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- Pukkelpop Festival (2005)
Pukkelpop Festival
08/19/05
Kiewit
Since its first edition in 1985, the annual Pukkelpop festival
underwent quite a transformation, morphing from a small-sized single day-festival
into the multi-stage, 72 hour-spectacle it is nowadays. 
Since
the days when Front 242 and Anne Clarke were headlining, the festival grew
exponentially, had an impressive string of highlights (in august of 1991,
Nirvana was the opening band, two years later a second stage was introduced,
in 1995 it became a two day-festival) and so it turned into the mastodon happening
of 2005, with 8 stages and 190 bands. As such, it's a kind of pluralist paradise
and even though the festival's program still has its stylistic limitations
(it's mainly alternative rock and dance, but using a pretty broad definition
of both terms), the variety of bands is simply baffling, ranging from minimalist
blunted beats to hyper-frenetic punk, goth-industrial metal, charged avant-noise
and in-your-face rock 'n' roll. Everything is possible, everything is at your
disposal and everything is there waiting to be experienced, tasted and devoured,
and while this limitless freedom may give certain people an overwhelming sense
of well-being and richness, it's quite a burden for music fans like me that
haven't adapted themselves to the speed of the times yet. The whole abundance
of choices would make sense if they were separately targeting all the blossoming
mini-subcultures of today's music map, but the result is often a perpetual
motion of wide-eyed people wandering around, being lost in that enormous landscape
of possibilities. I'm not trying to be the doom-monger of the apocalypse,
but when you observe how contemporary festivals adjust their platter du
jour to whatever fleeting experience customer so-and-so might be
in for, it's not hard to consider it another excrescence of consumer culture
on the rampage and a concert, like a song you download, becomes a product
to taste, evaluate in a split second (okay, I'm willing to give you a break
- you got five seconds to decide whether you like it or not), and…
dispose of. A huge fucking sensory overload is what these festivals have turned
into and while I have no qualms whatsoever with the concept of 'freedom of
choice,' I do wish that I could feel less guilty about sitting down for five
minutes while all around you, one life-changing mindfuck after another is
taking place. But now for something completely relevant: music.
But
first: a tour of the premises and facilities, from the dance-hall and
boiler-room (which I immediately left*), to the
main stage, marquee (for more alternative bands or those that got stuck
in the waiting line for the main stage), skate stage (punk and related
stuff, but no ramp) and three smaller stages called the Club, the Château
and the Wablief?-tent, which offer a mishmash of bands too young, too
niche-oriented or too far-out for mainstream appeal. Anyway, I decided to
hang around for the set by Death from Above 1979, a fearsome, critically-lauded
two-some that on a good day is supposed to conjure a racket that would even
make the average metal-maniac shit his/her pants, but what I actually saw
was an above-average minimalist combo getting a bit too much credit for their
gimmick. It's completely correct that the bass player knows how to squeeze
a thunderous rumble from his instrument and occasionally comes up with a riff
that easily qualifies for the much-desired 'motherfucker'-label, just
like it's quite enjoyable to see a unit at work that infests their punk-metal-electro-noise
with elements that sometimes recall the mighty Nomeansno, but it just isn't
the kind of stuff that stays interesting for longer than 15 minutes. They
were announced as "an angry band," so you'd expect an all-out I'd-rather-break-an-arm-than-not-act-like-the-fuckin'-machine-that-I-am-attitude,
but the set's alarming monotony, the drummer's refusal to deviate from stale
standard drumming (which really limits the energy-level), his whining
vocals and semi-offensive banter (angry people don't boast they're horny)
didn't exactly win me over. If played at deafening volume in a small club,
DFA79's racket is probably quite a blast, but apart from the more intense
last part of the set, the performance was simply too limp to inflict the damage
a bad-ass two man army would be capable of.
The
Dwarves, they're legends of their own time with a reputation for violence,
drugs and erratic behaviour. Their album covers are usually demented masterpieces
of bad taste, nudity and gore and the music and themes usually an equally
perverse amalgam of the traditional interests of the common man (song titles:
"Fuck You Up," "I Want You to Die," "We Must Have Blood," "Insect Whore").
The Dwarves are basically a loud punk rock band, albeit one that's less appalling
than their reputation might have you believe. Even though some of their songs
come to a conclusion before you even realized they were past the intro, they
also offer you a compendium of punk-styles from the past three decades, ranging
from Ramones/Beach Boys-inspired punk nuggets with a passing nod to Black
Flag's angular hardcore, to nearly industrial monotony laced with crossover,
sugary pop and the occasional nonsense bit. They're loud, snotty and old to
punk's standards, but also more professional, tighter and talented than they
would have you believe. Vocalist Blag Dahlia may look like a high school math
teacher on speed and guitarist Hewhocannotbenamed
as if he just ran away from the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, but they deliver
the goods, hit the right notes and delivered a fine set of no nonsense dedication.
The band was joined by El Guapo Stuntteam's living fire hazard Captain Catastrophe
(during - of course - "You Gotta Burn") and Nick Oliveri/Rex Everything as
second vocalist and while the latter didn't add anything substantial to the
set, he didn't make an ass of himself either. I've never seen a man wipe his
nose that often in 45 minutes, though.
On Friday, the cosy Wablief?-tent was reserved for
a bunch of local bands, some of which collaborated. The Killbotsand
El Guapo Stuntteam were given an hour to tear up the place, yet they
stuck with regular - if short - sets. The Killbots furiously launched into
their infernal boogie with an obvious eagerness to make the best out of their
time and tore through three of their roadhouse-worthy slabs of nitro-burnin'
rock as if the world's hottest women were awaiting them after their set. The
last song, which took up almost half of their set, was traditional closing
song "Tantra," which progressed towards its series of colossal climaxes while
beefed up by bass, drums, harmonica and… six guitars. The result: deafening
mayhem. El Guapo Stuntteam got the unenviable task to continue from there
(Killbots-fans are one dedicated bunch, I tell you), but they played better
than I've ever seen them. With a rock 'n' roll-attitude that would even make
Paul Stanley blush, they churned out their unholy melting pot of three decades
of sleaze, ending up with a seedy, stinking product that situates itself between
Molly Hatchet, Zeke and Iron Maiden. 
Usually,
their barely-contained ferocity and three guitar-attack results in a morass
of decibels, but this time around they were given the required sound and
volume level to prove they deliver the goods as successfully as any American
band that targets the gut of a horny cock-rocker.
From one extreme to the next. Don't judge a band by its appearance, because you'd end up filing The Futureheads under Contemporary Christian Music, with other exciting artists like Amy Grant. No, The 'Heads were the proof that a lack of rock 'n' roll-attitude doesn't mean a single thing, as they gave the most energetic and funniest performance of the entire day. Their debut album already proved the lads have a knack for irresistible new wave-hooks, vocals harmonies and ADD-restlessness, as well as an allergy for the three minute-mark, but their concert even topped that. Combining XTC's nervy, jagged rhythms with the early Jam's 60's-influenced mod-punk, the band kept up a frenetic pace for 50 minutes and probably raced through most of their complete output. Songs like "A to B," "Decent Days and Nights" and "Carnival Kids" were incisive pop-punk explosions, executed with surgical precision (that drummer!) and an impatient vigour ("Faster, faster!") I didn't know those Brits were still capable of. Despite the delirious barrage of spiky punk-songs, the highlights of set came when the band shifted down and let their harmonies do the work. How many bands would actually have the guts to come up with something like the gospel-tinged a capella work-out of "Danger in the Water"? Even better: a fantastic version of Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" during which the band was aided by the audience on backing vocals, which provided the chicken skin-moment of the day.
The Arcade Fire might very well deserve the title
of "Band of the Year 2005." Not even a year ago, no one had even heard of
this band, and now they're already talked about in laudations
that are usually reserved for extinct rock bands, unfortunate geniuses that
died before they reached their peak as artists, or suicidal misfits leaving
behind small legacies that haunt the consciousness of high school outcasts,
would-be artists and those sensitive souls that are scribbling away hermetic
poetry in their tiny bedrooms as we speak. The buzz started at the end of
2004 and barely a few months later, the indie community had embraced the Canadian
seven-piece like no other band had been treated since Nirvana broke at the
end of 1991. And you know what? They deserve it. They deserve it for having
the guts to create densely layered music that seems to have an insanely pretentious
end goal: fully exploit the emotional and stylistic possibilities and potential
of pop/rock. They deserve it for fusing classic pop, throbbing rock, hints
of classical, traces of prog rock, post-punk, folk, cabaret and getting
away with it. They deserve it because they make weirdly danceable music
that recalls the baroque pomposity of early Split Enz, the eyebrow-raising
geekiness of The Talking Heads, the hubris of U2, the melodic generousness
of The New Pornographers and suggest a richness feeding off of a history of
ecstatic hallucinations and a vision of a better world where tribal chanting
and a continuous switch of atmosphere - sweet/hysteric/introspective/soothing/triumphant
- are all parts of a celebration of life. They deserve it because they're
fearless surveyors of an ecstasy-level that manages to have their audience
as breathless as themselves when some of them are constantly switching instruments,
hopping all over the stage to reach a guitar, accordion, keyboard or any item
that they might use as a percussive instrument - whether it's a drum stick
or a helmet. They deserve it because they succeeded in channelling varying,
often opposite emotions in something that can only be described as positive
energy. They deserve it because they're one of the few bands that work (even)
much better live than on record. Finally, they also deserve it for making
me forget I promised myself I wasn't gonna get carried away by their bombast
in the first place.
Fourteen
years had passed since I saw The Pixies the first (and only)
time, yet the anticipation was quite similar. Whereas the Arcade Fire rose
to stardom like a comet, the Pixies are bigger than ever fourteen years after
the release of their last album Trompe Le Monde. The music world may
have caught up with them in the meantime, but a classic band will always withstand
the test of time, which is exactly what they proved. It was obvious they're
no longer the eager, hungry kids that recorded Surfer Rosa (still one
of the most exciting albums of its era), Doolittle (still one of the
best album of its era) or Bossanova (still one of the most,
uhm, puzzling albums of its era), they've perhaps lost that creative
spark that instigated to create that unique body of work, and they've perhaps
settled into the "routine"-mode a bit, but when you closed your eyes (so you
couldn't see on those huge screens how much they've aged - no Kim, you can
hide behind a cigarette smoke screen as much as you want), it sounded fantastic.
Santiago still knew how to reunite Hüsker Dü's guitar grind with the antics
of Dick Dale, Frank Black's vocals are still fantastic when combined with
Kim Deal's breathy singing and Lovering kept propelling them forward relentlessly.
The set contained surprisingly few songs from the post-Doolittle period,
but the sound and especially non-stop onslaught of overwhelming songs made
up for that. If you didn't already know, the set reminded you of how unique
the bad and their records were, and still are. For that alone, the concert
was a total thrill and made me forget the absence of "Rock Music," "Velouria,"
"Dig for Fire," "Alec Eiffel," "Letter to Memphis" or "Subbacultcha."
Set list: Where Is My Mind? / Here Comes Your Man / Vamos / Nimrod's Song / Mr. Grieves / The Holiday Song / In Heaven / Wave of Mutilation / Something Against You / Monkey Gone to Heaven / Dead / Bone Machine / River Euphrates / Allison / Broken Face / Crackity Jones / Tame / Hey / Debaser / U-Mass / Isla de Encanta / Gouge Away / Stormy Weather / The Sad Punk / Planet of Sound / Caribou // Gigantic
THE OTHERS (as in: "bands I only saw for a brief moment in between the concerts above, etc"): Goldie Lookin' Chain: Ten hooligans jumping up and down as if somebody unleashed deadly wasps in their pants, uttering ultra-fascinating rhymes about fucking Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey to the most unimaginative beats since Queen's "We Will Rock You" hit the charts. Gimme a fucking break. *** The National are apparently on their way to become a fully-fledged mass-hype, judging by the size of the crowd. The National are apparently also on their way to become the best friend of insomniacs all over the world. *** For some reason, I thought it might be a good idea to check out Marilyn Manson's freak show. Who the hell does he think he is? I couldn't care less if an artist thinks he needs to turn a stage into a theatre with enough props to re-enact the battle of Waterloo, but I do care if it's to cover up the fact that your lame gothic industrial-metal joke wouldn't be anything without that, and the outrageous costumes, painted faces (but at least KISS did it with taste!), silver-coated teeth. This guy is an icon? Of what? *** The Alkaline Trio are a decent punk band walking the thin line between Green Day's pop-punk and something that has, you know, balls.
* One thing you need to know about me: I don't dance (surprise, surprise!). In fact, the only place where I do listen to dance music is at home, on my sofa, comfy with the luxury of not having to wiggle my over-sized butt in the company of other raving lunatics or - in a moment of insanity - waltz through the living room with my cat in my arms. Now that is what I call partyin', pal.
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