up for 'stunts'. Oh well, she still was awesome. The mainly 'rock' crowd really got into it to, which was awesome to watch.
After the appropriate setting up time, the shiny spiky necklaces, and black t-shirts were dominating the area. German metal band Rammstein came out on stage with all sorts of bangs and strange lighting. I only know the one song of theirs (Which I also think a lot of the crowd were wating for too) but it was the 'show' that I was looking forward to. Their stage was filled at times with massive big fireball explosions, but that was only the start. The lead singer, who played the first few songs with a strange light in his mouth (Which made him look even creepier), later came out with a contraption strapped to his face. He started it up and it was like a big flamethrower, coming right off his face. I could barely see the stage, but got an awesome commentary from Jodie and Dan, plus a few good glimpses from the big screens. Through their set there were massive big bangs, but with no fireworks to go with the noise. It wasn't until I was reading a review online after the festival that we learnt that they were real bombs and shells that they were setting off on stage. Scary. We couldn't stay for the whole set, my eyes were closing while I was still standing. As we were walking back to camp, we did manage to hear Du Hast, everyone's favourite!!!
It didn't take me long to get to sleep, as the campsite was pretty quite - most people must've decided Rammstein were worth sticking around for. And once I was asleep, I didn't hear a sound, which was thankful according to all reports from Matt and Jodie the next morning.
Our bogan Aussie, 'Schoolies' mates came back to camp quite late, and with their new found Dutch friends tried to educate them about being a 'True Australian". This lesson meant lots of singing of our National Anthem, Waltzing Matilda and many other classics. I'm so glad I slept right through it.
We headed up for our final morning, breakfast at another egg and bacon stand (Heaps better than Korea Snacks) and went over to our bar for breakfast beers. Our mates, Stephan and Miguel were there, and Miguel was in flying form. I'm not sure he'd been to sleep, and was in a rather entertaining mood. He had still quite a lot of permanent marker on him, but that was added to. We decided that as it was our last day we needed a group photo; our 2 favourite bar staff, our 2 new friends and a few extra ring ins. Dan left us around 1 to go into the festival to see the Black Keys. We decided to hang around and play in the bar a little while longer. Jodie and I were fed up with either paying to use the toilets, or walking for 10 minutes back to the camp to use the toilet, when the boys could just pee behind the beer tent. We decided that whatever they could do, we could too.. We headed round the back of the tent, and faced with a choice. Go on our side of the ditch and face exposure of the surrounding 2 tents and people walking past, or cross the ditch and fence and be a little sheltered. We decided to cross the ditch, but Jodie forgot about the fence and went backwards over and through the barbed wire fence. I can still see it all happening, in super slow motion. I doubled over in a fit of hysterics and dashed back around to the tent to grab the camera. By the time I got back to her she was on the other side of the fence grabbing her legs, which were pouring out blood. We both managed a wee eventually, up against a truck, but decided for future, walking back to the camp wasn't so hard to do. She ended up with quite a few decent gashes up her legs and a couple of tears in the shorts. If it wasn't for the alcohol I'm sure if would've stung quite a bit more.
We eventually decided to head into the festival, and ran into Dan who was on his way back out to find us. He'd seen the Black Keys and got sick of waiting for us. We didn't quite realise that it was now 5pm, and we'd spent the better part of 7 hours in our fav beer tent. Time flies when you're having fun I suppose.
We arrived in time to catch the last thirty seconds of Alice in Chains. They were followed by fun lovin' Vampire Weekend. I had a bit of dance and sing, I was in good spirits and it ws fun summer music. I enjoyed them quite a bit.
The band I was most looking forward to seeing were up after, The newly formed super group of Dave Grohl from Nirvana and Foo Fighters on Drums, Sexy Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age, singing and John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin on Guitar: The Crooked Vultures. They engaged in quite a bit of strange banter, and played all the songs of their one album. I attempted some photos, but for once I'll admit that Dan did manage some great songs. It was great to see them just to see Dave back on drums. God he's got some hair, and knows how to flick it. Maybe my second favourite band of the festival. Loved them.
After them we hung around the main stage for Arcade Fire. Although I don't know much of their music, it's a little bit different with about 20 people on stage playing all sorts of instruments. It was quite easy just to sit back and listen to - which is exactly what we did. We also used the time to get something to eat, and start rationing out the last of our food and drink tickets. We started chatting to a very local group beside us. It was 2 older guys (in their 30's) and the teenage step-son of one of them. The kid was so gorgeous. The dad and his mate had had quite a few drinks and were very cheery. The kid was telling us all about his girlfriend who we was missing and loved so much. Oh Young love. We got the kid onto cupping, so he disappeared for half an hour or so and came back with a stack a good few feet higher than him. He returned with a Red Bull for himself, beers for dad and his mate, and a beer for Jodie and I. Why can't all teenage boys be so nice?? He ended up buying us a few drinks which was lovely (We only had 3 or 4 drink tickets left and were not doing any more cupping ourselves!)
Finally the final band of the 4 days. Pearl Jam were given the honour of closing the festival. They were great, played all the songs I knew. We had to disappear towards the end of their set to collect our stuff out of the locker, but were back just in time for 'Alive' and their final song. Dave Grohl took a break from cooking the backstage BBQ and came out to play the tambourine with them for the MC5 "Kick out the Jams". Awesome end to an awesome festival.
We left with the crowds to get back to the tent, not sure what to expect from our Bogan Aussie tonight. The culmination of the festival usually brings the best out of people. We were in for a shock when we got back; he was reading a book by torchlight. Sitting at the camp, alone, READING!! Jodie reckons it was Tolstoy he was into, but it was probably just an instruction manual for something. His sister returned a few minutes after us, and they very sneakily said 'goodbye' to each other behind our tent. I'm not sure that the bogan brother was aware this little festy-love was happening. Tonight we were the obnoxious ones (For all of about 5 minutes - we needed sleep) and the Bogan was very quick to tell us to shut up. We all bit our tongues, hard.
The next morning we woke up, packed up our belongings and left. We'll actually, not entirely true. We packed up our clothes. The tent, sleeping bags, air mattresses, a suitcase, and a few other assorted bits and pieces were left behind for the cows. We were not going to need our cheap camping supplies again, and couldn't be arsed carrying them, so it was just easier to leave them! Made it a quick pack up!! It was a nice walk down to the bus (With much lighter packs) before making the journey back to Brussels.
My Werchter top 6 (I couldn't cut it down to 5!)
1.Green Day
2.Them Crooked Vultures
3.Pink
4.Muse
5.Florence and the Machine
6.The Gossip
- comments
Left Out Daniel MY TOP 5 1. Green Day 2. The Specials 3. Black Keys 4. Pearl Jam 5. Pink