Rock Werchter 2011- Tales of a crowd fearing, private space liking, 23 year-old-woman who went to a huge, music festival in Belgium and “Shook her Waffle”.
At the age of 23, I decided that this year would be the year to undo my music festival virginity and accept my friend’s invitation to jump in his battered Nissan Micra and head to Rock Werchter Music Festival in Belgium. The journey to our muddy destination began in Cardiff, involved continental beer tasting session (getting blind drunk) in Bruges, and finished in Werchter; a searing hot town in the middle of nowhere.
After queuing for hours with our backpacks (containing beer, baby wipes and cereal bars), we enter tent city; a field of thousands of pop-up shapes belonging to young people, rock veterans and occasionally, their children. We spot a patch to call home, peg up our tents and as with all ‘checking in’ when away, I run off to check out the washing facilities. Hobbling over crates of beer, and tent linings, I head towards the distant sign reading “Sanitar Block”, turning the final stretch of mud, I get a full glimpse of where I will be washing and peeing for the next week and think, “Oh s**t, what have I done?”
Thursday June 30, Day 1:
Music Begins
Wake up this morning at 8:30am in an oxygen-starved daze, I scramble around for the tent door in between sleeping bags, wine and junk and throw my head out of the tent gasping for air. It’s hot (again), and today is the first day of music, the day we pick up our wristbands and begin what I foresee to be our descent into carnage! We learn that Rock Werchter is sold-out (the equivalent of over 15,000 festival goers) and we drag ourselves to join the queue for the toilet, eat some kind of dietary disgrace for a breakfast and head to the festival site.
The queue is surprisingly short. We enter some scaffolding which crew members hang off whilst slapping wristbands on unsuspecting arms. But after the tugging and grabbing zoo, we are through! Taking in the view, I pan my head around to get a fish-eye view of the main stage in the centre and the hundreds of food and drink stalls encircling it, catching a glimpse of the Pyramid Marquee in the distant left of my vision. The music is not due to start until 3pm, so we buy our first Jupiler Beer and wait for the first band (OFWGKTA) to play on the main stage.
When the clock strikes, OFWGKTA come on the stage and the “music” is awful. The only words I could distinguish from the rapper’s mouth began with an F and the rest- a mumbled blur. Next up is War Paint in the Pyramid Marquee, or after a few more beers, the band that I mistakenly call “Wall Paint” due to my general feeling of them being background noise (I am not this critical and cynical about all the music at the Festival I promise). TV ON THE RADIO then get us all bouncing like intoxicated penguins, flipping and flapping in our dancing plots to “Wolf Like Me”, “Halfway Home” and “Will Do”.
Feeling the pain of the two-Euros-fifty per half-pint, we head back to the campsite for a toilet, wine and food break. The German (very prepared campers) in the tent next to us the best offering possible: a huge bowl of Spaghetti Bolognaise! Eating something hot is truly a novelty at this festival, and it sure puts a spring in my wellies as we walk back.
Eels are up next in the Pyramid Marquee when we get back; the sound check guy is doing some making lots of weird noises and I decide that he has a pretty decent job. When the band come on, complete with beards, everyone goes absolutely crazy for the trumpets. Bizarrely, at the end of their performance, the trumpeters in matching outfits get the most applause and the drummer does an amazing solo for what seems like far too long for anyone without robotic arms!
After all of the fun watching Eels, it is time to join the stampede over to the main stage to watch Linkin Park; the journey feels somewhat like a human version of the M25- turning left or right is impossible- and stopping would result in sure death! But we cram somewhere in the middle of the crowds to sing really loudly to songs of a decade ago. I nostalgically recall loving the face of Chester Bennington as it stretches and creases so dynamically as he sings, “Crawling in my Skin”, and “In the End”.
Finally, it’s the Chemical Brothers on the main stage. By now, it’s bloody freezing. An extra jumper and pair of jeggings have been chucked on and we all start to spin around on the grass to the classics, Galvanise and Hey Boy, Hey Girl! The backdrop is a really bizarre video of children dressed as clowns. At 2:30am, it all stops and in an exhausted sleep walk, we get back to camp. The temperature has dropped a lot, after drinking, playing cards, eating baguettes stuffed with cold, tinned hotdogs; we eventually sleep at 3.30am to the sound of German Electronica pumping from our neighbour’s sound system.
Friday July 1: Day 2
Stretchers, & Kings of Leon
The first interesting thing to happen today: my friend woke up with his left eye looking like a wasp had been playing sting-to-blind all night! After a few hard laughs, we head off to the festival site. First dilemma of the day (after choosing whether to eat a pancake or a croissant with my jar of Dutch chocolate spread), is to choose either My Chemical Romance or Lissie as first band of the day! Lissie wins and we listen to her slightly ethereal voice on the decking outside the pyramid marquee. Lissie has the kind of voice which can make you dose gently at a distance, and I lay back on the decking jumps around by the thousands of footsteps pounding either side of it, (uncomfortable as hell, but I couldn’t care less, I am tired).
Then it’s chips time. I make the best decision and opt for chips with curry sauce which Belgian people hilariously pronounce “Corry Ketchop”, after refuelling, we jig around to White Lies and The National (both brilliant live) and go for Chase and Status! The sound is quite deafening and the group constantly shout “Chase and f******g Status.” (I didn’t get the melodic value of the F word at all); but the performance was nevertheless energising. We work our way out gradually, and see a big crowd around something… We look closer, and there is a guy in the recovery position on the decking outside the marquee with the Red Cross surrounding him- a sobering sight.
My two friends are pretty insistent that they want to see Goose, but I make the brave decision to go and join the massive crowd at the main stage (today has attracted more festival goers than any other day and it is unbelievably busy) and watch Kings of Leon solo. I nestle in between people who I carefully selected as not a) couples b) smashed off their faces and c) 7ft+. I love Kings of Leon and it is exciting waiting for them to come on stage, but I am almost through with my beer and I now have a couple in front of me snogging (the girl has a really strange bright, blond hair do that looks like it has been cut like an ear length box).
They begin to play! We all go crazy. The couple in front start snogging and I would love to say, “Come on guys, get a tent!” But instead I throw my arms in the air and scream to “On Call” and “Use Somebody”. Kings of Leon announce that they have played at Rock Werchter five times (most times they have done a single festival), stop playing, then do an encore, performing “Sex on Fire”. Crowd surfers rise up again, people jump back on shoulders and there is a generally lot of arm raising and sign flying, one read “Shake Your Waffle”. And a girl kept singing “My Sex on Fire” in my ear! I survived the solo and found my friends for Arsenal!
Saturday July 2: Day 3
Coldplay
A longstanding dream is to be fulfilled today: I am going to see Coldplay live! This prospect allows me to dismiss the theft of our camp chairs as an act of pure comic genius and I roll around on an empty beer key whilst humming “And it was all yellow…” But Coldplay are the last set today, so I wait impatiently all day, restlessly clapping to Bruno Mars, Elbow and The Pretty Reckless; who by 8pm, have all blown into some kind of squashed, non-existent memory due to my dominating anticipation.
As predicted, the long-awaited ‘meeting’ with Chris Martin was mesmerising. He sang so intensely that I really felt a sense of awareness of being completely in the present moment. The whole crowd sang in harmony back at him, filling in the lyrics to “Fix You” whilst bright confetti sprayed all over the dark sky. “Scientist”, “Shiver” and “Violet Hill” were memories cemented in time.
Sunday July 3: Day 4
Final Day of Rock Werchter
Knowing perfectly well that my dying need for the toilet would not hold out for the fifteen minute queue that was at the Portaloos every morning; I made an executive decision- I would risk being caught going to the loo alfresco before tent city. Sod it, it’s my last day, what do I care? So after doing a rapid squat, I do my final baby wipe/dry shampoo ritual, eat cereal bars and head off to the festival! I can’t wait for a shower and a proper bed- but this is my last day- being smelly is suddenly not so difficult.
My last-day-motivation falls slightly short of making it to see Everything Everything at 1pm, but I get to see The Vaccines at the Pyramid Marquee, and hear “Post Break up Sex” rippling over the crowds in the heat! I finally work out why people have been collecting hundreds of empty plastic bottles and glasses for the past three days; you get food and drinks vouchers for them!! Tame Impala bored the hell out of me after five minutes, so I decide to set myself a mission of collecting 40 glasses and 20 bottles for the equivalent of 7, 50 Euros! In Rock Werchter currency, that’s 3 beers! Grabbing empties from between peoples’ legs was quite risky at times, but well worth it!
Two Door Cinema Club do a set followed by Brandon Flowers from the Killers. Fleet Foxes are due to play in 30 minutes and we get right to the front in the Pyramid Marquee, we sit down and wait, legs fly all over us from different angles. I get through the first two songs and start to get that dizzy, I-am-about-to-pass-out feeling and do a runner out of there. Was it my first bout of Agoraphobia? Or maybe just lack of vegetables? But anyway, I get some air and soup and jump back to the edge of the marquee to listen to my favourite Fleet Foxes song “Your Protector”.
Robyn is crazy. She is a great dancer, but her set was pretty pants! The singing was not up to scratch and a lot of the music was just really loud and just noise. I recognised “Dancing on My Own” and “With Every Heartbeat” (probably from some pop compilation that I would rather not admit to owning.)
The finale in the Pyramid Marquee is Digitalism, a band I had never heard of, but since they are the penultimate band playing at Rock Werchter, I am willing to dance like a mad person to anything! But the Electro/Dance duo is brilliant. The whole crowd under the Pyramid Marquee clap in perfect rhythm, and the atmosphere is just pulsating the base is intense and the green strobe lights really make you feel that you are raving in some secret, underground gig!
Black Eyed Peas are the last band to play at Rock Werchter, they play loads of stuff (mostly cranky old hits like the one from Dirty Dancing) and fireworks explode all over the set! That it’s all over moment comes; and although I have felt 95 since I got to the festival, I am glad I had this surreal, wine-soaked, sleep-deprived, ear-deafening and completely unhygienic experience!
