If you look to the right hand side of this page, you'll see the blogs sorted into months - you'll notice that June had one blog post. ONE. Am I getting lazy? Probably. Does it matter? No, shut up.
SO. Rock Werchter
That's the latest and greatest thing that's happened to me. One of my favourite festival line-ups and experiences of all time. This is a lineup which we will probably never see in Australia in the near future, unfortunately - perhaps in a hundred years or so - when all of these bands are dead and gone.
Do these bands all sit around at dinner time? Drink wine and muse about current affairs? That, would surely be an interesting dinner party.
Let the review begin.
MILD DRUG REFERENCES
That's right - by no means as hardcore as Download. For instance, I saw no breasts, not one. Not even the male genitalia. It was a completely different crowd, Belgians, Dutch and Australians mostly. So you know what that means - weed. Weed, Weed, Weed. It was everywhere - I couldn't believe the amount going around, completely unnoticed or, more accurately, unchallenged by anyone. Gotta love the Dutch.
Also, this time the 'talent' was of a much more respectable standard - none of your oppressed, rebellious 'I-need-to-wear-a-nose-ring-and-look-like-a-bull-and-have-bright-pink-dreadlocks-to-be-different-and-noticed' folk here. Just your ordinary looking people.
Rock Wechter is world renowned for its class and organisation - in fact, it has won 'Best Festival in the World' 4 times - 3 of those in a row from 2005. I came in to the festival expecting a lot - after Download, which I was overall quite impressed with. Unfortunately, I was slightly disappointed not too far into the whole ordeal.
*GASP*
I have one letter for you. Q.
Queues everywhere - too long, ridiculous. The deal is you get your ticket zapped by a zapper-dealy for a wristband - allowing for a speedy entry later on in the festival. That's a good idea. What's a bad idea is having one place to do it for 80,000 people. Download had a nifty little wristband which was initially adjustable, then locked into place in about 3 seconds. They also had them at campsites and various other places to ease congestion. Werchter had a similar system, but with a metal clamp used to lock your wristband on. The whole process took about 20-30 seconds per person. Times that by 80,000 - and you get a figure somewhere in the vicinity of too freaking long in the freaking line! We thought we had it bad, waiting nearly an hour in 30 degree+ heat. Two of our fellow festival-goers waited for double that.
A shame.
And just when I thought we'd be rid of queues forever - the drinks voucher queue was shoved into my existence. But I'm in too much of a good mood right now to talk to you about queues. What a stupid word, 'queue' it could have 4 less letters and mean the same thing.
NOW - the bands. Naturally, with two stages, we couldn't see EVERYONE - but we did ok.
THURSDAY
Eagles of Death Metal - couldn't tell ya, heard 'Really Wanna Be in LA' and 'Boy's Bad News' or whatever, from a distance - they sounded fine.
Lily Allen - I'd seen her before at BDO 2007 - she was great then, she was great now. Played a lot of new material which is good I might add - and funny as ever. Quite good looking too in the heat!
Dave Matthews Band - These guys are fantastic live. I highly skilled bunch of musos playing their hearts out. I love the drummer as well as the violin player who looks like a cousin of Bob Marley. Dave Matthews himself is a superb live singer - their version of 'All Along the Watchtower/Stairway to Heaven' was magic
Placebo - Now, I don't really know Placebo a great deal. They don't REALLY float my boat. 'Special K' is all right, but Brian Molko's voice is just annoying. He's also weird looking - androgynous and all that. But you knew that already.
Pendulum - Saw them at Download. They were much better there, only because we couldn't get into the tent to save our lives. Packed.
Oasis - You can just see the tension between the Gallagher brothers. Noel and Liam. Liam and Noel. Hahah - will they ever stop bickering?! Anyways, they were good - we were about to fall over with fatigue though, we heard about half of their set and bailed. They played '...Morning Glory' as we left and we could hear 'Wonderwall' from the campsite. All good.
The Prodigy - Obviously, we didn't hear them. Once again, couldn't see them due to circumstances out of our control. Bollocks.
FRIDAY
Amy MacDonald - A kind Scottish lass with no real qualms with anything. Music was ok, pretty low-key.
M.Ward - This guy is cool. I don't quite know how to pigeon-hole him and his band. It's kind of like blues, but not. He does a mad cover of 'Rollover Beethoven' by everyone. Check him out.
The Streets - Always good fun. Notable highlight was when Skinner took off his shirt (let me finish) and asked for another one from the crowd - 10-20 were immediately thrown at him, he tried one on and took it off, claiming it was too small. Madman.
Elbow - Only saw the end, sounded ok - very harmless music.
Bloc Party - Great fun, great interaction with the crowd. I often said, YOUR Mercury is in retrograde. Take that, dude from Bloc Party.
The Killers - In a word, fantastic. They were simply amazing - one of the highlights thus far. They played a good mix of old, middle and new. Brandon Flowers' voice was tremendous.
Coldplay - Just when you think your nights been topped, here come Coldplay. They played a staggering 26 songs, remixes included. Chris Martin did a 'Werchter Song' - seemingly improvised. They did a Michael Jackson tribute, paid homage to their co-headliners The Killers, and basically blew everyone away.
SATURDAY
Rodrigo y Gabriella - The classical guitar duo who do a rad cover of Metallica. What more could you want. Their flamenco style is outta this world.
Regina Spektor - She was good, we really couldn't hear her that well though. She's odd too - wacking a wooden chair with a drumstick. I did fall asleep at one point too...
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Regina's weird? Karen Oh is weirder. She deep-throats the microphone, damnit. Good entertainment though.
Mogwai - These Scottish instrumentalists were fantastic, so much so that we missed Franz Ferdinand for them. They are LOUD and awesome - wall of sounds kind of vibe. Apparently, FF told them to keep it down for their set, as they are known for being one of the loudest live bands going around.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No matter what you think of Nick Cave's music - he's an impressive dude. He's energetic, fun and engaging. And he's Australian. 'Stagger Lee' was a favourite of mine. Upon reading a sign in the crowd 'CAN I HAVE YOUR GUITAR?' Nick said, 'No, you can't have my fucking guitar'. Gold.
Kings of Leon - These guys exceeded my expectations. They're not great showmen, but Caleb Followill can sure sing. Consistently as well. His voice has much improved over the past few albums, they're as tight as hell and catchy too.
SUNDAY
Metro Station - I'm kidding, I only heard 'Shake It' from far away!
The Mars Volta - From what we saw, they were great. Unfortunately, while watching them, we nearly drowned in the epic downpour, so we missed a great portion of their set running back to the campsite to check on our things.
Black Eyed Peas - Very good actually! I was shakin' my humps do these dudes. Will I Am did a cool tribute to MJ as well.
Kaiser Chiefs - These guys were tiring, in a good way. The lead singer plays nothing but tambourine, so he was running around, climbing things and sweating like someone had turned a tap on from inside his body. His voice didn't suffer either. 'Ruby' went off like milk in the sun.
Nine Inch Nails - Trent Reznor and his latest NIN lineup were very impressive. Unfortunately, they didn't captivate the crowd as the majority were there for the next act. Some of you may know that NIN are calling it quits this year after over 20 years running. Check out this for a lineup/previous lineup list.
Metallica - A quality, quality performace. They captivated the crowd and were as rockin as ever. It was a bonus for us, as we had seen them in March - and this time they played about 7 or 8 different songs, some of which were specifically requested by us. They closed the festival in style with an insane pyro display and fireworks.
So that was Rock Werchter. 99% flippin brilliant. Goodness me it was hot too - 8am was far enough in the day to spend in a tent without suffocating inside. The cure for this was to continue sleeping outside in the sun like a reptile. Madness.
There's a lot of stuff I omitted here, there's just too much that happens at festivals to include in a semi-interesting blog post. And now to proof-read...all good (I think).
Shyeah.
He couldn't have my fucking guitar. I stand by that.
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