Rock Werchter Day 1 (03.07.2008)

After months of anticipation, the big day had finally come: July 2nd. I was finally leaving Romania to go to Belgium for the Rock Werchter festival. We left Cluj half an hour later than expected and had a rather slow trip to Budapest, where we also had a 2-hour delay for our flight to Brussels, so I have to admit I was getting impatient. The moment we landed in the Belgian capital however, I knew there was nothing that could stop me from attending the festival. After going to bed around 2 am, I woke up five hours later, more excited than ever, hopped on the subway and then the train to Leuven, where I met up with my Dutch friends, Duncan and Liselot. We queued up for the buses that would take us to the camping sites and after a 20 minute ride, we were theeeeeeere!!! We tried the A3 camping but then heard that it's already almost full, so we moved to A4. A nice, chilled camping, not too crowded either, with lots of interesting tents, some of them looking like mini-apartments: 2 places for sleeping and a "living/dining room"! We set up our tents (well...more like Liselot set up the tents, Duncan hammered the hooks, and I....well I *ahem*), had something to eat and the headed for the festival ground, which was a 15-minute walk away. Despite wanting to see Air Traffic, I wanted good spots for Vampire Weekend and The National, so I joined my friends in the Pyramid Marquee for a set of gigs.

1. Modern Skirts

I had only heard "Pasadena" before seeing them so I didn't really know their music, but they didn't really convince me to check them out more. Regular American guitar band, don't see anything special about them. The songs are ok, they are good musicians but they lack something to make them stand out. The crowd was not too numerous either and few people knew their songs, + they had the difficult task of opening the festival.

Stand-out songs: uhm....none really
Rating: 2/5

2. Vampire Weekend

Standing through an hour of Modern Skirts had its advantage: I was front row for Vampire Weekend! The guys were lovely! They played their entire debut album and a few other songs like "I Stand Corrected" and even a new song, during which Ezra (the singer)did this cute Michael Jackson dance. The Marquee tent was packed so the atmosphere was great and Ezra&co. lived up to the hype surrounding them. Of course the highlights were "Mansard Roof", "A-Punk", "Oxford Comma" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and the show ended on a high note with the energetic "Walcott". Kudos to the boys and can't wait for a new album!

Stand-out songs:A-Punk, Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, Mansard Roof (in the video)
Rating: 5/5



In the 30 minute break between Vampire Weekend and The National, the organizers turned on the music and at some point there was "Creep" by Radiohead and the whole crowd (around 6,000 people) started singing along: this might give you an idea of what was about to happen at the Radiohead concert on Saturday!

3. The National
And here come the 2nd best band of the festival (for me) I have been listening to The National for a year now and I knew they had beautiful songs but never in a million years did I imagine that they're soooo fantastic live! My god, I never wanted them to end, I wanted them to keep playing on and on until they ran out of songs! They are excellent musicians, and the violin guy was, for me,the coolest guy title on Thursday! Their setlist contained older songs like "Abel", "Baby We'll Be Fine", "Secret Meeting", "Mr. November" (a fucking unbelievable end-of-gig song) and from their 2007 album "Boxer": "Start a War", "Fake Empire", "Squalor Victoria", "Racing Like A Pro", "Mistaken for Strangers", "Ada" , "Slow Show" and my personal favorite "Apartment Story". Simply amazing, a mindblowing experience. I HAVE to see them live again and if you have the chance of catching one of their concerts, make sure you go!

Stand-out songs: Start A War (in the video), Fake Empire, Mr. November, Ada
Rating: 5/5 *show of the day*



Well, after around 4 hours in the Marquee it was time to get out for a drink and a bite. Of course, my best friend a.k.a the Rain had to show up and it poured for almost an hour. Luckily, we had our rain ponchos but the shoes had to deal with the Floresti-like mud.

4. Lenny Kravitz
We got something for our stomachs as I told you so we got to the main stage for Lenny Kravitz exactly when he was starting. So our spots were quite far from the stage but thanks to the screen we could still see Lenny and his band of cool musicians )his bassist was smokin' cool!). He played many of his big hits "American Woman", "Fly Away", "Mama Said", "It Ain't Over Till It's Over", "I'll Be Waiting" and during "Let Love Rule" he got down into the crowd and shook hands with the people (and not only 3 or 4 from the first row, but he really spent like 5 minutes in the middle of the fans) and even danced with a girl! Just after he left, I was about to say that it's weird for him to not sing "Are You Gonna Go My Way" and guess what, in a few minutes he was back for a booming encore performance of that song. Awesoooome! Great live act!

Stand-out songs: Fly Away, Let Love Rule, Are You Gonna Go My Way (in the video)
Rating: 5/5



5. R.E.M.
One of the biggest bands in the world, REM came here with a new album in the stores so I was expecting them to play mostly songs from it. But I was totally wrong: they played their biggest hits and a few from the new album! Ducan and I manage to crawl in the crowd after Lenny ended and got a spot right in front of Mike Mills. The crowd was delighted to hear "What's The Frequency Kenneth", "Drive", "Electrolite", "Bad Day" and the other tracks (and I was particularly delighted to hear "Imitation of Life"). After a short break they came back for an encore which contained a bunch of songs including "Man on the Moon" and obviously "Losing My Religion", which was the highlight. A very good performance by a legendary band!

Stand-out songs: Losing My Religion, Man on the Moon
Rating: 5/5



6. The Chemical Brothers
I had been looking forward to the Chem Bros but I have to admit that they let me down. The mix between the songs was way too long and they special effects they used were the same ones they used last year. The only highlight was for me "Hey Boy Hey Girl" and even that lasted too little. Willing to avoid the exodus from the festival grounds to the campings we left earlier, putting an end to what was an incredible first day with four 5 star concerts and 2 mediocre ones which won't be remembered ;)

Stand-out song: Hey Boy Hey Girl
Rating: 3/5