Playlouder - Content: Dour Festival 2008

Day 3

10:49
Woke earlier today. Felt good. Slept well. Have walked up the motorway to Lidl where they make you leave your bag outside because they’re too cheap to install security cameras and don’t trust anybody. The shop was okay. Limited. Cheap. An androgynous female to my left has had the same idea as me and is decanting alcohol from a glass bottle into a plastic one, thus to be allowed to take it into the festival, where glass (and b.y.o. alcohol) is banned. My problem is that I have at least a lire of coke to do away with before I can repot my plonk. Mmm… crisps… it’s amazing eating something that isn’t peanut based. (Don’t worry reader, I got a salad too – though, this being Belgium, it is a ham and cheese salad).

Today could be a long one. I wish I had a camera, although I feel that if I did a legend would flash across my vision saying “There is nothing photogenic here” á la Return to Zool (it’s a computer game, non-nerds). No bands I want to see today except Cazals and Wovenhand. Still, very keen to see both of them and imagine both will be on earlyish so I’d better get back soon. After them perhaps I’ll just kill myself and get up really early tomorrow morning. Dear God, is that… could it be… the sun? On, no: it’s gone again. Head back now, I guess. Where’d all these people get Lidl bags from? No fair. Where’s my bag? Nobody offered me one. There’s a whole bunch of people by the skip transferring alcohol.

11:08
Am now sequestered by the motorway on the nearest thing to a bridge in these parts, which is the concrete ledge of a bridge, facing the fence that separates this bank from the road. I’ve not seen a single magpie in this country yet. But the view from this bridge is pleasant. There are cows. Orange cows. Oh, some festival-going Frenchies have scared them off with loud nonsensical sounds. I have decanted my 70cl bottle of Amoretto (which means ‘little love’ in Italian) into my 2l Freeway Coke bottle with approx. 1.2l of coke. People are giving me odd looks, probably because I’m not pissing on anything, so I’ll leave soon.

12:22
Get your cocks out kids! It’s Planey – France/Belgium’s latest derivative metalcore nonsense skitchin’ in on the back of a burning bandwagon. Music for small boys to beat up small girls to. Blast-beats a-plenty, faux-agonised screams, (soon to wear-out vocal chords), and to top it all off… board shorts.

13:09
Chilled in the empty stage near the entrance for a bit and finished my poem. Saw Nasty, who were a lot like Planey, but less extreme. Now in The Dancehall I am awaiting abyss. There’s lots of dry ice in my face, apparently.

14:01
Okay, Abyss were freakin’ awesome! Best band so far – why are they on so early in the day? They’re a sort of space-rock tinged indie band with lots of style, plenty of passion and healthy doses of screeching prog moments. I know what you’re thinking (I’m psychic, me) – that sounds a bit like Muse, right? Well, not exactly, no. Though the vocals edge towards Belamy territory – or Thom Yorke territory, because even old New york once was New Amsterdam etc. etc. – but these guys definitely have a flavour all of their own and plenty of cracking songs to go with it. Really great stuff. A charismatic, well-dressed frontman and some multi-instrumentalist sidekicks who love climbing on things and posing. Awesome. Another couple of bands this good might win over my inner miserablist.

14:26
Stumbled upon Bones, who were the most tuneful thing on the Eastpak Core stage so far today; dumb US hard rock, but nice enough. Now on the main lawn. I think I just sat down behind Stefan but he seems to be deep in a conversation about something possibly philosophical and is undoubtedly very stoned so I’ll not bother him. This band is decidedly reggae. Let’s get the checklist out: Zion, equality, Babylon, Rastafari – yes he’s mentioned all of those things yet and we’re not even at the chorus. Jesus I hate reggae. Takana Zion and Manjul are very keen on people being equal and annoying minimalist jangly guitar sounds. The world needs more satanic black metal.

14:48
The idiotically-titled Quit your Day Job are a decent garage rock band. No… wait… no, they’re not – this is The Elegant Garage Runners. Well that makes sense. Fuck! They’re French? Je me confuse!

15:25
Actually, chwarae teg – those dudes were awesome. Some guy passed out in front of me kept waving his foot around and managed to clap at the end of each song despite being in probable need of medical attention, or at least a strong cup of coffee. In more friendly climates, such as that of a few years ago, they’d probably have been snapped up by a label and marketed to fuck and back. As it is, they haven't got much of a hope. Go The Elegant Garage Runners!

The Dancehall’s the place to be today it seems. Shame it’s so quiet. Actually, I didn’t just say that. I did catch a bit of Quit your Day Job but they weren't really grabbing me so I left.

I’m feeling more positive about everything today, doctor. I just wrote a love song about a squid. Don’t know if it’s the amoretto or the walk or the French rock ‘n’ roll… Inevitably I’ll be miserable or angry by this afternoon again. I am now in Le Petite Maison awaiting F.L.A.M.E. There’s a cute stewardess who was here during Ultraphallus that has shifts here. That’s a good look. She has a woolly hat that’s cream-coloured and she seemed to like Ultraphallus yesterday. She doesn’t seem that bothered about this large choral outfit. I’ll try to nap…

16:25
These guys are so boring I can’t even sleep! Argh!

19:02
Went back to the tent and listened to The Decemberists and failed to sleep at all. The wind is huge and my tent is but a tiny thing made of flaps and air. The campsite is built – or should I say ‘situated’ – very close to a wind farm. Will my tent be there when I return? Who knows? Who cares? Not you.

I’m back now watching some crusty-looking rock act called the Meat Puppets. More like the Peat Muppets. (It took me twenty minutes to think of that joke.) I prefer Abyss.

There are seven million people here tonight. Seven. I counted them. All I care about though, is Cazals and Wovenhand. WovenFUCKINGhand. I’m excited about Wovenhand. I never saw 16 Horsepower see… This amoretto and coke is way better than their crappy Stella beer. There’s so much more of it for 10 Euros. Tomorrow will be huge. Hoof. Earth. Tortoise. Tonight is a test of my willpower. Why does everyone want to “fuck the government”? That’s gross. Maybe the government’s mega-hot in Belgium? Or maybe they mean Sarkozy’s wife. Who knows? They’re vandals anyway, they should be correctionalised.

19:23
Actually though, The Meat Puppets are really good. They can join the list of bands I’m wrong about – or was wrong about. They have made it into my 3rd poem of the weekend, which is about looking at clouds, and how unlikely one is to find meaning in them. (Because I haven’t.) The Meat Puppets span many genres, not least because they are very, very old and probably invented at least three of the genres they are spanning, but they are basically a decent rock and/or roll band, with only three members, but three members who know what they’re doing.

21:34
Some joker tried to phone me. As if. Anyway, Cazals blew me away. They were awesome. I didn’t know what to expect really but I recalled them being recommended to me by someone whose opinion I respect. (One of about three people. Must have been me, Jamie or Emily I guess…) This Lagwagon set is a real comedown. Plenty of Belgiques ended up dancing to Cazals’ new wave grooves too, despite the occasionally complex rhythms (or maybe that was the amaretto dancing for me) and the lead singer’s confessed expectations of playing to an empty room. The band have an oddly futuristic/progressive sound for a London-based guitar band so clearly influenced by the post-punk era. Then again there are at least six of them so you’d hope they’d be able to rise above the mediocrimacy, and rise above they do. I’ve lost my second programme today. Let suckage commence. Oh wait, it already did, when Lagwagon got onstage. Boy, do these dudes suck.

21:50
More suckery. I’m sorry, I love pop punk, but these dudes are lame, hobbling also-rans and still freakin’ hobbling long after the bubble’s burst. Even their scatological banter is second-rate.

22:07
Ah, Richard Cheese – the favourite of the festival DJ since forever. ‘People = Shit’ is one I haven’t heard before. Nice. So when is the Ten Masked Men and Richard Cheese world tour, huh? I’m cold. Hey! Now they’re playing that Future of the Left song. It’s ace. I wonder how many other bands’ sets I’ve seen part of, made a judgement, then been totally wrong about? Probably none.

22:17
So who the fuck was calling me? Probably no one. Except it literally can’t have been no one. It was a weird number. Looked like Bhutan or something.

22:30
Waiting for Wovenhand. The miserable boy with the blue striped hoodie who is at every gig I go to is here. With his miserable girlfriend too.