Dour Festival 2007 La Plaine de La Machine à Feu, Dour (B), July 12/13/14/15, 2007
WEDNESDAY
I arrived in Maastricht at 4:30 PM , but it wasn't until 8 PM that we left with two fully packed cars, off to Belgica! We had a group of 7 people, all friends of my friend Anouk and friends of their friends.. I only met two of them before, but that was at a party when I was drunk and so were they.. but they all turned out to be really nice.
After a two hour drive we got stuck in the Dour traffic, apparently there are only two small roads to the festival so it makes sense that they're busy.. but it took us another three hours to finally get to the parking! It was a good kind of traffic jam though, music everywhere, people walking around, very relaxed.
When we finally arrived at the festival site, the first thing we had to do was trade our tickets for bracelets. By accident we got 8 bracelets for 7 tickets :D So Isabelle called her friend Charlotte who was supposed to come with us too, but she didn't have a ticket yet when it sold out. So she came over the next day!
The camping turned out to already be completely full, people already started to put their tents up in the paths, even though you're not really supposed to do that. Because we had quite a large group we needed a lot of space for our tents, but finally we found a nice spot in the corner of the camping. Really far away from the festival site, but nice and quiet.
At 6 AM all of our tents were finally all set and we went to sleep in the morning light.
THURSDAY
The first thing to do, when everyone finally was awake and all, was to pick up our food that we left in the car. Most heard sentence that morning: "I NEED TICKET!"... We brought sooo much but in the end we ate and drank most of it, except for the disgusting grave-beer (Grafenwalder), haha.
Our magnificent sign, it says "if you're not capable of making a mistake, you're not capable of anything". WISDOM HAH!
Mountains!
The first band we saw that day were Triggerfinger. Heavy rock 'n roll, they're Belgian and I had already seen them before, nice opening of a festival like this. They weren't the official opening act though, we were just late.
After Triggerfinger we saw a bit of DJ Hype feat. some annoying MC at La Petite Maison Dans La Prairie, fancy name of a tent, right? It was quite alright, I'm not really that much into drum 'n bass though, I just don't know how to dance to it! We left quite soon, it was way too crowded and dancing by daylight is just a bit awkward.
Then I saw my cousin! I had no idea he would also be there, but apparently he's been going to Dour for years now. Well he's old, so that makes sense I guess :P We saw Fixkes at the Club Circuit Marquee, I really like them but their performance was a bit.. boring? I don't know. But the minute we wanted to leave they started playing Kvraagetaan (which has been a huge hit in Belgium) and everybody started to sing along, that was really nice. After that we left anyway, to go to The Last Arena (the 'main stage') where Vive La Fête would play in a short while.
I really liked them! It started to get a little too-much-of-the-same after a while, but who cares.
Magnus did an ace dj-set, they started to ask people on stage but they had to leave after a while because there were audio problems or something? Pretty lame :D Isabelle and Sander managed to get on stage though, Isabelle is a big Tom Barman-fan so she had the day of her life.
After Magnus we saw what was left of The Cinematic Orchestra's show, sitting on the floor, very relaxing music. And then we were tired and went back to the tent.
FRIDAY THE 13TH
First band that day: Les Anges. Rock 'n roll, really loud, with a hobbit in a leather jacket as a singer and an Asian (female) keyboard player who might even be scarier than Rhys Horrors.
Freddy, Anouk's personal camera whore
Hot Chip! Loved them, the music was perfect for a sunny afternoon/evening, danced a bit, great atmosphere
Sander (2,03m) carrying Bob (approx. 1,65m) in his neck :D
I caught a glimpse of The Horrors at the Dance Hall, only saw 1,5 song but their show seemed better than that in Paradiso last April. Maybe the fact that it was Friday the Thirteenth just did them good. Farris even looked slightly summer-ish, with a bigger-than-usual t-shirt and shorter, not completely black hair.
The Rapture were amaaazing. Really really nice performance. I should get one of their albums!
Time for the first video, I thought they did some kind of hommage to Hot Chip by playing Over & Over, but some guy on Youtube let me know that it's just part of their song Olio. Embarrassing! I changed it now though.
DOUREEEUH!
After The Rapture we split up, some of us went to the Dance Hall to see zZz, others (including me) saw RJD2 at the Club Cirquit Marquee. Perfect music to chill out to. After the chilling we re-gathered to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
I was quite curious how they would turn out to sound live, but it was a nice surprise! The leadsinger's voice is exactly like it is when it's recorded, so no vocal dramas or anything :D We didn't see the whole show though, because we went to the Red Frequency Stage for the first time to see Bright Eyes. They had just started when we arrived, and gosh it was beautiful.
He/they mostly played songs off Cassadaga, but there was also a full-band version of First Day Of My Life which almost made me melt. Too bad we also had to leave again to get good spots for Goose. Post-Paradiso-2005-drama-scenarios loomed up again (we had to leave halfway the show to catch the last train)... Conor, one day I will see your show from the beginning to the very end!
Goose were scheduled to play one hour and 15 minutes. However, they showed up about 15 minutes late and left about 20 minutes too early again, but man, it was one hell of a show! Riot in Belgium!
After that we were kind of exhausted, so we headed back to the camping and sat around our tents for a bit before we went to sleep.
Tilburg reprazent!
SATURDAY
Saturday was quite hot. Our main station was the Red Frequency stage, where we first saw Sioen. It was already the fourth time I've seen him I guess, but he's got a new album now so things were a little different. I liked how he just talked Dutch to the crowd, his French probably isn't that good :D
After that we saw (well I was lying down so I didn't actually see most of their show) The Frames. They weren't bad, a bit boring perhaps, but good music to, well, lie down to. At some point the band noticed this and asked everyone to sit down. Then they asked a guy on stage, apparently he's the 'festival grandad', he's quite old and has million festival wristthingies.
He immediately became the hero of the day, they even let him play the guitar. He didn't play it too well though, haha. In the end they played a piece of Hotellounge by Belgian Superheroes™ dEUS, which gave their show a glorious ending. All is well that ends well.
Notre groupe:
Two Gallants were nice, just two guys with a guitar and a drumkit.
Motorpsycho was the absolute highlight of the festival for some of us, I didn't know them that well but they're really really good.
They played an hour and 45 minutes, so Frouke and I left for a while to go with Charlotte and Anne, who wanted to see Opgezwolle at the Club Cirquit Marquee. What an atmosphere in that tent! Seriously, I had no idea they would be that popular, considering they're Dutch. But they're not just some Dutch band, they are the crème de la crème of Dutch hiphop at this moment, and it showed. We only saw a couple of songs, but it was amazing.
Earplugs back in and back to Motorpsycho for the rest of their set. When they finished, we walked around a bit, got something to eat and to drink, have a Dixi (lol) and as a finale of our big day outdoors we saw Girls In Hawaii. The whole area in front of the stage was all of sudden PACKED with people, when just 30 minutes earlier it was practically empty. Impressive. Anouk and I saw Girls In Hawaii three years ago at Pukkelpop, which was nice surprise and this time it was pretty nice as well. Atmospheric songs, an enthousiastic crowd, early darkness.. mmm.
And then, ladies and gentlemen, le grand soir d'electro.. At the Eastpak Core Stage there seemed to be a little Ed Banger Records night going on, with SebastiAn, Busy P, DJ Mehdi, Uffie & Dj Feadz and Justice. When we arrived, Justice was already playing, but there was a lot of collaborating going on. They were wearing t-shirts with their names on it, and I noticed DJ Feadz man the decks for a while, and some other guys were present as well but I had no idea who they were.
No Uffie unfortunately, but I heard she already made her appearance. It was really hot in there, but we managed to get halfway to the middle, right in the center of the action and we danced our butts off. I had almost forgotten what a great song We Are Your Friends was!
After a while it turned into just mixing popular songs together, which was a bit of a pity. That's when we left and continued dancing at the Dance Hall, where we saw Vitalic and Dr. Lektroluv. I was really tired at some point, but eventually I got over it, especially when the sun came up.
This guy was so distusting, but sooo hilarious! He was probably really drunk and got sick, asked for a bucket somewhere and puked in it, and yes that's mayonnaise in his hair.
SUNDAY
Morrrrning. We had tortillas with strawberry jam from a tube for breakfast, best camping food ever. I even took a shower, my friends had to wait respectively an hour and an hour and a half on Friday and Saturday, but I could just hop in. Apparently no one's bothered any more on the last day.
We actually had to hurry to see The Thermals on time, who started at 16:10 and we still were half an hour late. So they were already playing, LOUDLY, they didn't seem to have as much fun as the other time I saw them though. But it was a good show.
When I went to front a bit more, someone spanked me and I thought WHAT THE HELL but it was my sister! She was also there with some of her friends, and I had already seen her before but this was a big coincidence, I was practically standing next to her.
Roarr!
After that we spent some quality relaxing time outside, where we saw Beenie Man, lolz. His show was alright, even though he got a little less audience participation than he wanted. Oh well.
I saw half of the 1990s by myself, no one cared to see them. Their show was exactly as I thought it would be, lots of lalala's etc. Too bad there were so few people watching them.
The whole group gathered again at La Petite Maison Dans La Prairie, where we watched the dark doom of Sunn 0))). Men in hoods, looking like the dark riders from Lords Of The Rings, producing tones and tremblings so low the human ear can't even hear most of it. Perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon, hah?
Anyway, things got a little boring after 15-20 minutes of the same, so we already went to the main stage where Black Rebel Motorcycle Club would play in a couple of minutes. They played an ultra cool set, that included a mix of songs off their first two albums and the new one, Baby 81. Nothing from Howl, if I ain't mistaken. Not that I mind. It was perfect just the way it was.
65daysofstatic were the big revelation of this festival for me. They were already playing when we entered the tent and even in the back people really seemed to be into them. And quite rightly, they were absolutely mind blowing. They played with so much dedication, soft and loud, hard and quiet, purely instrumental without ever getting boring. Amazing.
Anouk and I watched Wilco from a big distance, sitting and just coming round to a great weekend.
Amon Tobin had the honour of performing the last show we'd see there.
However our post-festival glory was soon over when we heard that our camping neighbour's backpack was stolen, there was nothing important in it, just clothes, but still. Mattijs already busted some guy Saturday night who tried to get into Anne's tent, he left so nothing was stolen, but it's just a bummer that something like this has to happen.
MONDAY
Going home again. I decided to go with my sister and her friends, because that would be a lot easier, faster and cheaper than going back to Maastricht by car first and then crossing The Netherlands by train. We arranged to meet at 7:30 AM (yes, don't know why either) but I forgot the golden rule of making time appointments with my sister: don't show up less than 10 minutes late or don't make them at all. Turned out they slept through their alarm and we had troubles reaching each other (dead cellphones and all), but after 40 minutes or something they finally showed up. We took the shuttle bus to the nearest trainstation..
.. where we took the train to Brussels, from there we took a train to Gent and changed to a train to St. Niklaas there. My dad picked us up there and then it was FINALLY time for a decent shower!
