The long anticipated Rock Werchter
Rock Werchter was pretty mind blowing. That is, for 4 days I left my mind flapping noisily in the wind while I directed my energies towards other things. Such as survival. More specifically surviving 4 days in 34° degree heat at a festival where you kinda can't sit around in the shade all day if you actually wanna see anything. Somehow I pulled it off. Although my mental faculties are only really starting to return now. They're crawling slowly in my direction with a smarmy look in their slimy eyes.
As I'm sure you can imagine, they weren't the 4 most hygienic days of my life. I mean when we (me and Monica) weren't at concerts we were at the camping ground in a well boiled tent. Sleeping in that bugger is pretty disgusting in that heat. I mean, it really is gross. And that wasnt even using my sleeping bag.
Oh and much thanks to Monica for keeping my wallet and stuff in her handbag for most of the festival :)
Ok so this is what I saw, the performances which were good (regardless of whether I'm a fan of their music or not) are marked with a smiley face and the bad ones are marked with my face of eternal mourning D:
In no particular order....
- Muse :)
- Greenday D:
- Them Crooked Vultures :)
- Vampire Weekend :)
- Arcade Fire :)
- Pearl Jam :)
- Rise Against :)
- 30 Seconds to Mars D:
- Jack Johnson :)
- Balthazar :) (Belgian band, never heard them before but pretty good, more on them later)
- Pink :)
- Paramore, surprisingly :)
- Stereophonics :)
Impromptu reviews
Muse, Pearl Jam and Vampire Weekend
I don't want to go on too much about how great the big bands were, because I'm pretty sure its all been said before. All I'm going to say is that Muse and Pearl Jam both lived up to the hype. Vampire Weekend was great - they seem to carry a kind of innocence in their performance which I guess may come from them being relatively new to the scene.
Greenday
Probably the biggest let down of the festival. The only performance I genuinely wanted to end about halfway through. And my god, they played for like 2 and a half hours. A band with a lot of good music could pull that off (Pearl Jam, Muse) but they simply don't have the volume to work with. So they end up wasting all this time stopping and talking to the crowd during the song - completely stoppping the song for a solid 5 minutes. That happened on average 2 or 3 times a song. The first time it happens it's kinda ok but eentually you just want it to be over. By the time the song comes back on you've completely lost interest. Especially if it was one of their crappier songs to begin with.
The thing that really turned me off the whole thing though, apart from all I've already mentioned, is that they seem like complete pricks. I mean that probably seems like stating the obvious for some, but they really acted like douchebags. That drummer, my god, he thinks he's so damn funny. i think he has it in his head to try and be 'the crazy wacky one' but all he ends up doing is looking like an overweight older man trying to fit into a strange assortment of school clothes, wearing make-up and running like a retarded chicken. And not in a good way. The lead singer just makes up for that in general dickheadedness. The bassist managed to remain relatively inoffensive so I won't give him a hard time.
Arcade Fire
Many of you may know Arcade Fire, but I must admit, while I'd heard of them, I'd never actually heard one of their songs before going to Werchter. They had one of the best performances in my opinion. The energy on stage was incredible. They were crazy, but they pulled it off really well. Would be interested to listen to their music and see if its still good without the performance to back it up.
Balthazar
Right, so this is the Belgian band I mentioned earlier. Never heard of them prior to Werchter, but was pretty impressed. Its mostly pretty simple music from what I've heard but I like it. If you want to have a listen to a song to see what I'm talking about check it out at Balthazar's Myspace. You can listen to a few of their singles there. All good if I recall but like 'Hunger at the door' in particular as well as 'The boatman'... I think... Let me know what you think of the music in the comments...You know... if you want...
The rest I can't really be bothered talking about, not that they weren't good, I just don't feel like talking about them so much...
... There is one thing I should probably mention.. You know how at concerts they usually throw picks/drumsticks into the crowd? Well I was almost right at the front for Pearl Jam, and I managed to score myself a genuine PEARL JAM PICK! Which I feel is pretty damn awesome.
----------------------END OF REVIEWS---------------------------
This week was mostly back to normal. Last night I went to what can only be desrcibed as a youth booth festival. Which was pretty good. Before that we'd been playing lots of pool which was good cause I haven't done that properly in a while...
Public Transport
What is it with people when you're trying to get off the train/tram and they try get in before you can get out??? I mean, its bloody full. It doesn't take much brainpower to work out that if something is full, you have to empty it a bit before anything else can be put in it. But nooooo... these dicks are ambitiously trying to defy the laws of physics. And provoke my ire. Lets not forget the ire. I mean, I could glare at them or something. Actually I usually do, but they're too busy to notice.
I have discovered a fairly handy trick to use on trains though. The seats are usually arranged in groups of four - 2 seats alongside oneanother facing another 2. Now if no one is sitting opposite you, you can stretch your legs out and relax a little more without awkwardly rubbing the leg of the big hairy man opposite you. The problem is that thetrain tends to get so ful that its inevitable that someone will come sit in your little foursome of chairs.
I try to disourage this.
So when they are walking along the coach trying to find the least occuppied stall to sit in, I just stare at them. Right in the eyes. Its simple, but it seems to work, because they usually feel so uncomfortable with my eerie stare, that they'll go sit with 3 other random people rather than sit next to, or around me :D Quite an accomplishment I feel. Its really satisying when you see them coming towards you, you bring out the icy eyes, they look up and meet them momentarily, then, visibly shaken, they scurry off to any stall not in view of yours. I probably get more joy out of that then I should. I like to think of it as my only Jedi Mindtrick (so far)... Thats pretty much my morning socialising for you.
'Til next time accolytes
END
Posts
Well pretty good article,
ReplyDeletebut lot of it sounds like you've been doing a festival for your very first time.
The hygiene problems is very normal.
Festivals are "Dirty" and are "Survival".
It also depends on the bunch of friends you're together with :)
You can have very good friends and a lot, which gives you lot's of benefits and we made big air canvas things so like our camping place was always in the shadow.
Plus - We had an infinite stash of beer, as one of us lived in Werchter and that was 5 minutes walking from our camping (B1).
Also it's always much nicer to camp with a big bunch of friends you know well.
Like 15 tents of people you know together is very safe (Nobody steals and there's always someone that stays on the camping).
Also there are no food problems and drink problems at all :)
And 34C? The first two days were 44C, it was on the big screen right in front of the entrance :D
And uhm cool things you got that Pearl Jam Pick!!
Well Werchter was sweet, now the rest of the festivals!
Grtz,
Vlad.
yeah i know, just thought i'd tell those people not lucky enough to go how it was.
ReplyDeleteinfinite stash of beer sounds great man.
pretty sure it wasnt quite 44 though, cause there were 2 thermometers near the entrance and at mid day they stuck around 35ish... but i could be wrong.
nice on using a canvas thing to keep your camping in the shade, definately something i'll do if i go to another big festival eh.
thanks for comment man,
cheers
and yeah.. well it probably sounds like i was doing it for the first time becuase i was doing it for the first time...lol
ReplyDeleteHey man great to hear from you again, sounds like it was freaking awesum. congrats on the pick man! talk about mementos to hell with purchased t-shirts or whatever that kinda takes the cake as they say.
ReplyDeletelol ok so i know your list at the start there wasn't in any particular order but i couldn't help my reaction as i read down it going " yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeeeeaaahhh!" ah gotta love the different stuff aye.
well you might have your huge rock festivals but back here we had some good old home-spun fun. the traditional party at aussies. so much fun. andrew had his dj gear so the music was sweet. aussie was his usual self ;-p. um brent was up so cool to catch up with him. so was ryan. oh met nadav's new gf so you know naturally had fun sharing stories of nadav's various escapades. nadav got really drunk (not suprising) and proposed to sam (his new gf) accidentally which was so funny. i drove them home soon after that (dw i was sober, i appreciate the concern though ;-p) oh met aussie's mate dutch from down in palmy, he was pretty cool, does not stop talking but that wasn't totally a bad thing.
but yea essentially it was just a relaxed familiar sort of party you know. got to catch up with like craig and stuff whom i hadn't seen in ages (can't catch up with everyone from down here you know) lol not fergus though he had 4 wisdoms out and apparently bleeds everytime he laughs but grace is taking care of him.
oh the stare down thing, genious my friend genious. its great how such a simple thing can have such a huge effect on people. i do a similar thing with thos annoying salesmen in other countries that chase you down the street (you know the ones). as they approach you just stare straight ahead and keep walking with purpose and they just back away, as soon as you look though they pounce.
anyway enjoy winding down, im back to uni in a couple of days so that should be interesting. im sooooo keen to be getting up really early again...
your friend,
Matrim Cauthon
Using frightful leers to intimidate unwitting passengers into absconding underneath their safety blankets, shivering from sheer terror, awaiting the woeful moment where you will smite them with nuclear wrath. Oh, humanity, what has become of the world! Will someone please think of the children!
ReplyDeleteWell truth be told, your disconcerting ogling IS of a fearsome quality. And let us not get into the rest of you.