Thu 20 Aug – Pukkelpop 2009
Below is what I enjoyed the most at Pukkelpop 2009. Since I had already seen a lot of 'rock' bands at Rock Werchter 2009, I deliberately focussed more on electronic music at Pukkelpop. And damn, I had such a great time hearing familiar music and discovering new music, I consider Pukkelpop 2009 as the best festival I've ever been to.
This is the creme de la creme, the bands which I thought were absolutely great :
1.
Fever Ray : Fantastic music. Fantastic voice. Fantastic visuals. Fantastic atmosphere. Simply put: perfect!
2.
Moderat : What a way to end an already outstanding festival. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from Moderat but I did like a Boys Noize remix from one of their numbers and I am familiar with the Modeselector album happy Birthday! Reasons enough to go see them at the chateau (I've never watched a show inside the chateau before either). Well, I totally loved their more ambient tinted music with creepy songs like Seamonkey being my favorites. Also being able to sit on a bench in the chateau while watching Moderat was great, my legs were already tired so this was nice. :) Spectacular video feed on the wall behind Moderat as well, very stylefully done!
3.
Booka Shade : Yes I was there in 2007 as well at their memorable set in the dance hall at Pukkelpop. And yes I double dipped the Movements album as well for the DVD from that show. :) I had high expectations for Booka Shade's second performance at Pukkelpop and they didn't disappoint. It was very nice to see a much different set list with a lot of material from The Sun & The Neon Light album, but still enough room to fit in the familiar songs as well. Superb!
4.
Little Boots : I didn't know Little Boots like I think a day before the festival. She was recommended by a friend, otherwise I would have ended up watching Klaxons. Thank God I went to Little Boots, definately one of the biggest surprises for me of the entire festival.
5.
Birdy Nam Nam : Also here, a band I knew almost nothing about and whoom completely surprised me with their great energetic set. Super!
6.
Vitalic : My expectations were skyhigh for Vitalic's new set, he's amoung my most played artists here on my Last.fm account. Well, he threw so many new songs at us in the dance hall I'm still consuming it all and wondering what to think of them. Some new songs are simply amazing, others I don't know what to think about them yet. I liked the set a lot overall but maybe I think I would have received it a little more enthousiastic if Vitalic had included a few more melodic songs (like Bells for example) and left out My Friend Dario (I'm so bored of that song already). Still, I'm extremely looking forward to his new album based on what I heard at Pukkelpop!
7.
Metric : Yet another band I hardly knew a while ago. It all started with Help I'm Alive which was on the latest Afrekening compilation CD. I was so glad to see they would perform at Pukkelpop as well. Had to get out of my bed really early to see Metric so early in the afternoon but it was well worth it. My only complaint is to the organisers: you should have given Metric a lot more time to perform, the set was way too short. :)
8.
Kraftwerk : I only saw half their set because it overlapped a bit with Vitalic and you don't exactly do the trip from the dance hall to the main stage in 5 minutes at rush hour. Now, the set had little to no surprises for me since it looked almost exactly the same as the Minimum Maximum live DVD from Kraftwerk. But it was the first time I ever saw them live and it was nice to finally see them.
Those 8 bands above, seperate themselves from the rest of the pack.
Other bands I also enjoyed watching, somewhat in order :
The Offspring (only partially seen)
Zombie Nation
Maximo Park (only partially seen)
dEUS (only partially seen)
Faith No More (only partially seen)
Paul Kalkbrenner
N*E*R*D (only partially seen)
Dizzee Rascal
Placebo (only partially seen, already seen at Werchter 2009)
Dave Clarke (DJ set, only partially seen)
The Subs
The Juan Maclean (only partially seen)
Dr. Lektroluv (DJ set, only partially seen)
Buraka Som Sitema
And then the bands I saw which were a bit disappointing or boring, and only gave a mediocre set :
Alter Ego
Aeroplane (DJ set, only partially seen)
Razorlight (only partially seen)
Simian Mobile Disco
50 Cent (only partially seen)
And then only one band that was very disappointing and I found their set boring and left earlier than I had scheduled :
Peaches (only partially seen)
I dragged a Panasonic DMC-TZ7 around the entire festival as well and recorded a lot of full videos in HD quality (with great sound quality as well). If you are interested in seeing those, check out my YouTube channel. And subscribe to it or keep an eye on it for the next week or so as well since I will be uploading more videos over the next couple of days.
http://www.youtube.com/breyzipp