Day 1
Thrice got the opening spot at the main stage on the first day, I never cared for them, hadn't heard from them in a couple of years, and I highly doubt even their hardcore/punkrock fanbase cares much about them anymore. The only thing I'll remember is that they played a 'Helter Skelter' cover and the singer looks like Ronnie from Jersey Shore with a beard.
De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig couldn't really convince. They messed around with vocoders too much and their set got boring pretty fast. They played their (repetitive) new 'Get Spanish' track and teached the audience a new dance move called 'Hengel at a bitch'. I'm too old for this.
Seasick Steve now hits the stage with a drummer, which gives his set some extra dynamic. He invited a girl on stage to sing a ballad to, his set was good but couldn't really grasp the attention all the way. And even with all his special custom made guitars with only a couple of strings, most of them sounded pretty much the same.
Darwin Deez played at the club stage. He had a couple of fresh pop songs under his belt and his peculiar look, but his set was most memorable when he and his musician friends ditched their instruments and did silly group dance choreographies to popular tracks like 'Automatic' by Pointer Sisters, 'Single Ladies' by Beyonce and 'Walk like an Egyptian' by The Bangles. Good performer, but not enough really good songs.
Also witnessed a small portion of the set by Teddy Drums on the Batakamp stage. Funny elektro stuff with Dijf Sanders on elektronic drums and some dude on a guitar that sounds like video game bleeps. Think Crystal Castles if they had a sense of humour. Pretty cool stuff.
In my profession as dutiful festival visitor, I checked out some bands I didn't know from the schedule on beforehand, and one of the bands I really liked right from the batch was this heavy postrock outfit from Northern Ireland called So I Watch You From Afar. They played a heavy set at the Chateau, and did not disappoint.
Time for Blink 182. Becasue they don't visit the beautiful country of Belgium very often, this is the first time I saw them live. Travis was the MVP with 2 drumsolos, Mark did ok, and Tom still looks like he does not wholeheartedly want this reunion, and constantly looked like he was mocking his old self on stage. Setlist was just a greatist hits set with some extra songs from their last album. Perfectly suited for the festival crowd, but I'd hoped for some more fast tracks. Anyway, here's the setlist:
Dumpweed/Feeling this/The rock show/What's my age again?/I miss you/Violence/Stay together for the kids/Down/Always/First date/Man overboard/All the small things/Josie//Dammit
The singer from Minus The Bear is sporting the "Eddie Vedder 2010"-look. They had a couple of ok songs, but overall, like most of the crowd, I had an indifferent feeling towards this set.
Two hours of Iron Maiden is long if you're not a fan, but you have to admire their on-stage energy and musicianship. Ugliest shirts in existence. I also spotted a shirt in the same font that spelled "Ironic Maiden". Having your street team walk around in white overalls with white balloons to promote your new album = not so metal. Summing up all the countries where your new album is number one at the moment on stage = not so metal. But then again, I would never refer to them as metal. They didn't play 'The trooper' and 'Run to the hills' (or personal favourite 'Be quick or be dead'), but did play 'The number of the beast' and 'Fear of the dark'.
Goldfrapp was wearing her glitter vampire outfit and played a solid synthpop set that totally ignored her folk-influenced, more ambient 'Seventh tree'-album. Truthfully, she did really need her background singer to back her up, but 'Number one', 'Strict machine' and recent single 'Rocket' are solid gold hits in my book, and I think she deserves some more credit for doing the synthpop thing years before La Roux and her contemporaries came along.
Placebo opened their set very surprisingly with 'Nancy boy', followed by 'Ashtray heart'. Their set last year or the year before was slightly better, however. To play the intro to 'Black Eyed' only to morph it into 'Every you, every me' is just cruel. And not playing 'Special K' should be illegal. Brian Molko was wearing a bonnet instead of a wig, and some Elvis-esque glasses. They still have their mystery bass player that never appears on one of the screens on the side of the stage. They did a totally unnecessary 'All apologies'-cover.
Time for some avant garde rock! These New Puritans played the Chateau stage and did ok, even though some heavy bass parts were ear-numbingly loud, which does not fit well into their classical music-influenced musical style. Most of the instruments were on tape, and the singing wasn't always good. The epilepsy-inducing lightshow was slightly too much for me too. I highly doubt this music will ever reach big audiences.
Day 2
Started off the second day with the Henry Rollins spoken word performance. He started with a funny story on opening for Iron Maiden, and his struggle with the local authorities, but then he went on his travels and Nelson Mandela and started getting all humanitarian and Rick Ta Life-esque, and it got a little boring.
Checked out a small portion of the Harlem-set in the Chateau, but it was all energy and no melody, and I had to leave, so I also saw the last half of the Kate Nash, who apparently is as self-destructive about her personal life as she is about her career, seeing as she succeeded in breaking her wrist. Luckily, 'Foundations' can be played with one hand for the most part. The in-your-face songs of her second album didn't really go down well with the audience.
Matt & Kim are two New Yorkers that have so much fun on stage it's hard not to like them. He plays the keyboard and she plays the drums, they both really embraced to crowd to participate, and they played a fun, danceable set with some 'Better off alone' and some 'Final countdown'. Check out their nice (but not 100% representative) single below.
Pulled Apart By Horses is a heavy band from Leeds, I left halfway during their set because their singer's voice gets really repetitive after a while. Saying "There's some good bands playing today...Who's gonna see Limp Bizkit?" and then just laugh at all the people that respond is pretty cool though.
The Cribs (even with Johnny Marr) was mediocre as always.
I saw 2 songs of the Blood Red Shoes set, long enough to notice that the female singer had adopted the archetypical nineties grunge look with long hair and a (male) checkered lumberjack shirt. You go, Laura-Mary! Even without seeing the set, I'm going to guess they played an energetic set that went down well with the audience, seeing as they already did that last year AND the year before.
I went down all the way to the distant regions of the Dance Hall stage to check out whether We Have Band have more than 2 memorable songs in their arsenal. Answer: not really. 'Oh' (bassline sounds a lot like 'Papa's got a brand new pigbag') was pretty cool live, I'll give 'em that. The video for 'Divisive' is worth checking out too.
Really wanted to see White Lies, but the bass was up way too loud and this ruined the show for me completely. They appeared in black and white on the main stage screens. Played a couple of new tracks, which hint at a slightly new direction they might be moving towards.
Avi Buffalo played a nice, dreamy, summery set at the Club stage. Voice was a-ok and the singer was chill enough to respond with "It's so hot, I was gonna take a shower anyway, works for me" when a drink or something was thrown at him. They didn't have the organ with them that you hear in the 'What's in it for?'-single. Overall, their sound reminds me of the long-forgotten The Thrills in their early ('Big Sur') days.
eels rocked a pretty impressive biker-look on stage with a full beard, I'm going to guess he mainly played songs from his new album, because apart from 'Spectacular girl', there were no songs I had heard before. I guess he's just too stubborn to play a crowd-pleasing set, although he did play some singles ('The look you give that guy', 'Souljacker pt 1', 'I like birds') near the end of his set. Also played an unnecessary 'Summer in the city'-cover.
Foals played their set at the Marquee and I think they succeeded in winning a part of the crowd over for their music, although I personally prefer the rhythmic jumpy math-rock of their first album (they'll probably never beat 'Cassius').
Went to check out Hurts in the Chateau, the band that's trying to bring the undanceable emotional synthpop from the eighties back. The singer had the support of a academic-looking background singer, the set was short and never really got boring, but I'm highly sceptic whether they'll make it to big crowds with this song material. During the quiet parts of their gig, I heard some snippets of the greatest hits-set Limp Bizkit was rocking on the Main Stage, with 'Rollin' and 'My generation' early on in the set, and 'Behind blue eyes' and 'Break stuff' near the end. Sounded ok, but I wasn't in a nostalgic mood so I have no regrets about missing this.
Mumford and Sons played the equivalent of a home match in soccer at the Marquee stage right after. Big parts of the crowd singing along to every word right from the start of the set. A lot of people I know don't like them, and it's almost cool not to like them, but I think they're a good live band and they have a good frontman that has no rockstar attitude at all and performs with vigour. Could've watched the whole set, but I opted to check out the last part of the Marina and the Diamonds set at the Club stage. Looking eccentric as always (sporting bright pink lipstick and nail polish), I caught some ballads she played at the piano, followed by the hit 'Hollywood' and another up-tempo track. I can't quite put the finger on why I didn't dig her stage presence and attitude, but she annoyed me, and the song material isn't that spectacular too. Maybe some critics are right and she actually IS a poor man's Florence Welsh.
The Prodigy kicked off their set 20 minutes late. 'Breathe' as second or third song in the set. Then I left to check out Radical Slave, a new project with Mauro and Buscemi. Sounds pretty interesting, no? The set sounded like a long jam session by Belgian guitar hero Mauro, accompanied by a drummer and Buscemi for some extra touches. Weird or no song structures and distorted vocals. Some reference points: a less commercial The Black Box Revelation meets The Kills meets Primus? This one song, Mauro repeated the next line like a mantra: 'Everything I do is going to be funky'. When he says it, that's a self fulfilling prophecy, if you ask me.
I was back at the Main Stage to see The Prodigy close their set off with 'Smack my bitch up'. I didn't have to be there to know this was probably the best dance-band (when you measure the crowd response) on the main stage during the whole weekend.
Next up, Beach House at the club. I like the 'Teen Dream'-album, but the live set was even better, with very nice, dreamy, almost hypnotic versions of the songs on that album, magnificently sung by confident frontwoman Victoria Legrand, I will never mock her vocals as 'she sounds like a man' again. I think this may have been my favourite set of the festival, although it was probably monotone if you're not into this genre.
The XX drew a huge crowd in and outside the Marquee, and they started off really well with the 'Intro' and 'Crystallized' in quick succession. Unlike 80% of the other bands, here the sound was crystal clear; the hushed vocals were perfectly distinguisable over the instruments, so thank god for that. The setlist could've been more balanced, they scored a hattrick with the 'VCR'/'Islands'/'Night time' combo, then their set caved in just a little. But overall, amazing concert by an exceptional band, although I wonder what they'll ever come up with to top their debut album.
I was hopeful at the start of the NOFX concert, first 3 tracks were 'Dinosaurs will die'/'Leave it alone'/'Bob', but then the set totally collapsed and even the jokes ("that's blink 182 humour") weren't funny this time around. Even punk-rock classic 'Linoleum' at the end of the set couldn't save the day anymore. Check out these videos from the 1998 pinkpop festival. I watched this same video on VCR at least a hundred times. Love those silly dance moves.
Headliner at the Main Stage on the second day was the Italian super-dj-duo Bloody Beetroots, I caught the last 20 minutes of their set. Not a lot of people stayed for them, but those that did had ample space to dance on, which was a luxury on this sold out 25th edition. The short Refused part in their set was a pleasant surprise, and when they spinned their already classic dance anthem 'Warp 1.9', crowd mayhem ensued, even though pretty much any dj in the boiler room had probably already played that track earlier in the day.
Day 3
First 2 acts on the main stage on day three failed to draw a big crowd.
OK go! proved that they really only have one memorable song, and in fact they were lucky some dudes in the audience in the crowd were doing the choreography from their video (not 'Here it goes again') so they could ask them on stage and replay the song, because that's the only thing I'll remember from their set. And nobody really cares about Ash anymore, even though they now have the guitar player from Bloc Party in their ranks and played a couple of old radio hits like 'Kung fu', 'Girl from Mars' and 'Burn baby burn'.
Missed Selah Sue to get some water bottles (that were allowed on-site on the third day) from the camping. But sounded ok from far away.
I'm a big fan of the 'Astro Coast'-album by Surfer Blood, live they sounded a little too hard and heavy, but still a good band and ideally suited music to accompany/endure the steamingly hot third day. Played the whole album except for instrumental track 'Neighbour Riffs'.
They did have the coolest shirts on the festival, I now own this one in blue.
Third day was so busy, the indoor stages Chateau and Wablief started getting crowded, mostly with people looking for shelter from the burning sun. Which is why I couldn't go and check out Caribou. So I went to check the beginning of the Rise and Fall set, the sound at The Shelter stage was ok (for once), and tracks 'Soul Slayer'/'Failure is as failure does'/'Into Oblivion' populated the beginning of their set. Then I went on to check out their Ghent-based buddies Drums Are For Parades (forgive them for their slightly silly bandname, they're only the best current (+ in years to come) Belgian stonerrock band right now)at the Wablief stage. They played a 'take no prisoners' all-out heavy set that quickly scared away all the people that were hoping to catch a nap on the benches inside. Full album is coming out soon, I hope these guys are going places.
Last year's edition had Bon Iver, this year's had The Low Anthem. Excellent band, but music so quiet it's hard to get a good listen, because there's always noise from another tent, or people next to you that wouldn't be able to shut the f*** up if their life depended on it. The parts I did hear however, I liked a lot, didn't expect so much variation (band members switch instruments virtually after every song), maybe more bluesy/country/americana at times than I had expected.
The Drums played a decent set, sadly the sound wasn't always optimal. Didn't play 'Saddest summer' or 'Skippin town'. The singer called all the people that left after they played 'Let's go surfing' "non-believers".
The National proved to be worthy of their Main Stage slot, and played an entertaining one-hour set that couldn't have started better with the 'Anyone's ghost'/'Mistaken for strangers'/'Blood buzz ohio' threesome. Pretty sure they made a couple of new fans.
Wanted to check out Au Revoir Simone at the Club stage (who can resist 3 women singing and playing keyboards way up front on stage), but ended up only hearing their synthesizer cover of 'Boys of summer'. Maybe some other time.
Queens Of The Stone Age did not disappoint and played a set with the necessary hits, but also with room for some album and older tracks. Don't think they really played a lot from their last, less-stoner rock 'Era Vulgaris'-album. They started off vigorously with 'Feelgood hit of the summer', and continued with (among others) 'Lost art of keeping a secret'/'Sick sick sick'/'Monsters in the parasol'/'Little sister'/'Burn the witch' and finally closed off with blistering track 'Song for the dead'. I was secretly hoping for 'Regular John', but no dice. Come to think of it, they didn't play 'Make it with you' either.
Josh Homme also had some quotable one-liners like "Am I on LSD or are there lights in the trees?" and this nice reflection on festival crowds: "We didn't came to hurt each other, we came to fuck each other. And I don't want to get in the way of that. Maybe I'll try to get in the middle of that, but I sure don't want to get in the way of that." Dude rules.
2manydj's had the honour to close off the festival (bar the boiler room). They didn't really deliver, couldn't fully distinguish themselves from the million other dj's playing the festival. They could've at least played their The Human League/Slayer mashup. Enjoyable parts were the Roxy Music-medley and the money-medley. Most other parts were recent or past hits coupled with heavy beats, got boring and predictable pretty fast. Plus, they were mixing and twitching the songs a little too much, the tracks couldn't breathe and it was kind of hard to dance to. The whole album cover visual aspect of their set was just a distraction, rather than an addition. Crowd did go wild at certain points ('Zombie nation') and at the end of their set ('Blue Monday'/'Out of space'/'Love will tear us apart').
Special thanks go out to Dries&Lindsey for getting me there, and Peter&Veerle for getting me home. And keeping me company. Extra-special thanks for the dudes with the recognisable party tent that made it easy to find my tent at nighttime.
