Pukkelpop!

No one has ever heard of Pukkelpop, no one knows where it is, and no one has ever been. Yet myself and a few friends (Henry, Slutty, Ed and his little brother Alex) found ourselves at this obscure Belgian musical festival near the city of Hasselt this August. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. First of all I had never been to a music festival, but I was aware of the likes of Glastonbury, Leeds, Reading and Bestival. Even Exit in Serbia. This however, was a trip into the unknown.

When we arrived sweating on an overcrowded bus and were dumped in a dusty lay-by, my optimism over-shadowed the sense of dread that I should have been feeling. There were literally thousands of people everywhere. The Belgian police struggled to contain them as they spilled onto the four-lane road that handily dissected the festival from the camping area. As we queued to get into the dirty field that would be our home for the next four nights (a rather annoying ritual that would be repeated every time we wanted to go back to our tents) the sun bore down on our backs and by the time we could finally relax all of us were soaked through from our exertions.

Apparently 180,000 people visited over the three days we were there, which is not surprising. There were enormous queues for everything: the toilets, the showers (we only managed one the whole time we were there), and obviously to get into the arenas. The camping area was unlike anything I had ever seen. Tents were literally built on top of one another. It was so hard to find your way out of the tent city that had been hastily erected that every time we attempted it one of us would have to ‘run point’, picking a suitable route for the others to follow. All of us, needless to say, were useless at this and so there were numerous incidences of us stumbling over other tents and people, typically couples. One particularly funny moment saw Henry, as one of the elder statesmen, explaining to the somewhat naïve Alex that sometimes all you needed to do was to jump over the tough-looking stretches. This was inevitably followed by him attempting to do so, landing in a pool of mud and falling flat on his back. Whilst I am not a fan of camping, this ordeal was a small price to pay for the overall fun that we had at the festival. Here is my verdict on the acts we saw:

• The Maccabees – I found myself surprised by how much I liked their music. Special points for enthusiasm to the guitarist (Felix White) who threw himself about the stage like he was headlining Glastonbury despite actually playing to about 300 hungover people at eleven o’clock in the morning.
• The Twang – entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. I must admit I had actually bought a song by them before, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again. I had thought they were a young indie-pop group, but they were actually two mental, fairly old guys from Birmingham who thought they were the Gallagher brothers. One of them couldn’t sing and kept on doing the ‘come and ‘ave it’ gesture, whilst the other one retired at one point to get a whisky. They weren’t good enough to justify such rock’n’roll behaviour.
• Bon Iver – I had to drag my friends to this one, and was thoroughly rewarded. Justin Vernon’s voice is just as pained live as it is on the record, and it was amazing to see how all four members of the band harmonised. Henry got particularly emotional when the crowd repeatedly sung the line ‘What might have been lost’ from ‘Wolves’. Lovely stuff.
• Dizzee Rascal – we struck grimy gold with this one. The London MC followed Bon Iver meaning that all the indie fans couldn’t get out of the arena fast enough and we found ourselves at the very front. To make things even better he climbed on top of Ed and we got to touch his torso whilst he sang one of his hits. He is also an especially entertaining performer who had the entire crowd jumping throughout, despite the fact it was said to be somewhere in the region of 38˚. The best act we saw at Pukkelpop.
• La Roux – went down a right treat with the Belgians. Elly Jackson didn’t even attempt to sing the chorus of ‘Bulletproof’. She also smiles a lot more than you would expect, and looked genuinely touched by the adoration of the Flemish public.
• Faith No More – Alex quite literally dragged us to this one. We’d never heard of them but apparently they used to be quite big. Fairly average, but there was one entertaining moment when a fan got onto the stage and jumped off straight into a barrier. Someone should also tell the lead singer not to wear a peachy shirt and trousers combo. Their songs were so dire that we instead started singing along to Alicia Keys’ ‘Falling’, to the annoyance of the Belgian rock fans around us.
• The Ting Tings – worked the crowd well and impressed me with their playing of various different instruments, often at the same time. Better than I thought they’d be, but I still don’t know what her name is.
• Snow Patrol – the lead singer graciously chatted to the crowd a lot, but there was something quite irritating in the manner with which he did it (as if he knew they loved him). THEY DIDN’T PLAY ‘RUN’.
• Jack Peñate – a brilliant performer. He also has more hits than I’d realised. And he spat on us!
• Rusko – Henry’s dubstep recommendation. Great fun, but mostly because it was in a tiny heaving tent where we all got split up (I climbed up into the stands whilst Henry and Ed were carried away by security).
• 50 Cent – dire. Also, the members of G-Unit swear too much.
• N.E.R.D. – can’t actually remember much of this. I don’t think I was too impressed though.
• Arctic Monkeys – I really wanted to like them, but they were atrocious. Firstly they were awful performers, not saying anything and just standing there strumming their guitars. They were really, really boring and the majority of the songs they played were b-sides or ones from their then yet-to-be-released album. I think they were probably good if you knew all of their songs, Slutty certainly enjoyed it. People have since told me that they’re just shy and don’t like performing, but to me it looked like they just couldn’t be bothered to make an effort. It was a shame they were the last act we saw.

All in all though it was a thoroughly enjoyable few days and it was with sadness that we arose at five in the morning, after a couple of hours of sleep, to drive back to Bruges. To his credit Ed only fell asleep at the wheel once.