Anna and Jacqui do Rock Werchter: June 28 - July 1

After returning from Africa and being in a whirlwind of activity, Jacqui and I still managed to party, hard. The weekend before Werchter we went to partries and stayed up all night. Monday we went dancing and stayed up half the night. Tuesday we had friends over and stayed up all night. Oh yeah, there was some swimming in a canal and a group shower as well. Wednesday I handed in my MA thesis, thus finishing school forever, and Thursday morning we caught a bus to Belgium to rock out at Werchter. Our good friend said it best: "You go fucked up to these things"; and so we did. But we still managed to rock it. In fact, we invented a new word. We crock. Cracked out, we still manage to rock. So read on to find out how Anna and Jacqui Crocked Werchter.

The festival was organized incredibly well. We took a bus to Brussels, and from there our festival ticket got us train travel to Leuven, where a shuttle bus waited to take us to the camp and festival grounds.


At the gates of rock.

This picture was taken as soon as we walked in through the gates before we even saw the first band. Bags under our eyes and all, we're still hot.

We caught one song from My Chemical Romance before heading to the side stage to see Air, who were awesome.

I would have never guessed I would go see Marilyn Manson live, especially with Jacqui. Entertaining as always. His mic is a knife which was pretty cool. We even saw his naked ass.

Bjork wrapped up the first day, and is one of my overall festival favorites. Amazing visuals, really cool sound making machines, and lots of weirdness that is Bjork. Her chanting "Declare independence, don't let them do that to you" was my personal highlight.

We had to walk down this road lined with bars and shops from our campsite to the festival. It rained a bit, but no complaints.
As we arrived at Rock Werchter I said to Jacqui "This will be good for our health" and I meant it. On day two we slept in and Enter Shikari was the first act we caught (only the second of the day). They are my festival pic for best stage performance. They brought so much energy to the show, despite being one of the first to play in the day and the lameness of the crowd.

The schedule

Kaiser Chiefs doing a mediocre job, being watched by the worlds most waterproof Pearl Jam fan.

Bloc Party, awesome as usual. It was my time to rock. Even the rain didn't matter.


All the Bloc fans behind us.


After Bloc Party, Queens of the Stone Age took the stage. People didn't dance much, so at one piont Josh Homme started to chant "Everbody knows you dance how you fuck, you dance how you fuck, you dance how you fuck... So how do you fuck Belgium?" The crowd was probably more stunned than anything when they realized what he was saying. Jac and I are good dancers.



The festival had this awesome recycling campaign; if you turned in 20 empty cups you got a free drink. It helped keep the place a bit cleaner (haha), encouraged recycling, and got people free drinks. Awesome.

Our home, and me wearing the t-shirt that I would lose in the future, but no fear...

Luxury accomodation

Day three was off to a good start with an awesome show by the Bravery on the side stage.

Still wearing my shirt...


Crowd Surfen Verboden


Some Belgians started a free hug campaign

Life immitating art

The Killers were alright, but if you have the album their live show doesn't do much to enchance the experience.

The world's biggest Killers fan

and Peter Gabriel?

We made it to the end of day three, now waiting for the Chemical Brothers to take the stage. They were awesome; great music, great stage show, and the crowd went nuts. Which is why I have no pics, too busy dancing and sitting on strangers shoulders to get a better view of the ongoings. Even better, ever seen random articles of clothing scattered around at concerts, and laughed at those peopole who lost them? I became one of them. I lost my Bloc Party shirt during Chemical Brothers, and only realized I did about half an hour after the fact, after we moved from our original location. I went back and couldn't find it, but Jac's good at finding things, so I sent her, and she did. She's a star.

Breakfast of champions


The side stage was the Pyramid, but the tent was kind of lame because if you were outside it you couldn't see the stage.


Interpol. The biggest disappointment for me. I was so looking forward to them and their show was lame. I still love their album though.

On the last day we discovered this whole area of the festival. I bought the rainbow dress :)



Faithless closed the four day shindig, and after their encore people were still ready to party. Some sat around setting garbage on fire (some even tried to light a fireproof tarp...) while men in black with fire extinguishers snuck up on them and killed the fun. The kicker was that the group of five people huddled over a pile of garbage trying to light it would disperse, and try to set five individual fires. Then a bunch of people stole a huge garbage can and started drumming, while a massive group (including us) gathered around to dance to it. When security came to take the bin back, a mob chased them down, trying to get it back. On the walk back to the camp ground, we heard loud splat/thud noises, realizing that people from all around were throwing bananas. So, it really looked like it was raining bananas. We were scared we'd get hit, and as we were trying to run away, I, Anna, slipped on a banana. When we got to our tent, a group of people started a massive fire feet away, but we were too tired to care and passed out.

The aftermath



Musically, keep your eyes and ears open for these artists when they come to town. They have great music, and are awesome live: Bjork, Air, Enter Shikari, Bloc Party, Queens of the Stone Age, Chemical Brothers, Faithless, Klaxons, Goose, The Bravery

And a list of who we saw, chronologically:

Day 1: My Chemical Romance, Air, Marilyn Manson, Beastie Boys, Bjork, Muse

Day 2: Enter Shikari, Kings of Leon, Joan as Police Woman, Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys

Day 3: Heideroosjes, The Bravery, Razorlight, Amy Winehouse, Snow Patrol, Klaxons, Goose, The Killers, Peter Gabriel, Keane, The Chemical Brothers

Day 4: !!!, Cold War Kids, The Kooks, Interpol, Incubus, Metallica, Faithless

And now, I'm ready for more. Lowlands in August, yey!