Blood, Sweat and Tears - The Rock Werchter Report - Part 3

Well folks, the gap between part two and three has been even longer than the one between parts one and two and I can only assume that by now you couldn’t give a flying fuck about the blood, sweat and tears from that eventful weekend, the memories of which are fast receding.

If this is indeed the case, I can only apologise as I demonstrate my innate stubbornness and continue with this, the third part of my sorry tale.

I’m sure there are already several papers circulating the internet, published by eminent psychologists as they analyse the mindset of the blogger and indeed that of the person who reads the blogger’s musings.

I suppose – if I was to think about it for any length of time – that there is something of an exhibitionist in the Blogger, perhaps even a kind of arrogance to even think for a moment that the experiences of one’s life would be remotely interesting for somebody out there to read, so I thank you, Dear Reader, for your perseverance.

Booker Prize material, whilst this stuff most definitely is not, I do hope you find the stories at least a little bit entertaining. Of course I enjoy writing and would continue to churn out this crap even if nobody out there were to read it but the fact that there are some of you out there that read my musings, keeps me motivated to continue with it, all be it at irregular intervals.

As a little anecdote to all of this, I am typing up this instalment, in the cool, shaded living room of a beautiful villa in the south of France, having decided to come here on vacation with several Flemish friends.

So having left the sweltering heat of the poolside, and the Belgians to their Flemish conversations, I have sought English-speaking solace here in the world of my blog, and considering that I have been here since Thursday evening, it is now Monday afternoon and we are only set to leave for Belgium at the weekend, there is every chance that I will come back and write some more.

I’m having a good time, but I’m sure you’d all be able to sympathise with the fact that it can be at times a little bit frustrating for all concerned at the language barrier that exists between us. They all speak English, of course, and whilst I have little more than a rudimentary knowledge of Flemish, it’s still difficult – we are, after all, on vacation, the heat is incredible and we are all hear to relax. Stumbling our way through conversations in ‘Flenglish’ sometimes seems to be just a little bit too much trouble for us all. But c'est la vie (just to throw in a third language into the mix).

So as I pour myself another local rosè wine, and enjoy the cool air of this villa, join me on this the third part of the Werchter Weekend tale.

I thank you for your patience…

As we all dragged our abused bodies out of our tents, we slowly set about regaining a state of consciousness capable of dealing with the day’s festivities that lay ahead. Breakfast consisted of bananas, oranges, those Grany cereal bars as well as a lot of crap - crisps, sweets, chocolate bars, and of course alcohol.

One of the participants of the weekend was a young English fella called Warren, the son of Abbie’s ex-boss and at 19 years of age, the baby in the group. This was his First Festival and he was embracing it with all the energy and innocence of youth and not to mention an unnerving ability to turn his space in the campsite into an episode of that American TV show, MacGyver, the guy who it seemed could put his hands to anything in order to get himself out of a tricky situation.

For a start, Warren’s tent was camouflaged and matched nicely with the camouflaged vest that he was wearing. Armed with a little gas cooker, we then watched in amazement as he then proceeded to make himself a pot noodle and cup of coffee. A fine breakfast that I’m sure, had it been around in bygone days of yore, would have ensured that the British Empire stretched even further throughout the four corners of this globe.

As we sat eating our breakfasts, we looked at the bands that were to be performing that day with much excitement. Closing was the dance act Faithless but before we got to that we were to be entertained by bands such as Within Temptation, The Kills, Garbage and my personal highpoint of the day’s entertainment – American punk rockers, Greenday.

PopTart continued to regale me of the previous night’s events, mainly at my expense. Apparently, during the chemical brothers and having decided to forgo the natty blue rain-mac, I had danced the night away, oblivious to the fact that I was absolutely drenched, the sweater that I was wearing turning into more of a tent as the evening had progressed.

I had absolutely no recollection of the visit to the first aid tent or the stop at the beer tent on the way ‘home’ although I was vaguely aware of wandering around the wrong campsite, like a little lost sheep, being lost in the dark surrounded by snoring Belgians sleeping in their tents seemingly having some sort of sobering affect on me.

With breakfast, along with my memory refresh, complete, we made our way to the festival site, where I immediately went to the first aid tent, this time accompanied by another friend, Matt, who needed attention to a tooth that he was having problems with. We were fast becoming extras in a low-budget version of ER.

When the resident doctor looked at my hand, his face became one of nervous horror.

“You’re going to have to go to hospital, the wound is getting infected! We’ll organise an ambulance to take you to Leuven hospital as soon as possible.”

I was absolutely gutted, and if truth be known, a little frightened at this new development.

And so it came to pass, that within a few minutes, I was saying goodbye to Matt and climbing into the back of an ambulance destined for nearby Leuven hospital, accompanied by another Werchter casualty, a young girl who had tripped over in the dark and managed to sprain her ankle.

I sighed to myself as I came to terms with the fact that my weekend was set to come to an abrupt end and cursed the decision to get my hand fixed. I was also aware of the fact that this was my first time in the back of an ambulance – an experience that I did not want to be repeating anytime again in the near future. I conceded a rueful smile as I thought of my time watching my home football team, Ballyclare Comrades, when we would sing “You’re going home in the back of an ambulance!” to players of opposing teams who were being stretchered off the field of play. It was a bit of a laugh then but there was certainly no humour to be found in my present situation.

I was admitted into the hospital and waited to be seen to for what seemed like an eternity, then a nurse came and called me into a room where she inspected my wound. Granted, it didn’t look too clever but I clung on to the slim hope that she would tell me everything was ok as she washed the wound.

“I’ll go get the doctor to have a look at this” I heard neither for the first time nor the last for that weekend.

I waited for several minutes for the doctor to arrive.

Whilst managing to keep a calming bedside manner, he looked even less impressed than the previous doctors.

“Our hand surgeon is in the operating theatre at the moment, but to be honest, you need to get this looked at by the surgeon that operated on you in the first place.”

I explained that my surgeon was only in the hospital on Tuesdays and Thursdays and after a long discussion, the doctor decided that he would consult with the hand surgeon to see what she had to say on the matter. He instructed the nurse to place a temporary bandage on my hand and sent me back out to the waiting room to await my date.

After some time passed, a time which was spent watching the limp, the lame and the damaged that proceeded past in Accident and Emergency, the nurse returned to me to inform me that the hand surgeon did not want to operate on a hand that had been operated on by another surgeon and that I should see my surgeon as soon as possible.

And that was it.

After a 45 minute wait for an ambulance and an even longer trip back to the festival site through the traffic jams (my encouragement to the driver to use the sirens and lights to speed our return being flatly refused) I arrived back at the scene of my departure two hours previous and rejoined the group with a really, really, crap bandage on my hand.

I didn’t see any reason for the weekend to finish, I mean after all, the hospital had washed their hands of me (pun intended) and sent me back to the festival. What was I supposed to do? Needless to say, I enjoyed the rest of the night and played catch up on the rest who had had by now a few drinks head start on me.

Shortly after I rejoined the group, I received a phone call from the late arrivals to our party, my Canadian friends, Chris and Janet, who had just returned from a week long trip to Yellowknife, Canada and were winging their way from Brussels airport to join us at the festival site.

It also transpired that on their journey in the train from the airport, they had fallen in with an Irish couple who were travelling from Luxembourg to join in the festivities and they had decided to tag along with the Canadians and put their tent up at our campsite.

A campsite that I, rather surprisingly, considering my lack of ability to find it the night before, managed to direct them to by phone from within the festival site and with Garbage performing in the background.

I suppose my Northern Ireland flag, brought especially for Therapy’s performance the following morning, flying proudly from the gazebos helped them find their way, but it certainly hadn’t helped me the night before.

They joined us just as Garbage finished which is a shame because that was one of the highlights of the weekend - I had no idea just how horny that Shirley Manson is and made a mental note to myself to dig out their CDs from my collection – the music definitely worth a revisit.

The rest of the night continued in the way that these things tend to do, with alcohol flowing, greasy food following greasy food but to be honest my experience that afternoon had left me feeling a little nervous as to just how bad my damaged appendage was becoming and because of that, and correctly so of course, I took things a little bit easier than the previous night.

Can I just state now for the record that Greenday were absolutely fan-fucking-tastic, every song an anthem and I really enjoyed their performance, for me the highlight of the weekend and even Faithless, who I have seen several times, put on a great show that sent us off into the night thoroughly satisfied with the evening’s experience.

As we joined the throng struggling to leave the festival site, suitably buoyed by the events of the previous few hours, with all the other thousands of people, I did what I generally do in these crowded, frustrating atmospheres – I started to sing.

And within a few lines of my song, and even though the mass of people were by and large tired, frustrated and impatient, it wasn’t long before I had managed to encourage a large proportion of the crowd to join in with me, which gave me no end of satisfaction.

The song that these Belgians and I were singing? None other than that greatest of football anthems – ‘You’ll never Walk Alone.’

Liverpool supporters around the world would have been proud.

Having been suitably encouraged by so many people’s involvement in this truly great song, I felt inspired to keep the mood going – after all we were no closer to leaving the venue and I had a captive audience.

So there was only one song to follow it up with – “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and what a beautiful sight to behold it was! Belgians, rubbed shoulders with English, Irish, Canadian alike in one of rock music’s finest offerings.

Oh how the heart glowed with pride as I watched all these people of different nationalities united in that most of uplifting of experiences – the head banging section of the song as so once wonderfully demonstrated on the silver screen by Messers Wayne and Garth.

Having blasted out a wonderful rendition of that great song, we filed out into the night, searching for the beer tent from the previous night and the hospitality of the nice girl that had donated a couple of t-shirts to the sad and sorry-looking waifs that had stumbled into her establishment.

And upon arrival there it wasn’t long before we had the whole tent and beyond singing the same songs again. I decided I was on a role and encouraged by lots of alcohol, drunken friends and strangers alike and a delusion that I can actually sing, I stood up on a chair and gave a wonderful (at least I thought that then) rendition of ‘City of Chicago’ by Luka Bloom. A wonderfully, sad but inspiring song about the Irish potato famine and the lengths people went to, to try and survive the deadly pangs of hunger that drove so many from our land to seek survival in America.

Despite the fact that no-one there knew the words, ii was afforded a respect that you wouldn’t normally expect in such a situation and as I finished the song, I opened my eyes looked at the faces of the bemused onlookers and stepped down from the seat (but not before I got a rendition of Wonderwall going).

I went to my tent a happy man, the trouble with my hand long since dissipated in the darkness of night and the comforting embrace of drunken sleep…

Blood, Sweat and Tears - The Rock Werchter Report - Part 2

Apologies for the delay in getting this post out into blog land, I’m sure you've been struggling to eke out an existence in this crazy, cruel world since i placed part 1 up on the internet all those days ago and since left you hanging in suspense, so without further ado…

Having played the old "I-can't-help-anymore-I'm injured" card, my mate Isabelle and I headed off to the first aid tent, which just so happened to be inside the festival site, ensuring that we got to see the first act of the weekend, The Bravery, perform as well.

Showing a rare glimpse of sensibility and demonstrating a far too often missing responsibility I immediately took myself off to the first aid tent upon arrival at the festival site, where I was led to something that looked like the set of M*A*S*H – a huge canvas tent with lots of people milling about inside.

I filled in my details in an admission form and noticed that I was number 37, 36 people managing to injure themselves even earlier in the weekend than I had; which, rather bizarrely, I found quite reassuring.

I showed my hand to a nurse and watched as the colour drained from her face as she unwrapped what was left of my bloodied bandage.

“I’ll get a doctor to look at that for you” she said before hurrying off into the canvas labyrinth in search for someone that would help me.

I took the opportunity to look at my hand and was quite horrified to see that some of the stitches had popped out leaving a flap of skin dangling exposing a hole in the palm of my hand about the size of a 2 euro cent coin.

I was not impressed and although I am not of the medical profession, it seemed that the doctor shared my opinion.

“This is not the sort of environment to be walking around with an open wound. You run the risk of getting infection and your situation will get worse. I can patch this up, but you should really get this seen to by your surgeon as soon as possible.”

I listened in dismay and watched as he did his best to patch me up. Suitably repaired and with a nice fresh bandage I returned the festival, rejoining Isabelle to take our seats in the grass soaking up the evening rays supplied by the sun which had decided to make a grand reappearance just before The Bravery began their act.

But before doing so, there was one more important stop to make.

At the beer tent, I tried to get an inflatable Stella Artois tray that was capable of carrying 9 drinks but was dismayed to discover that you had to buy 10 drinks to get the tray for free.

There was only one thing for it.

“Can I have 7 beers and three waters please?”
“You want them all now?” said the barman looking at me like I had two heads.
“How else do you think I’m going to carry them?” I replied waving my bandaged hand.

The barman went to get a tray and set it down in front of me.

“Do you not think I’ve got enough to carry?” came out of me before I could stop it, quoting an old Smithwicks beer advert from Northern Ireland.

It has to be said that I laughed at my wit a lot more than the barman did….

Watching The Bravery, and singing along to classics such as “Honest Mistake” and “Fearless” we awaited on the arrival of the rest of the gang.

And we waited.

Faced with the predicament of a tray full of drinks going cold we did the only thing we could and consumed the lot, and indeed it was just as we were going to the bar for more during the set of New Order (yes – they’re still going) that the rest showed up.

It was time for the party to really start.

And boy did we party.

Unfortunately, I embraced the whole festival thing with just a little more gusto than was required and very quickly found myself stumbling amongst thousands of Belgians lost and trying to find the rest. The fact that we had set up base camp just to the left of a tall tower of speakers not helping me much in my quest to find a friendly face.

Next up on stage was the American rapper and self styled pimp (aren’t they all?) Snoop Dogg but to be honest, recollection gets a little hazy at this point, with “The Dogg’s” performance barely making an impact on my festival experience.

And anyway, I was there (at least for that night anyway) to see “The Chemical Brothers”, a band that I’ve had a soft spot for ever since my step father renamed my two brothers and I with the same moniker for reasons that should be quite obvious to regular readers.

Unfortunately my recollection of this act is not much better although I do remember dancing in the torrential rain (which had decided to return) waving my hands in the air only to get slapped in the face by my bandage which had decided to come apart again.

Cue another trip to M*A*S*H at the end of the night where I was rebandaged and this time supplied with a snazzy rubber glove to help keep the bandage dry.

All this I know now but you can imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning completely oblivious to this knowledge in a tent with my mate “PopTart” and wearing a rubber glove.

I feared the worst.

Thankfully PopTart set my mind at ease as he recalled the evening’s events to me, including a visit to one of the many beer tents on the way from the festival site to the campsite.

Somehow, however, I had managed to lose PopTart on the way to the tent and had to be talked by phone by another friend, Abbie, back out of the wrong campsite and into the correct one.

Believe me, for Abbie to be soberer than me is quite an achievement but thanks to her help I eventually managed to get back to the tent for a few short hours sleep before embarking on day two of the festival, a day which would include such acts as Within Temptation, The Kills, Garbage, Greenday and Faithless.

Shame I didn’t get to see them all as I was ‘otherwise engaged’ sampling the delights of the back of an ambulance and two hours in nearby Leuven hospital…

Blood, Sweat and Tears - The Rock Werchter Report - Part 1

Before I go on with this most recent of addition to this corner of cyberspace, I am aware that some of you are experiencing problems when reading the text in your email. At the moment I can only suggest going to the website http://www.belgiumisboring.blogspot.com to see it in all it's glory. At least until I can sort out what the fuck it is that I am doing wrong!

Well Folks,

The dust has settled on yet another Rock Werchter festival...and what an eventful one it was.

For the uninitiated amongst you Rock Werchter is the largest music festival in Belgium and indeed one of the largest in Europe and has been rocking in its various guises for over the last 30 years.

Werchter itself is a small, sleepy town that lies between the Flemish towns of Mechelen and Leuven (the home of the beer Stella Artois) and is less than 30 minutes from Brussels.

Granted, the idea of spending 5 days in a field with 80,000 sweaty Belgians might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I consider myself fortunate enough to have been to the last three Rock Werchters and was determined to get to this year's event, purchasing my ticket through a long suffering friend and someone who I am sure feels like a part-time ticket agent. As per usual, the event sold-out within a matter of days, long before the final line-up was to be announced.

Make no mistake, the event is not for the faint-hearted. The festival is a 4-day long event, with the first band taking the stage at 18:00 on the Thursday and the final band closing on the Sunday at half past midnight. We had decided to stay the Sunday night to avoid the traffic leaving the event.

The build up to this year's event was setting the scene for a great one - a convoy of 12 of us were going to join in the festivities, the weather leading up to it had been scorching hot and several of my favourite acts were performing.

As per usual, the organisers managed to get a great collection of bands with many of my personal favourites playing. Although I suppose that is all a matter of taste but personal highlights for me were (and in no particular order):
Nine Inch Nails
Audioslave
The Chemical Brothers
Faithless
Greenday
Soulwax
Daan
Rammstein
and of course those fellow Northern Irish men - Therapy?

Spirits were high when we all met up at Thursday lunchtime in Antwerp's Grote Markt for a couple of pre-festival drinks, before setting off at around 14:00, only an hour later than planned which has gotta be some sort of record for the crowd of chronologically-challenged people that I knock around with.

At around 15:00 we joined the traffic heading fro the festival site and after crawling along in the glorious sunshine, we arrived at our destination and unloaded our cars at close to 16:00 - just as the heavens opened.

Caught in a huge deluge, weighed down by our camping gear, we were faced with no other option but to partake in our first of many visits to a burger van.

Suitably enchanced by our intake of grease-soaked fast food and seeing a break in the rain, we made a dash for the campsite and made our way to a corner of the campsite big enough to house our 6 tents, 2 gazebos and enough junk food to give Jane Fonda a coronary, we began to set up our base for the next five days.

Just in time to be caught in an even bigger deluge.

Setting up tents, especially those that have only recently been purchased, is a difficult enough task, but add in some howling wind and pelting rain, the task becomes a Krypton Factor task that even Gordon Burns (a fellow Northern Irishman) would have been proud of.

Needless to say tempers were frayed and long-standing friendships were put to a severe test.

Having purchased stunningly naff plastic raincoats at the more than reasonable price of 1.99 euros (believe me - even at this price - a little bit pricey) we put them on immediately, forgoing any semblance of fashion sense for the much more practicality of a pneumonia free festival. Certainly not designed for their freedom of movement, whilst protecting us from the torrential downpour, they only managed to further compound our situation.

Suffice to say we looked like a bunch of giant smurfs, indulging in a drunken rampage through an army surplus store.

Throw into this disastrous equation the fact that I was handicapped by my recent hand operation and was proving to be of as much use as tits on a skateboard and I am hoping that you are imagining a picture of just how difficult things were.

Multiply that picture by a thousand and you're getting somewhere close.

Of course by the time we had finished wrestling with the tents, swore profusely at mates and questioned our own sanity at the fact in deciding to willingly put ourselves into this predicament in the first place, the weather improved just as we had finished setting up base camp.

Unfortunately, during this mayhem I had managed to re-open the wound in my hand, the bandage soaked and bloodied, hanging off my hand making me look like the latter stages of a strip-tease act as performed by The Invisible Man.

This was not good.

With the supplies still to be retrieved from the cars, it was evident that I was in need of medical attention and accompanied with a friend I set off looking for it.

Unfortunately this was not for the last time in what turned out to be one hell of an eventful weekend...