Sunday 22 August 2010

Festivalitis: Pukkelpop


The plan:
- going one day to the Pukkelpop festival
- trying to see 12 artists of the more than 60 ones who were on the line-up on Saturday
- take my camera and shoot some people

Reality:
- went one crazy day
- saw 10 of the 12 things I wanted to see
- walked like 100 miles
- enjoyed the sunsine
- brought my camerea.. but.. don't laugh.. forgot my SD card!!! aaarggh so, no shooting at all and I rented a locker to store the cam during the day..

Instead of the expected festival photo shoot, this will be a small report of the nice concerts I've seen..

1 o'clock at the hot hot Chateau..Toro Y moi:
Woowzie, the guys on stage brought a laid back show with seventies and eighties sounds.. I'm a big fan!! (online set on Red Bull Music Academy Radio)

1.45pm running to the Dance Hall for some rave rap of the South African band Die Antwoord.  I know this band since a few months and at first I thought it was a joke.. but it's just so funny to see them performing.  At the end they came back dressed up like some teletubbies for an encore.  One word for the show: funny

2.25pm back to the Chateau (too bad I didn't had a step counter with me...) for some glitch-hop Nosaj Thing beats.  Pronounced as Nosuchthing the young Jason Chung made it even more hot in the Chateau.. no lie.. but it felt like 45 degrees!

3.10pm fresh air and food were calling..  Under the blazing sun in Kiewit I enjoyed some pretty good festival food. Probably enjoyed it too much as we were too late for the Caribou concert.  The sign at the Chateau told us: closed..  noooo .. really wanted to see this.  My tight schedule was mixed up.. but heey no stress.. music enough. High Contrast in the boiler room was the substitute.  Fine Drum and Bass tunes.  


5.10pm Feet were heading towards Chateau again.. Martyn on the line-up, a dj set, not bad at all,but nothing special..

6.40pm dilemma time.. checking The Drums with their summer anthem Let's go surfing or checking mystical rapper/singer Gonjasufi .. Unfortunately I chose Gonjasufi the first big letdown of the day.  I like his album, but this concert was totally not done! Afterwards I heard the Drums were great.. arrrghh..

7.40pm at the Wablief tent the sister of the famous Belgian singer Tim Vanhaemel performed with her electronic music band the Vermin Twins.  She was dressed in an amazing beautiful glitter jumpsuit! Besides the glitter I enjoyed 30 minutes of her show but than we had to run to the Club tent.


8.25pm Au Revoir Simone at the club.. These 3 ladies from Brooklyn brought electronic dream pop.  They filled the Club with melody-laden loveliness.  In the middle of the concert it was time for another dilemma...Flying Lotus was programmed at 9.20pm but to be sure the Chateau wouldn't be closed again we had to be there on time.. I wanted to finish the Simone's show as well...ok, but I didn't want to miss Flying  Lotus at all, so I left the club.


9.20pm Flyloooo time... ooooh god (no, I'm not a believer) but the best tent of the festival had the best names: Flying Lotus!! This music producer with the biggest grimace ever dropped some amazing dub-step, hip-hop, free jazz and even Detroit techno beats sometimes combined with great soul voices.  The whole Chateau loved this guy and partied so hard on his tunes, the tent was almost blowing away!! Need to say more?


10.20pm So impressed by Flying Lotus I forgot the rest of my planned program... I missed The Yeasayer and Jaga Jazzist, but I was still on another planet..  Coffee coffee I was in need for coffee.. ok ..back among the livings..

11.30pm Temperatures were still pretty hot, so partying in a tent was no option.  The whole day was like taking an amazing music bath in a nice atmosphere.  To finish the festival we went to the main stage for the Dewaele Brothers aka 2 many dj's.  The show closed with fire works.


3 hours later, tired but satisfed me and my black festival feet came home.  Pukkelpop, you were great! Happy 25th anniversary!

None of the photographs are mine.

2 comments:

Ellie said...

Ook gelezen op De Morgen site dat Gonjasufi overdreven suckte (de omschrijving van de recensent kwam héél goed overeen met wat ik op Worldwide had gezien). En The Drums hebben mij weer wat energie terugbezorgd, dus ja, was de betere keuze. Maar da's Pukkelpop hé... Hartverscheurende keuzes.

En geen Gorillaz :(

DDR said...

Inderdaad, Gonjasufi heeft mij live ook niet niet echt kunnen bekoren, op Worldwide was het al wat chaos (al een geluk dat Gaslamp Killer er nog bij was), maar nu op pukkelpop was er toch echt iets mis. Nochtans is zijn laatste album geniaal... Tja, maar FlyLo was inderdaad mindblowing...

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