This is a band member of Hopewell, just one the acts I saw. I counted them all and came to the staggering total of 47 acts. It explains why my legs feel quite numb. Now of course you can’t see all that you want to see and you certainly can’t remember them all. Take 311 (17.10, skate) e.g.: I saw them, but don’t ask me to review them as I simply can’t remember them. One comforting note to them: I may not have remembered how well you played, at least this means you weren’t bad. I wouldn’t have forgotten that. Still, it leaves me with the opportunity to tell you that there was a tiny Berber village near the Skate Stage where you could hear traditional Berber music, eat some traditional Berber food and drink Berber tea.Apparently tea is very relaxing and the same can be said of Stephen Malkmus (17.25, Marquee). Now that he’s solo, we notice how big an influence he was in Pavement. Despite some rocking moments overall the concert was pretty mellow. It was a good gig, but of Malkmus I expected a little bit more genius.
Pukkelpop has a cooperation with a South-African festival called Oppikoppi: they get to see some Belgian acts and we get to see some South-African bands. This year that included Max Normal who seemed to think that less is not more, but more is more. Max Normal performed three times at the festival and people who saw all three concerts told all three were quite different. The set he played in the ChateauXcrapule tent (17.30) went for the rap and dub styles. Outside I was under the impression Eminem had chosen a different stage name, but inside I saw it was Max Normal, blessed with a voice similar to Mr. Mathers’ one and almost as quick. But whereas Eminem chooses to wield a chainsaw, Max Normal goes for the incorporation of dub. Let’s face it: not a bad choice.
Maybe you’re sitting there reading this review and you’re thinking two things. The first is probably "Blimey, this is a long review!" The second is probably "Hey, how come he didn’t say anything on that eighth stage?" Well, because the Shelter is not just a tiny stage (50 seats) for chill-out DJ’s, it’s also one big commercial for Levi’s Engineered Jeans. The Shelter is drowned in blue lights and there are four little rooms (Floating Rooms) where the lucky ones can relax in a musical Walhalla. Oh, and there are some ten advertisements for Levi’s too, nearly forgot about that. But where chill-out music can be so much more, here is was reduced to new age sounds without the dolphins or birds. The only thing you could relax was your ass if you were lucky enough to get hold of a comfy seat. If you stood there, you just felt like an ass and the sounds of DJ Lomax (17.00) frankly didn’t help. I missed the dolphins.
If that was chilling out, I wanted to heat up. Approaching the tent Hopewell (17.30, club) didn’t sound like much, but as I got nearer, the band sounded better. Weird that. Within five minutes they changed my opnion from "just another endless guitar band" to "quite a nice collective". Hopewell do rock. And it’s not often you see a band with only one girl (the drummer). And it’s even rarer to see a drummer in a white tutu. Hopewell didn’t leave the stage unnoticed.
If you entered the Dance Hall after 18.30 and you were wondering what that goo on the ground was, it was probably smegm from the collective orgasm I witnessed at Ken Ishii’s set (17.35). Ishii played live and that was audible: at times it didn’t go 100% smooth, but hey, it’s better than a couple of idiots faking their set, right? Though there were some intermissions where you could hardly dance, the crowd loved every nanosecond of it – possibly because you just can’t keep going on for one hour in a hot hall. I saw Ken Ishii two years ago and noticed he is a remarkable DJ. He was also the first to leave the set while the crowd was yelling "booo!". Not because they didn’t like it, but because they didn’t get more.
Overall nice is a nice way to describe the people around Mark Linkous. Two years ago I saw Sparklehorse (19.05, Marquee) at a wonderful gig. Two months ago I heard bits from his Werchter concert: it was the day Linkous had a diabetes attack and he had to lay down till the beginning of the concert. Near the end he was losing his voice. Two months later Linkous was back in Belgium and ‘Revenge’ had become its middle name. Not the best Sparklehorse concert I have seen, but a very good one. The Marquee managed to stay very hot till late at night, but Sparklehorse was a welcome sprinkler. The latest Sparklehorse is called It’s a Wonderful Life. And despite Linkous not being at his total best (merely 90% of his power) it was a wonderful concert.
Maybe you have been watching the movie The Exorcist at the cinema or at home and you were thinking: "Well, that exorcising seems like lots of fun." Of course seeing people doing funny walks, moving furniture without trouble, hidden messages on bodies and always yummy green pea soup for lunch, may all sound pretty cool, but it can be quite boring too. Have a look at Matthew Bellamy of Muse (21.45, main) who was exorcising his demons on Origin of Symmetry. Matthew’s wailing and howling makes for fantastic songs, but sometimes it seems a bit boring. People who bought the record, know this problem and know it will disappear when you’ve listened to those songs a couple of times. Now, of course, at a concert you don’t get multiple listens, it all boils down to hearing that song once. Which makes it all the more difficult for Muse. But we can reassure them: the worst moments of the concerts were still above average, the best moments were plainly briljant. Be sure to stand near the middle of the hall or field for the last song where Muse bring out enormous white balls and throw them in the audience. Observing from a distance how the first rows throw those giant balls over the crowd is very beautiful. It might be a cheap and simple gimmick, but it’s a very effective one.