Werchter - We come in peace

Sunday evening I came home from what has to be the hottest festival of my life.
The temperature was sky high, the clouds to small to cover the sun for longer then a few minutes.
But damn what a great 4 days we had, so here is my official Rock Werchter 09 report.
(I only listed the best/worst bands)

Day one : thursday.
We ( That would be Sofie and me) had to get up way to early (5u45!), fill our bags with food and check the rest of our luggage one last time. We went to pick up our festival companion Bart and arrived at Wercther around 8.
Getting our camping tickets went surprisingly fast
and in no time our tent had conquered a good place on camping A3.
Funny fact: our neighbors were really international,we had French, Dutch, British,Irish and German neighbors,it was like a mini Europe.
The first thing we wanted to see that day was Lilly Allen , but there was a huge queue to get in.
we spent more than 2 ! hours waiting in the sun. It was hell.
When we finally got on the festival ground we saw :

Placebo :
THE reason I went to werchter , their concert was absolutely fucking genius.
I love their new cd, it's so much better than Meds. The new drummer really gave the band some fresh energy.
They played all the songs I wanted to hear, except Julien . So Sofie and me were pretty ecstatic the whole gig.
(huge fangirlmoment there) .
random fact : Stefan's trousers were awesome (purple with pink stripes) I want them to!
Best moment : Without a doubt Black-eyed , one of my favorite placebo songs
Best quote : We are placebo , from London and we come in peace.


Oasis::
I was really looking forward to this show , Oasis is one of those bands that I've known for ages but never have seen live. And yes I have to admit , I do like Liam Gallagher in some weird way.
Their opening song was Rock'n roll star , what a statement !
Liam was in an extremely good mood ( Although he still was looking scary in his green parka). He made some jokes , he even went front stage to say hello to some lucky fans on the front row.
Best moments : Noel singing Don't look back in anger and the crowd singing along
The beatles cover " I am the walrus " at the end
Best quote ; "Are there any lesbians here ?" (Liam dedicates (what's the story) morning glory to all the Lesbians at werchter)

The prodigy :
One word : PARTY
Best moment: Voodoo people
Best quote : "all my prodigy warriors "

Day 2 : Friday.
No trouble getting in this time, altough we spent most of the day in the shadow ,the sun was killing us.
we saw most of the bands from a distance , but we made an exception for :

White lies : :
Bad show, they suck life and they are a bad joy division rip off. Point.
best moment : when they played 'death" the only good song

Elbow:
What a very nice singer they have and there was a great interaction with the crowd.
The music kind of surprised me, I liked it
Best quote : "Do you want do drink something ? There was a time that we could buy everyone of the audience a drink " (The singer wants to buy a drink for the 80 000 people present :p)
Best moment: : the inverted wave , really funny .

Arsenal

If you say arsenal you say party , the crowd danced as if it was their last day on the planet and we even found 3 euros change that fell out of the dancing people's pockets. Nuff said.
Best moment : A volta , my favorite arsenal song .
Best quote : "Unbelievable"(singer John roan is surprised by the crowd's enthusiasm )

Coldplay:
Actually I hate coldplay, I cant stand their music so I wasn't really looking forward to this one.
As I expected the music was a torture for my ears but damn the show was good. Chris Martin is one weird but entertaining person.
Best moment: When the band suddenly appeared in the middle of the crowd and sang an improvised song about Belgium
Best Quote: "I would like to say something in dutch or french but then I wouldn't have a clue about what I'm saying and neither would have you"

Day 3 : Saturday:
The temperatures refuse to change and we are getting tired , fortunately we wake up pretty early so we can shower without any queue.
We stay on the camping pretty long just laying down and trying to sleep , but sofie wants to see Regina spector so of we go for a day of heat and good music.

Franz Ferdinand: :
During the concert there was some sort of "mini tornado" which was a spectacular sight, a sleeping man was hit by a flying piece of wood. But that was at the marquee so we didn't notice to much of it (apart from flyers and paper flying trough the air).
Best moment : "Do you want to" and "Take me out "
Best quote : "What the fuck is that" (The singer notices the mini tornado)

Nick Cave and the bad seeds :

I love nick cave ( here comes the third fan girl moment) , He was great, no beyond great he was absolutely fucking amazing.
The man is a legend . Although I like his birthday party period better.
He shocked the whole crowd with appearing on stage without a mustache.
Best moment : The weeping song
Best quote "I dedicate this song to Polly jean Harvey"

Kings of leon :
Wow I didn't know they were THAT polulair, I never saw that manny fan girls holding up a sign "my sex is on fire".
They really are THE alternative boys-band of the moment.
Best moment : The crowd singing happy birthday for the singer.

2manyDJ's :
I don't like DJ's and I lost Sofie and Bart, so I wasn't amused.

Day 4 : Sunday:
Aha the last day, to bad but we are also kind of glad because with such hot weather a festival is really exhausting.

De jeugd van Tegenwoordig:
Sofie and me were really looking forward to this one , their show was great and hilarious.
During the last song Tim vanhamel and Tom barman joined the band on stage.
There are no words to describe how much I dislike Tom Barman. But the rest of the show was good enough to compensate that.
Best moment : Deze zwarte jongen komt zo hard , great song , oh so wrong but great.
best quote:" wienerschnitzel wienershnitzel "! ( The band wants the audience to repeat the word wienershnitzel )

The mars volta :
Wow rain .. a lot of rain . After 3,5 days of hot scorching sun we get cool refreshing rain.
We are so soaking wet we decide to go to the camping to change clothes , so no Mars Volta for us.

Black Eyed Peas: :
Ugh , Terrible, Fergie shouldn't sing, seriously.

Kaiser chiefs:
Ricky is one crazy adrenaline bomb , he jumps like a madmen and climbs on everything, now that's entertainment. I don't care much for they music but live they are a bomb.
Best moment : Everyday I love you less and less and ricky wilson climbing on everything.
Best quote :" kaiser chiefs, Kaiser chiefs, Kaiser chiefs ! "

Nine inch Nails :
The last band we saw , and we couldn't stay the whole gig, to bad because I love NIN live.
Best moment : The bowie cover " I'm afraid of americans"
Best quote : "I see there are a lot of metallica fans here, don't worry we wont stay to long we're just gonna make Some noise and piss you off."

And that's everything we saw, we had to leave early because sofie has a paper to write and she wanted to be home sunday evening.
Apart from the early leaving this is really the best festival I've had so far.
Can't wait till next year

Con te partirò

Damn , this song has been stuck in my head for 3 days now ,
I even know most of the lyrics by now.

It all started when I saw the movie "Wanted" saturday evening.
The film was overwhelming graphically , the colors the special effects , sound effects .... very spectacular.
But the story , now that's something different .
It was empty and the movie obviously borrowed from other action movies
like the matrix.
It's all about wesley , a shy frustrated office boy, who gets loads of panic attacks.
( see the similarity with Neo , office boy becomes action hero).
He meets Fox , an assassin , in the supermarket , and joins a secret fraternity of assassins.
And here it comes :
The fraternity decides who must be killed based on pieces of cloth, created by a loom of faith.
Most lame-ass storyline I've ever seen , really.
The rest of the plot is not really worth mentioning.
But there is a scene where Wesley kills a man in an armored limo, and guess what song is playing in this scene...
Indeed as soon as Bocelli sings the line " time to say goodbye" a bullet enters the head of the limo man.

I still don't know what to think of the movie, I think I'll buy the dvd and keep it as a guilty pleasure, same for the song.

Time spent alone

There was a silly facebook quiz circulating the last 2 days amongst my friends : what is your deepest darkest fear?
All my friends answers where : Being alone
mine was : Being trapped.
You can look at those 2 as being some kind of opposites ( not in the exact meaning of the word) .

This brings me to ... landscapes!
Let's talk landscapes shall we ,
I love big , endless, empty , desolate landscapes , they hypnotize me.












Plains with a dry, solid surface
and an occasional rock formation that seems a bit lost in the wide space.
Places that make you feel as lost and as tiny as an atom.
Places where, if you look up to the sky, you always see dramatic clouds with every shade of gray.
I could wander eternally in places like this, feeling forever lost.
But lost in a serene way.


On the internet there is a site that perfectly captures my facination for desolate places like this :
TIME SPENT ALONE

I found this piece of art by accident, there was a little article about it in the newspaper.
My favorite parts are " I wonder if the world outside is unraveling" and "places where I want to go".
I just love the whole atmosphere,
it's like the perfect visualisation of an ambient song.
I love to stare at the screen whatching "I wonder if the world outside is unravelling" with a Fripp&Eno song on the background.
Ofcourse I already added some places I want to go myself, but I'll dedicade another blog to that once.
All I can say is : this site is truly mesmerizing ... go see it !