Voted best music festival in the world

[jay_lo]

And that's no joke. It's darn good to read that 'experts' think this festival's the best on this planet. But who are the experts, and what does one have to do to be one? Fly around the world in order to see every major music festival? If so, where's the application form?

Anyway, we just returned form an awesome long weekend at Rock Werchter. Everything was just so perfect: the crowd, our spot at the camping site, our crowd (the 4 of us, so to speak), and last but not least, the weather! Here's a quick look back at the performances:

• Kaizers Orchestra: the 1st band we could get our hands on. And, just like last week at the Parkpop festival, they were simply fantastic! Once again they were one of the highlights of the festival (even though I didn't know what the [bleep] they were singing about.
• Tool wasn't a band I was looking forward to, but they did an awesome job at pleasing me, a tiny part of the audience. 
• Red Hot Chili Peppers: THEY SUCKED! They sucked big time!! To me this was the biggest disappointment of the festival. They were just being commercial up on that stage (hence there acoustic version of the Bee Gees' "How deep is your love?" Yuk!)
• Manu Chao is a band that sounds best during hot summer days, and a hot summer day it was, indeed. You do the math.
• Black Eyed Peas: I wasn't looking forward to them either, but I was there, so what do you do? Their huge abbreviation they brought on stage (BEP) really shouldn't be put up there. At least not in Flanders or the Netherlands: Bep in Dutch is some old lady's fart's name. And that's what they sounded like as well. Note: How can they even think that covering Guns 'n' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" would be a success?
• The Streets: eventhough I haven't seen their complete act, I thought they were awesome (and that's from one who's not a fan of rap music). I'm not sure I like their latest album, though. He does too much singing.
• I can't think of a better day opener than Skin (other than the Polyphonic Spree): she's fun on stage, and her music's really not that bad (so why don't I have any of her cds?)
• The real reason why we were watching Skin was the band to perform right after her: the Editors. Smith's voice and mimics definitely helped improving the band's live credibility. They were definitely one of the highlights of the weekend.
• It turned out Clap your hands and say yeah is a band I have to get used to. They certainly had potential.
• Elbow was one of the bands I'd been meaning to spot for ages. My wish'd come true this weekend. It was the 2nd act of the festival that gave me goosebumps.
• After Elbow nothing much was on. 'Nothing much' in this sense refers to a band called Live. They did what they had to do (as if they were told no one was really interested). I used to be interested in that band BACK IN 1994.
• Anouk was a better act to check out (she sure ain't ugly) and she's got a throat. I only hoped she'd sing along with Live's Ed K. They've done that before, you know.
• Oh, and don't forget about Muse: They were there too. I was so ready to watch Muse climb onto that stage and see them do what they do best: make some mf-ing noise. And they didn't let me down at all. On the contrary: That was one huge consistent tsunami of great music! Their new cd, btw, isn't bad, but it's very electronically charged. I'm not quite sure I like it.
  Okay, here's where I need a small break. It's all getting to me a little too much. I'll be right back for some more Rock Werchter...
  
• 
  
  Okay, I'm back. But I chose a hell of a starter to return with: The Who, who -only God knows why- headlined Friday night. Jeez, they were old! I'm not necessarily talking ages, but the music sounded like they were ready to go to bed. And they almost succeeded in making us feel the same way. That's when we went back to our tent at the camping site early, and have a cosy beer or two over there.
  
• The fragment of the set by 2 Many DJs -my favourite djs- was okay, but not as special as the one they had 2 years ago (when they instantly replaced mr David Bowie, who seemed to have practically died right before the Rock Werchter festival kicked off back in 2004).
• We're halfway the festival when we watch Arsenal 'open' our Saturday. It occurred to me I didn't understand 90% of their lyrics, and I only regretted it wasn't 100% when I could: at once they kinda sounded like they were preaching on stage. I wasn't in a church, now, was I? But what the heck, it was a beautiful day that day, and their music was all party-like, so no need to complain.
• Thank God it was time for the Arctic Monkeys who were scheduled to perform right after. I didn't know what to think of them other than: HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! But, and you guessed that right, that kicked some pale white behinds. Honest, that was some pure (punkish) rock&roll.
• It is said that the Kaiser Chiefs were thé most overrated band at the festival. I, on the other hand, felt they did a great job at entertaining the crowd.
• The Raconteurs were okay. Hell, oh maybe they were even better than that, but I've seen better performances. They were solid, that's a big plus!
• An Pierlé & White Velvet (a good Belgian alternative to Tori Amos) were a good opportunity to listen to 'with the eyes closed'. So we witnessed her thing at the lawn, in the horizontal position.
• We all wondered what good old Franz Ferdinand would be up to this time. It was nice, but all 4 of us agreed something was missing. Was it the quality of the sound, was it the magic of the band, was it the time of day? I don't know. Do you?
• Here's a weird thing: One of the reasons why I wanted to be a part of Rock Werchter 2006 was Placebo. They were part of the line up next to a lot of other great bands. You ought to take the latter more seriously than you'd expect: They were scheduled to perform at the same time as Goldfrapp. Okay, Goldfrapp started a wee bit earlier. Fact is that we went out to see ms Goldfrapp to try her (and her bandmates) out. It appeared to be an ecstatic performance. It's true: Ms Goldfrapp really is a stage beast. And the 4 half-naked dancers (dressed in bikinis and horse's heads, or catsuits, or something else that emphasised the female shapes. I liked how they were able to pull the pony tails (literally!) from their behinds via their privates to their boobies. They even had the talent to repeat that trick a couple of times. If what they did there would have been a sport, they'd have won a gold medal for sure. Oh, and I almost forget, the music was pretty cool as well. Needless to say that the complete tent went bananas during that show. I couldn't even hear Alison thank her audience due to the 'loud crowd'.
• Well, were was I? Oh, right: Placebo. Goldfrapp was the reason why I missed out on the majority of Placebo's set. When we returned we were left to witness 4 songs, and 3 of which were slow ones. That didn't really work for me. Rumour has it Placebo had walked the way leading from a town called Magnificent to Dull.
• While we were heading for dEUS, Sigur Ross crossed our path. Unfortunately, I haven't seen enough to say whether they did it, or lost it, but the 3 songs that I was able to collect tasted like more.
• And then, finally, there was the heavenly dEUS, who headlined Saturday. That was some piece of professional art! What a rockband they are!!! Once agian, this was one of the highlights of the festival.
  
  I won't get into the last of the 4 days of the festival. Partly because that part of the line-up wasn't all that great, and partly because this so-called summarized report already threatens to become gigantic. In size that is. So here's a summary [Ouch! Not again!!] of Sunday.
  
  
• Eels was crazy. They have some weird sense of humor.
  
• Starsailer was -again- one of the more positive sounds of the day. I liked them a lot. Sympathetic rock that was.
  
• After the the Who fiasco I didn't feel like listening to Robert Plant, and, partly therefore, I didn't listen properly. I was there, but I just didn't feel like paying attention. So, no report on mr Plant's act.
  
• Come to think of it, there's not much I can recall of Ben Harper either. I don't recall what the [bleep!]we were doing at the time.
  
• Both Hooverphonic (their Hoover songs were almost okay) and the Scissor Sisters should not have been up there as late as they were. They're more suitable as openers or something along those lines.
  
• Headliners of the closing Sunday were no other than Depeche Mode. No real expectations available there, but they rocked. THEY REALLY REALLY ROCKED!
  
  Conclusion: Thé highlights of Rock Werchter 2006 were (in random order):
  - Editors;
  - Muse;
  - dEUS;
  - Arctic Monkeys
  - Goldfrapp.
  
  Okay, this is more than enough for me to return to Rock Werchter next year. I just hope Sam will be 'old' enough to join us then (and I know the answer to that already).