Wall of Mouths

I read this on BUGS, a Pearl Jam mailing list, about a band called Dismemberment Plan (excellent band by the way):

> I was supposed to see them tonight, but you know what happend?? They
> drove to another City called ‘Monheim’ near Munich what is about 800
> kilometers away from Tilburg, where the played yesterday. The real
> Monheim, which is near Cologne, was just around the corner and
> right on the way to Berlin (tomorrow).

http://www.oor.nl
OOR magazine is the biggest of the better (i.e. non-teen) music magazines in the Netherlands. They have some good and some bad interviewers, I have mixed feelings about them, but since Opscene is out of business they are the best magazine in .nl
Then there is Aloha which is quite similar, but has even less about new bands, and LiveXS which is about live concerts and mostly Dutch bands, and FRET which is only about Dutch bands but quite good at that.

I agree that they should have included Finland, real fans there now have to go to the north of Germany I guess. AFAIK Ireland has always had one or more shows every year (Dublin and Belfast).

Oops.. could have read that in the first message.

Are these dates in Germany all in the north? (sorry, don’t know all of the cities :)

First, I forgot to thank the girl who made the sweet muffins. They were really really good :)

So, my report of Rock Zottegem -

I took the train to Zottegem. I think I arrived around 14:00 and nothing indicated that there was a festival in this small and quiet place. I asked someone about the KSV Zottegem football fields and she pointed at the church across the train station and said it’s somewhere in that direction :) Luckily I found it quite quickly. Already some people had their tents set up, and most were by car and had put their tent next to it. The grass field we were on even had its own portable toilet. There was plenty of space for us.

Iris arrived and handed out personal cards to hang around your neck, with the visitor’s name on it. We also signed a photo frame for the organiser of the festival. Some people didn’t show up so their BBQ-package and ticket had to be sold to some others. Luckily everything eventually worked out.

The barbecue took some time to heat up but when it was good we all stood around it and put the meat on it. Except for some black sausages everbody enjoyed their meal. There was also plenty of potato salad, cold pasta and bread.

We got our tickets from Iris and most fans went to the festival tent to see some bands. I saw a bit of Janez Detd but wasn’t really impressed. In the break after Janez Detd, the crew was setting up the instruments of Fischer-Z but also already some of Therapy’s guitars and guitar amps. The guy who checked out the light got some nice response from the crowd :) I really enjoyed Fischer-Z. It reminded me of (old :) new wave.

At Fischer-Z I was already on first row so I stayed there during the break. It got more crowded then. Therapy? started a bit late I think but seemed to really enjoy the show. Graham threw away/broke a few sticks and some microphone stands were troublesome, but nothing serious. The crowd was wild, many crowdsurfers and pushing around. Not many injuries I think though. Throwing towels into a wild audience is not a good idea as some people were fighting over them.
Therapy? did play Gimme gimme (back my brain), most of the old hits including Potato Junkie, but not Teethgrinder. Andy mentioned the barbecue and promised they’d drop by after the show! There were some funny intermezzos as well, Andy starting a riff taken from Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and the crowd yelling ‘hoeren’ (a popular thing to shout at Belgian festivals at night) after which the band started playing along a bit :) Diane was also played in the earlier cover version (slow).

After the show most of us escaped the overcrowded festival area and went back to the camping site to cool down and wait and see if the band would really come. Quite soon after I got back, already someone said the band was coming. Andy, Michael and Martin arrived and later also Graham joined. Each member signed things, had pictures taken and talked a bit to the fans. Then they also brought the new cd to listen to, and it was played from a car for everybody to listen to. Iris also gave the band members their own personalised fan meeting pass. The band and fans were having a good time and it took quite some time for the tour manager to show up and say they had to go. Even then, they took their time to shake hands and say goodbye. We all had a great time, stayed around the barbecue/campfire for a while before going to sleep. The next day some t-shirts were given away to some lucky winners, people cleaned up and packed their tents.

I took the train back to Brussels and spent a few hours there. I also saw Flemish singer Raymond van het Groenewoud doing soundchecks on some kind of catwalk with dancing pairs around. No idea what this was all about, but I like the song he did (Je veux l’amour).

Almost falling asleep on the train back home, but looking back on a great weekend I finally got home and didn’t need much to have a good night’s rest :)

Greetings, Whaley.

BBQ and concert/festival was great, I hope you had a good time at Dour as well. Thanks again Iris, Therapy?, the organisation of Rock Zottegem and everybody who was there.

I’ll gladly take that offer to go instead of infernalover’s friend, do I need to mention this person’s name?

I saw Pearl Jam at their shows in Dublin, Glasgow, Manchester, Cardiff, Pinkpop. I was supposed to see them at Werchter and Rotterdam as well but the tragic accident at Roskilde which killed 9 people made them cancel those concerts. The UK/Ireland tour was really great, I went through Ireland, Northern-Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales all in one week, met really nice people, saw a great band and even shook hands with Eddie Vedder. I also gave him a copy of the cd Nothing Less by Krezip, I wonder if he ever listened to it ;-) By the way, when I was in Belfast (a one-day/night stop between Dublin and Glasgow) I noticed nothing whatsoever about the troubles. In fact the shopping center looked more modern and wealthy than Dublin. I didn’t go to the areas with the murals, but I felt absolutely safe in the center even at night. I think there’s not much to see in Belfast, but it’s not scary to be there either. The morning before the Pearl Jam concert in Cardiff I went to Newport (South Wales) where the somewhat legendary TJ’s is located. It was closed, but still nice to have seen the place.

That would be -fanfuckintastic-! every time I get the chance to see Therapy? play I get this rush.. it’s the first band that really hit me live and still came back about every year (I saw Pearl Jam for the first time last year but they’re a bit further away than Therapy? are)
and I’d love to see what the fans have been up to.

Hi,

I’m too late to join the camping/bbq arrangements, but does anyone know if it’s possible to go to a camping nearby or a hotel or anything? or just stay awake somewhere and leave with the first train? I’m not going to Dour but I’d love to get to this Zottegem festival since apparently they’re not coming to the Netherlands any time soon. I really need some Therapy? ;-)