Rock Werchter 2008Festival in Werchter, Belgium

We saw:
- Panic at the Disco
- Anouk !!!
- The Raconteurs
- Kaiser Chiefs !
- Underworld !!!!

We saw:

- MGMT
- The Hives
- Donavon Frankenreiter
- Kings of Leon
- Ben Harper
- Radiohead

links: http://www.myspace.com/theverve
& http://www.theverve.co.uk/

I could swear I saw Richard Ashcroft(singer)’s annoyance when he had to start ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ for the umpteenth time. My suspicions that he didn’t much care for the song anymore didn’t decrease at all when he subtly stepped back from the mike and gave the crowd the finger with both hands while they were (ignorance is) blissfully singing ‘along’ with the chorus.
At first I thought it must have been my immagination, but then he did it again when they left the stage and the girl next to me asked the same question that was on my mind to her boyfriend…
Other than that it was utterly amazing to see them live.
Like many others at the festival; I had never seen them live before, but unlike most of the others I already liked them (..which was subtly helped along by my darling David’s ranting and raving about one of his favorite bands.) :) (love you sweety ;)
I only think it was a shame they were on between Jay-Z and Neil Young… because it seemed like a more of the crowd was just saving their spot than really there for the Verve. No mistake about it; there were true fans!! Which was proven by someone obviously enjoying ‘Lucky Man’ through gently yet happilly jumping around and banging everyone in his path of destruction toward the front, being stopped by the guy whom we caught reading a Nietzsche book during the concert several times…

Good times… Good times….

We saw:
- The cool kids
- Slayer (more or less)
- Babyshamles… no wait… Air Traffic again
- Jay-Z
- The Verve!!!
- Neil Young
- Hot Chip
- Digitalism
- Moby … i thought he was just a dj??

Friday was nice, we woke up roasting up in the tent, and had a nice rainy cool-down on the festival grounds.
It wasn’t as bad as it sounds ;) it was actually quite nice.

In between the acts, people tended to just sit down and wait for the next one… made it quite impossible to get to the front of the acts you really wanted to see…
And after having seen most of the ‘free stuff’ posibilities (which was basicly the only entertainment other than the musicians) on Day 1, we weren’t quite sure what to do besides just wait. Disn’t keep us from having fun though; had a good time.

David (I don’t really know them that well) was really excited about seeing Babyshambles…
Unfortunately, after Cool Kids had left the stage, some dudes came on and told us that Pete Doherty (singer) was having such a good time in Prison that he had decided to go there instead of performing.
When we got home however… we saw a very interesting article in the MSN news when we checked our hotmail.
“Doherty misses gig due to pregnant cat”
(link: http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=8828691 )

We had read on the internet that A3 and A1 would be the best camping sites, but that they filled up pretty quickly.
Since the camping grounds opened at 8.00am, we figured we’d get the 8.03 IC train from Antwerpen to Leuven and be there with plenty of time to spare. As I’ve already mentioned however, we missed that train, and got the 8.48 stoptrain instead. When we got to Leuven a huge qeue had formed around many corners, that pretty much started right on the platform. From there, a bus took us to Werchter and the camping grounds, where we arrived around noon. Then we had to qeue up for a camping bracelet, where we got nervous a couple of times, when the announcer told us there were hardly any spaces left on camping A3, and that we should go to A2 across the road; which most people ignored. Luckily we were among the last ones who go into the A3 campsite. We found a space, next to a group of boys who eventually dedicated the open space in front of our space as their personal trash-disposal grounds… needless to say we chucked it right back to their side; and they took the hint. On the other side of us was a nice group of girls who drove us slowly insane with their wonderfuly female taste in music that was playing whenever they were out. So in a nutshell; we didn’t have any confronting trouble with our neighbors, but we didn’t exactly make friends with them either..
After all that fuss about on which camping to put up the tent, I still don’t really see what all the fuss was about, it seemed to me like A3 was just as much fun as any other campings and vise versa… could have been something i missed thanks to my sleepy behavious over the weekend, but it was a nice camping; but not special.
One thing i will say; it was a horrible dumping ground for all things repulsive. We found more than one pair of boxers randomly lying around in the pathways, and even though it was supposed to be a ‘greener’ festival (probably only to get Radiohead to come…), even the free drinks-vouchers per full bag of trash didn’t persuade the campers to clean up after themselves.
– Nice people everywhere; I like festivals –