Desertfest, Belgium; or, the Wandering

Sorry for the blog inactivity, for those of you following at home, but I’ve had a busy past three weeks.  I’ll start to catch you up in a not so chronological fashion with a post about my trip to Belgium planned around going to Desertfest 2014 (a doom/psych/classic rock and metal music festival) in Antwerp.

I flew into Brussels from Kristiansand with a stop in Oslo last Wednesday.  The plan was to spend the next two nights and a day in Brussels before heading to Antwerp for the festival.  I was riding solo due to not being able to find anyone who wanted to go on this adventure with me – and I can’t exactly blame them as I realize the music I listen to is not everyone’s cup of tea.  After landing in Brussels and following my airbnb host’s instructions for getting near to her place (this included waiting for the over one hour late train that would take me to the station nearest where I needed to go), I was able to use what little remained of my high school French education to very poorly communicate with some locals and get them to point me in the right direction.  The rest of the night was uneventful and I crashed early so I could get moving quickly the next morning.

I spent Thursday wandering around Brussels with absolutely no agenda.  There were a few recommendations for things to do and see in Brussels, and I actually hit almost all of the things I wanted to see, but since I forgot my map at my host’s place, I explored the city aimlessly.  Before getting on the metro I was able to – again, very poorly – communicate which pastry I wanted from the nearby bakery.  “Je voudrais un…” *points to pastry in the case near the front*

After getting off the metro I did some wandering and found a church (my mother will be so excited to read this):

Did some more wandering and I found what appeared to be the main tourist square in Brussels which had this pretty cool building (I'm sure it has a name, but my no-agenda, zero-planning American self did not go to great lengths to figure it out - what are you gonna do?):

I wandered around for a couple more hours while implementing my patented Wandering Decision Tree.  It looks something like this:  Does that way look like it could be cool? No.  Don't go that way.  Does that way look like it could be cool? Yes. Go that way.  It's not really patented - I put that in there to add a little flair, sorry for deceiving you.

I found some cool alleys seemed to be mostly restaurants.

Eventually I stumbled upon Delirium Village, a bar that had been recommended to me.  Went in and had a drink while using their wifi to try to figure out where the hell in the city I was.

After having a couple drinks (I had to take advantage of being somewhere that doesn't sell $15 beers in the bar) and filling up on wifi, I set off in search of la mitraillette, a Belgian specialty sandwich that comes covered in frites, or fries.  After finding a spot that had a line out the door, I chatted with a group of Texans while waiting for my turn.  After inquiring about the best way to eat la mitraillete and some gentle ribbing from the man behind the counter, I decided on beef with samurai sauce (some sort of mayonnaise and curry sauce concoction).  I should have taken a picture of it before digging in, because, despite it being garbage food, this was one of the best things I ate during my weekend in Belgium; this is some serious coming-out-of-the-bars late night food here.

After eating more sandwiched meat and fries than was probably in my best interest, I continued to utilize my Wandering Decision Tree to see what I could see with the added goal of eventually making my way towards Mannekin-pis ("the peeing boy" which is a symbol of Brussels).  I made a point of stopping in any and all record stores that I came across as I was in the market for vinyl; for the music I'm interested in, the records cost about the same in the US versus Europe, but the cost of shipping them overseas from Europe (a necessity for many of the European bands I like) nearly doubles the cost of vinyl.  In doing this, I found maybe one of the most amazing things I have ever seen: the existence of a 1987 World Champions LA Lakers anti-drug rap record.  Just look at that thing.  I regret not spending 20 euros on it.

And here's the aforementioned Mannekin-pis.  Real impressive stuff, I know.

I remembered my host telling me that the Parliament building was uphill from the center of the city, so I started to head uphill.  Here's one of the murals in the style of Tin Tin (which is a Belgian comic) that can be found throughout the city:

After reaching the Parliament building (sorry, I didn't get any good pictures of it as there was quite a bit of construction being done), I found a viewpoint that I had read about beforehand.  The French graffiti there is a play on a painting of a pipe by surrealist painter Rene Magritte (Belgian) that has the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" painted below the pipe (meaning this is not a pipe).  This is not a point of view.

Wandered some more and found a cool little tea shop.  The shopkeeper must have been bored because we had a good chat about tea before he offered to let me try a handful of different teas.  I ended up leaving with an Indian ceylon and a free sample of their most popular green tea.  Across the way I found a nice park to take a short break from walking in:

Did some more wandering and found another cool viewpoint before grabbing some more frites (yes, this was a recurring theme for me in Belgium) and heading back to crash for the night:

I left my host Friday morning and took a train to Antwerp for the festival weekend.  I met up with my airbnb hosts, a couple appearing to be in their mid-50s who almost immediately informed me that they were members of the communist party - why they felt the need to tell me this I can only speculate.  For what it's worth, they were pretty nice communists.  Apparently they work with the lady who isn't all about the Internet and facilitate the airbnb process for her, so I eventually made my way over to her house and settled in.  I had some time to kill before the music started so I wandered my way towards the main drag of the city and found a pretty neat square featuring a statue of Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (not Paul Reubens of Pee-Wee Herman fame - sorry, I know I got your hopes up).

I decided to try something new and different by grabbing some frites before heading to a bar that I had read about during my preparation for this trip.  After having a couple beers and playing with the bar-dog, Billie, I headed back to my accommodations to prepare for the festival, which was being held at the Trix music center about 15 minutes from where I was staying.

After getting in the door and standing in line for tokens (drinks and food were priced in increments of tokens which were valued at 2.20 euros), I caught the last two-thirds of the festival's opening band, Witchrider.  About as close to mainstream rock as the music at this festival could come to; they played alright, but nothing to write home about (here I am writing home about them!).

Throughout the festival,there were three stages on which bands could play, so there were almost always music playing as the schedule contained almost constant overlap.  Friday night was the easiest night for me to determine which bands I would see as three of my favorite bands (Blues Pills, Truckfighters, and Kadavar) played back-to-back-to-back on the main stage.  I was sure to camp out a spot in the front for each of these bands - don't worry, I was able to quickly duck out and grab a couple beers before each set and still keep my spot - and met some interesting people while soundchecks were going on.  In between Blues Pills, a Swedish blues/jazz/psych rock group, I talked with some Germans that I would run into throughout the rest of the weekend - they were crazy, but in a good way.  Truckfighters, who I had seen for the first time on a weeknight this summer (Lori, if you're reading this and were wondering why I seemed tired that one Monday at work this summer, it's because Truckfighters played a 40 minute encore that started at 12:45 am) played a really energetic set.  Lots of jumping around, playing guitar behind their heads, doing crazy things, etc.

After Truckfighters (a desert rock group from Sweden, by the way) played, I met a guy from Iowa who basically wanders around Europe for 90 days at a time (the limit for travelling in Europe without a visa) going to music festivals, seeing the world, having adventures and so on.  He was/is a really nice guy that I enjoyed hanging out with over the weekend despite him smelling like he slept in a park could use a shower.  I asked him whether he was staying in a hostel in town and he told me that, actually, he was sleeping in the park.  There you go.  Kadavar, German classic/psychedelic/doom rock finished the night with one of the best sets of the festival.  I had seen Kadavar twice before in Minneapolis with the first time, due to a promotion error on the part of the venue, being attended by about 15 people including myself.  Their set at the festival didn't compare to that "private show" (which made a few of the Germans I spoke with over the weekend flip out in jealousy/disbelief), but it was pretty damn close.  For anyone interested, here's a couple pictures and links to videos (not mine) from their set:

Black Sun

Goddess of Dawn

I foolishly optimistically set my alarm for about 8:30 so I could wander around Antwerp some before the music started.  Here is a picture of the oldest bakery in Antwerp (something like 120 years old) that was about a ten minute walk from where I was staying.  If there was a timestamp on this picture, it would be around 10:30 am:

When I set out for some wandering, there were gray skies and a light drizzle of rain.  By the time I had my pastries and bread, it was raining.  Here are some pictures I took in the rain:

Around this time I needed a break from being wet, so I hit up a frites kiosk and watched the rain fall on this square for a while:

In my wanderings I passed a book store with an incredible edition of Moby Dick in the window - maybe my favorite book.  It was pretty expensive, so after talking with the store owner for a couple minutes and getting him to drop the price by 15 euros I decided against buying it.  Eventually I got tired of the rain and headed back to my accommodations to take a nap to warm up and recharge before heading to the festival.

I got to the Trix a few hours after the first bands of the day started - which was no problem for me as I was mostly interested in the last three bands to play that night.  I grabbed some more tokens and was able to meet up with the guy from Iowa before Pallbearer (doom metal band from Baltimore) went on.  I thought they played a pretty good set despite me not having any expectations going into it.  Yob was on next (another doom metal band from the states - Oregon) and they killed it.  The Saturday night headliner, and the band I was most excited to see at Desertfest, was Electric Wizard.  My Iowa friend and I were sure to camp out a spot as soon as Yob finished their set.  They played one of the best sets of the festival - had they played an encore I think it would have been the best, but for whatever reason they didn't - and one of the better sets I've seen.  Here's a link to a video (not mine) of the first half of their set: Electric Wizard at Desertfest

Sunday, since I had more or less wandered through most of downtown Antwerp at this point, I slept in and eventually headed headed to the city to grab something to eat.  The entire morning I kept thinking about how I would regret leaving Antwerp without buying that book, so I wandered back (literally, since I didn't know where the bookstore was as I had wandered to it the first time) to the store.  A different man was working that morning and I got him to drop the price another 5 euros:

Here's a picture of Het steen, an old fortress referred to by the locals as 'T Steen that I snapped before leaving the city for the final time:

I spent the last night of the festival hopping around and seeing eight different bands.  But some highlights included: 

• Meeting some Greek guys before 1000Mods (the only Greek band at the festival) played and then watching the set in the middle of them.  At the beginning of their third song, someone got picked up and crowd-surfed for the entire song, which was about seven minutes long.  I lost it each time he passed into my field of vision.  It was incredible
• UK psych rock band Colour Haze playing for an hour that was almost entirely jamming and improvisation
• The entirety of Fu Manchu's set.  At some point during the set I realized there was a guy wearing a fairly realistic pig mask standing behind me.  A while later, I noticed Brant Bjork (who had just played the set before Fu Manchu went on) was looking over at the guy with the pig mask before making eye contact with me.  I shrugged and he lost it.  When Bob Balch, Fu Manchu's frontman, saw the guy he held his hand up at him in what I think was approval? The mask looked something like this and I have no idea what that guy's endgame was:
  

Here's a link to a video (again, not mine) of the end of Fu Manchu's set (closing with a cover of Blue Oyster Cult's Godzilla): King of the Road/Godzilla

Flew back to Kristiansand on Monday, which was uneventful.

Posts on Oslo and Copenhagen to (hopefully) follow soon.