The first band of the day was Danko Jones. They put on a rather amuzing rock'n'roll set, for a bit then... Their songs are a bit too simple imho... And Danko's urging to crowd to call his name all the time became annoying rather quickly...
Girls In Hawaii is an indie rock band from the French speaking part of Belgium... I wasn't quite impressed with their debut album, but they were very enjoyable live... Nice guitar eruptions... Nowhere original or special, just good...
I heard bits from Sioen, a Belgian pop/rock band from outside the Pyramid Marquee (the second stage), it didn't seem that special to me, though their show gets good reviews in the newspaper...
Then I went to see Roy Paci y Aretuska... A Sicilian trumpet player who played in Manu Chao's backing band once and who plays a very danceable sort of mambo and ska... Very funny and weird... The whole audience was shaking... The members of the band where doing weird dances on stage... Paci himself is a rather short man and not really thin, so him doing these weird moves was certainly amusing... I did know this band before the gig only by name, but they really made a big impression on me...
The next to play on the second stage was Tortoise... I was unsure if I'd better go see them or Lamb on the main stage, but I thought that if I didn't check them out Josh would be
at me... So I stayed to watch them... It's nice music to "listen" to indeed, but not really to "watch"... Hardly anything happens and the music is a little bit too repetitive... Or maybe my taste is not refined enough I don't know... I saw a bit of Lamb too, but wasn't greatly impressed either...It was the first time I saw PJ Harvey and I liked it a bit less than the previous time, maybe because I don't have her new album (yet)... But that doesn't mean that it was a bad show, not at all... She caught the attention of the crowd very well and not only because of gaudy yellow dress and pink pumps... She put on a very rocking performance, even though she didn't play much guitar herself, but she was accompanied by a good guitar player, who played drums on some tracks as well... New songs "Who the fuck" and "The letter" were very good... But I missed "Rid of me", of which she played an amazing version last time...
The Pixies was the band I came to the festival and they surely didn't disappoint me... Well it couldn't have been as good as I had dreamt, because there was not a big chance that they would play all of my favourites, but it was one singing and pogoing along trip... The audience, full of early thirtysomethings at this point, seemed to go mad... They don't look that good anymore, but they still play very well and that's the only thing that matters...
I picked up some Placebo from further up the field, but wasn't really up to seeing another band so soon after the Pixies... Had seen them before anyway and I don't like their new record all too much... Heard some N.E.R.D. too and didn't like it at all... "say aaaa-aaah" "aaaa-aaah", "say oooo-oooh" "oooo oooh" and more like that...
Air was on on the second stage by then... They were quite good, though sometimes a bit too dreamy or maybe that was because I was rather tired already... (even though I went only one day to the festival)... Too bad I had to leave early, 'cause they played "All I Need" after I'd left... "Sexy Boy" was nice, but it doesn't have the same effect when you know it's sung by some dirty Frenchman...
Anyway, tell me your festival experiences from this summer
