Rock Werchter; Belgian Woodstock

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I knew it would be a bummer have to work on the 4th of July and miss all the regular Independence Day fun, so to make up for it, I took my 4th of July holiday on Friday and headed out to a 4-day music festival near the Belgian city of Werchter on Thursday afternoon with a bunch of Shell buddies. Not much for fireworks (except for Rammstein, of course), but what could be more American than rock n' roll? Yeah, ok, so apple pie and baseball come to mind, but cut me some slack here k? We invented rock, so let's go with that...

Here's the stats: 4 days, 60 bands, 280,000+ people, a proud festival tradition going back to 1974, and more junk food, beer, porta-potties, and debauchery than you would ever want to know about. The lineup was ridiculous, but here are some of the highlights: Foo Fighters, Audioslave, Green Day, Velvet Revolver, Queens of the Stone Age, R.E.M., Snoop Dogg, The Chemical Brothers, NIN, Jimmy Eat World, Simple Plan, Pennywise, and so on and so on. The full line up and info is here: www.rockwerchter.be


It was a long weekend of amazing music and good times, but man it's good to be back in modern civilization! You really come to appreciate the little things in life, like ready access to running water, eating with utensils, and having a roof over your head after 4 days of festival life.

The first night started out with a bang, or rather a downpour that drenched us all between Snoop Dogg and the Chemical Brothers. Nothing like sleeping in a soggy, humid tent with festival revelers singing the intro to Drop It Like It's Hot all night long. The next few days were a blur of crowds, porta-potties, community showers, bratwurst, Stella Artois beer, and of course awesome music. I nearly lost my mind when Audioslave took me back to the days of Shed 5 with Killing in the Name.

The weather had been forgiving, with only light rain at night and relatively cool conditions until the last day, when we were mercilessly baked. By the time I lost my mind for a second time during the Foo Fighters, I had probably sweated through 16 Euro of tiny water glasses and had tan lines from my necklace. It's now Wednesday, and I think I'm still tired. So I wasn't around for Woodstock, but hey..Rock Werchter gets the job done.

Pics are HERE.

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Photos

Sunday at Rock Werchter
3 days down, 1 to go....tired but smiling!

Airborne
Ben, the Orange Hat, and myself...

Hotel Werchter
Sure, plenty of rooms, but wait till you see the bathroom and shower facilities. Even worse, wait till you see what happens when people choose not to utilize either of those options for waste disposal. Ooh..watch your step!

Comments

[Vince]

Oh Mango...
Brian, you win. Like the blog.