Belated Festival Funtimes

Blog enthusiasts of the world,

My apologies for not blogging sooner, but I have been either too tired, drunk or hungover to even access the internet yet alone write a detailed blog of Belgium experiences. I did not embarrass myself as much as usual while at Pukkelpop [music festival in Belgium, for those of you who are wondering what such an odd word could possibly mean] so this blog will probably not appeal to you all, but more so to the “younger crowd” who are mainly eager to know how fun it was and which bands were the best. But nobody is forcing you to read this, so I really cannot be held accountable if you do not enjoy it. [ps I just looked in the mirror as there is one in front of the computer – when did my right eye get smaller than my left? I don’t think it has always been this way. This not a good sign... I hope it isn’t a sympton of liver failure or alcohol poisoning... this is not good.] Also, a big old cheers to everyone for nagging me to update my blog. My readers are slowly increasing! I have recently reeled Erika and Sophie into my online world of travels and misfortune, great success!

SO Matt, Maddy and I were enjoying Breda – chasing rabbits at midnight because there were literally hundreds outside our apartment, picnic in the Narnia-park at 10pm where we found the entire town supporting some local ABBA-cover bands, and I was fortunate enough to literally stumble into a group of nice young folk who decided to take me out on the town for a good Dutch pub-crawl experience. But then – it was here. The morning of Pukkelpop, and Ken [that’s Papa Newman, Maddy’s dad] piled us into the car and we drove to Belgium. Yeah, you heard correctly. I actually drove from one country to another. FIRST TIME. Well, not like.. first time ever, I didn’t make a new world discovery, I’m sure people like.. I don’t know, Napleon or Hitler or Jesus or somebody did it before me, but it was the first time for me. So that was a big deal. But you know what, I don’t think that this is the point of the blog, so let’s just push through this last segment and get to the festival. And before anybody gets smart with me, yes - I am aware Jesus would not have driven from one country to another, but I mean the equivalent for back then. So like, riding a donkey or a leper or something.

HELLS YEAH! Arrive at the festival bright an early, and after some not-so-helpful festival staff, we were able to park and unpack – and began our 20minute journey through the campsite in the HOTTEST weather [maybe not compared to you Brisbane-ites and your 35 degrees Winters...] and were able to find a place to set up camp. Matt and Maddy’s tent was easy enough to put up – not that I contributed or helped in any way, shape or form. In fact, me being there making sarcastic jokes probably made them work slower, so I did the opposite of helping. I did more than not help, I made the task more difficult for them to complete - I 'unhelped'. Something I am now proud of, after realizing it. Ken set his tent up with ease, and then there was my coffin. Oh wait, I mean tent. If you could call it that. After a gruelling half hour, Matt and Maddy had set up my tent. I kind of helped this time. Sort of. I put a peg in. And my coffin... sorry... my tent... was up. And fucking tiny. A colony of ants would not even have fit comfortably in there. Heck, a single ant would have had trouble stretching in there. Lucky I don’t get claustraphobic or anything.......................... oh wait.

Festvial festivities! So overwhelmed [still wondering if one can simply be ‘whelmed’?] by all the people speaking Flemish and Dutch, and the flags and the music and the food and the beer and.. well yeah, still a little overwhelmed thinking back to it. OK so first bands we saw were Howling Bells [Australian band] and Bon Iver, both of whom were exceptionally RAD. Even though we were at the very back for Bon Iver – and I was sober – it was still pretty fantastic to experience ‘Skinny Love’ live. Razorlight next – nothing special, though I enjoyed ‘In The Morning’. But then – the surprise of the whole festival – La Roux. Who would have thought she would be so unbelievably good? Her voice was so much better live, she was so modest [the crowd went outrageously wild for her] – and boy oh boy did Maddy, Alan [new Brisbane friend who Maddy met in some other European country] and I got our dance on for ‘In For The Kill’ – though those around us were not so happy about this. Apparently, in Belgium, everybody stands and sways but does not dance or jump – then when the band’s set is over the cheer crazily. We did not care. We were going to dance. We were gonna leave our friends behind. 'Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance then they’re no friends of mine. S-s-s-s-A-a-a-a-F-f-f-f-E-e-e-e-T-t-t-t-Y-y-y-y - whoaaaa sorry, got a bit carried away there and broke into the ‘Safety Dance’ lyrics. I apologize, but you have to admit – Men Without Hats were ever the lyricists (“We can dance/ We can dance/ Everybody look at your pants”). Bob Dylan eat ya heart out.

There is something about dancing to 'Pretty Fly for a White Guy' live that makes you think "Yeah, 12-year-old James would be SO proud of me right now" - and let's be honest, it's about the only time since I was actually 12 that I have been able to think or say that. OK I will try to skim through the rest of the night... sat at the back for Wilco, Grizzly Bear were alright, thunderstorm came and went, drank a lot of beer and then we finished the night off with Beirut, who were rad – but we were tired, and our tents and coffins were calling for us. So off we went. Oh so tired, that means we can sleep through anything, right? WRONG! YOU’RE WRONG!!!! The stupid thirty-somethings next to us decided they would stay up til SIX IN THE MORNING shouting and singing the entire time. And here is when you will either gain or lose respect for Maddy. I found out the next morning that in Maddy’s delirious state due to lack of sleep, she genuinely tried to practice the dark arts. All jokes aside, 100% sober Maddy thought it was possible for her to make them combust into flames, or be eaten alive by Spiders [both of which whould not solve our problem – they would continue to make noise due to their painful screams and tears.] If I knew how to upload photo’s onto blogs, I would take a do so now so that you could see her reinactment of this the next day – as the unknowing twats sit and drink beer, Maddy casts a voodoo spell over them. And then we trashed their tents – but that story comes a little later in the blog.

Day 2 and the weather was much, much better. We decided to bus it into town for breakfast and to pick up some supplies. Supplies, in this case, means safety pins to open stupid iPhone sim-card holder, baked beans and goon. It was in town I also met my future wife - the pretty girl who served us breakfast and kept smiling and said she loves Australians. POW - pregnant...
....
..........
.. just kidding.

Back to festival site for a band Matt wanted to see - A place to bury Strangers. Who would have POSSIBLY guessed I would not enjoy the band? The name sounds exactly like something I would enjoy [Aunty Emma I am being very sarcastic here, just in case, you know, you are thinking ''James likes the name 'A Place To Bury Strangers'' - and think I'm all dark and creepy and dress all in black so you find it in the best interest of your young children to never see me again. So yeah... also, did you get my postcard? Actually, probably not the most ideal venue to start up a conversation, especially since it would mainly be typing to myself. And by mainly, I mean entirely.] But going to see this 'band' [if you could call them that...] had a positive outcome - Stefano!! While we were sitting at the back, a random dutch guy sat with us and told us being from Belgium was cool. Soon after realizing we were from Australia, he rephrased is sentence to include Australia being cool as well. We all thought he was on something, due to just randomly sitting with us, so we were a little awkward [I know what you're thinking. James, being awkward? NEVER!] and Maddy and I decided we would go check out Bombay Bycicle Club - and Stefano followed. The awkwardness continued, until we discovered he was neither drunk nor a freak, just a guy alone at a festival after friends. And we all know how I feel about random friends... just ask Greg.. or Grant, or Dan... or Pat, Charlie... you know what, we'll leave it at that.

Well it's been over a week since Pukkelpop so I am having a bit of trouble remembering who we saw next, and it is 3am in Australia so I cannot call to ask Matt. I know we chilled at the back of the main stage - can't remember to who - then decided to head back to the campsite for HOUR OF POWER. So the 5 of us did just that. Got out our cask wine and plastic cups, plus our munchies of chips, Belgium Nuttella, baked beans, creamed cheese and biscuits [the biscuits doubled as cuttlery for the baked beans haha] and we dug in. A bunch of things happened in the next hour, I will try to sum up.

1. Maddy ate chips and chocolate from Alan's leg
2. Matt won a 'hariest chest' competition agains Alan, and we laughed at the banaid on his nipple
3. Maddy and Alan laughed relentlessly at how Stefano pronounced 'Benicasim' [another festival] - as he made it rhyme with orgasm.... oh foreigners.
4. Stefano put his hand in a random plate of fruit seeds which lead him in his drunken state to ask 'What's Happening??' before throwing the plate of seeds on the tent of our noisy neighbours
5. Alan began to take the aforementioned neighbours tent apart, and had to be restrained

And at the end, Stefano and I deemed it appropriate to fight, in the nearby walkway. There were punches, kicks, tackles [which I still have a massive bruise on my leg from!] and a lot of laughs. People were stopping to watch us, and I may or may not have fallen on a tent full of people. Amidst the fight, we lost Matt, Maddy and Alan, and after a scoulding from Papa Newman for yelling too loudly, we proceeded to find them at The Ting Ting's in the festival. However, something happened between our campsite and the festival grounds - we both lost our memory. Extended family members, please do not think less of me [though I am sure not one of you find the fact that I 'occassionally' like to drink to be new information, we all remember State of Origin game 2....].It appears that both Stefano and I [me more so than him] had overshot it in HOUR OF POWER and literally the rest of a night is blank - my only memory is about an hour or so later, being lost and confused during 'Oxford Comma' performed by Vampire Weekend. Next think I know, it is morning and I am in my tent - with about 8 missed calls from Matt. Somehow [and neither of us remember how or why] Stefano and I ended up seperated, and he spent a long time looking for me. As did the rest of the gang, and although they were reuinted with Stefano - I was gone for the night. Who knows where, what or why - but Drames was on a mission.

Day 3: Start off in the electro/experimental tent - Maddy manages to fall asleep while I remain upset by the fact that we forgot to exchange contact info with Stefano and fear that our brief friendship is through. Next up is TEMPER TRAP and they were incredible - one of my favourites. We met up with Alan and then decided to check out Tommy Sparks - shit. So bad, I almost threw up - granted a big part of this feeling could have been from the night before. But wait... is that.......it IS Stefano! Great happiness. The 5 of us moseyed on over [never gotten to write that word before.. 'moseyed' - fun times. I hope I spelt it right..] to Micachu and the Shapes. Not so bad, bit weird and they are a bit 12 years old, but the kid was funny. "That was my first attempt at audience participation, and it was also my last."

Experimental female duo Telepathe was next, which was pretty damn rad - then lunch. MMMMMMMMMMM PASTA. And I got a discount for being Australian and friendly. I liked it. I also said I would meet up with them later. I did not. We split up for a bit here, and Matt, Maddy and I headed off to Florence and the Machine - another one of my festival favourites. DOG DAYS WENT OFF! I assume you can all imagine how great that would have been - well, double what you are thinking, then add beer into the equasion and THAT is how good it was. We then sat at the very, very back for 50 Cent, though in my buzzed state I did enjoy grooving and moving to 'In Da Club'. Wow, 50 Cent, you really are the songbird of our generation; I hope you did in fact drink bicardi like it was your birthday. After hitting up the Belgium Beer tent [where Stefano taught me how to say my drink in Dutch], the 2 of us spotted Maddy dancing alone. This lead to an awkward conversation between Stefano and myself. The conversation went as follows:

Stefano: She's a bastard.
James: What?
Stefano: She's a bastard.
James: Um, Stefano buddy - we don't usually call our friends that with such a serious look on our faces, usually only if it's a joke.
Stefano: But she's bastard.
James: Well you know what, maybe you should keep that to yourself.
Stefano: Bastard. Caught. We bastard her.
James: What? OH! She's busted. You mean we busted her dancing. Silly foreign boy.

Yes. I can be condascending towards Stefano, it gave me great pride. Until he played the world's GREATEST prank on me. It was so, so bad that I hated him for about a second, then realized the prank was just too good and smart and I could not hold it against him for making me feel like the biggest fool in the history of the world. Had I been drunk, we would have seen another episode of 'Drunk James crushes friendship with new random friend by continuously insulting them til they leave the group' [poor, poor Greg Brown hahahaha]

Stefano and I went back to the Pasta place before finishing the festival off with THE KLAXONS!! They were definitely the highlight of the whole fesitval, but once again we got looks for our dancing [and also for eating pasta in the middle of their set.... we will eat pasta wherever we deem necessary, thank-you annoying chick with mole on forehead who was standing behind us]. That leads me to the end of my Pukkelpop adventure. Papa Newman drove Matt, Maddy and myself home that night as we did not want to spend another night in our tents.

Before I let you leave, there is to be NO mention of Vampire Weekend or Fever Ray concerts ever again. 2 of the bands I was looking forward to the most and I missed them. If you enjoy your limbs being attached to your torso, you will not speak a word of them to me ever again.

And, with that, I am finished my Pukkelpop blog. I will say farewell, and then finish with a final Stefano quote. Thanks for reading, shame it was a bit long and more like a review of the festival. When I have another big night out or something embarrassing happens to me I will blog again of my adventures and misfortune.

I am now living in Sutton, London with the Kinsey's - who are possibly the nicest and funniest family of all time. Neverrrrrrr want to leave. So cheers for now, off to get some beer in my belly.

James: So, did you meet any other random groups when you couldn't find us?
Stefano: No, but I did make friends with a group of people yesterday who were cool.
*silence*
James: ................................................. that was us.
Stefano: ........................ oh shit, yeah, it was.