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By Bootleg Al We here at O.I.B. are massive fans of the road trip. So when we were offered a trip to the land of beer, chocolate and Jean Claude Van Damme with the boys from My Device (Brighton’s premier rock band) we jumped at the chance. Welcome to our weekend of debauchery at the Belgian Dour festival. Now O.I.B. and ferries don’t go together. Pulling up to Dover at 12:02 we made it just in time to watch our SeaFrance ferry pull gracefully out of port and head off for 65daysofstatic. Not to worry. It’s a beautiful day, Todd has his copy of Bizarre magazine to keep him busy (it’s a splooshing special by the way), and we’re all in high spirits at the anticipation of four days of music, foreign beers and foreign girls. By the time we actually board we’re already crossing off crucial bands from our time-sheet. 65days: gone. Amelie: gone. The Bellrays: gone. But at least we’ll still make it for Jackson and His Computer Band…..won’t we?! No, no we won’t. Driving across Europe always takes a fuck load longer than you ever expect. Fortunately however, in true O.I.B. geekdom we all compiled 1 mix CD each for the duration. So for the following 3 hours we listen to an eclectic mix of Frank Zappa, Ice-T, the Animal Collective and Ven Snares. Dougal sleeps. This becomes a common theme of the trip. Oh well at least we managed to stop and buy our first case of cheap (warm) larger. By the time we arrive at the festival site it’s already rammed and absolutely filthy. Parking a good mile from the camping area we trek off practising our faux-upper-class-British accents, always a winner. Arriving at the entrance we’re instantly informed that we can’t bring tins of any sort into the festival (including campsite) but only plastic bottles. This has positives and negatives. On the negative side we have to drink an entire case of larger before we can even go in. On the positive side we drink an entire case of larger before we go in. Off to a flying start already. By the time we finally enter the arena it’s already 10pm. But not to worry, this is mainland Europe, the motherland of late night partying. And with bands playing until 6am we still have time to pull in six acts tonight. We start proceedings with the Messer Chups a bizarre Russian 2-piece who can only be described as Ennio Morricone does big-beat. That sounds like shit. They weren’t. Playing to a large projection of the film clips they were recreating it was a raucous party of the type I imagine Woody Allen would be proud of. By now we’re pumped and ready to party. “Lets go check out Primal Scream” some ‘wise’ folk says. Now Xtrmntr was a phenomenal album. It marked the moment when the ‘Scream stopped pretending to be the Stones and pretend to be the Stooges instead. Unfortunately they neglect this album in a big way. We equally neglect to watch the end of their set. With a little wind knocked from our sails we head back over to the dance tent to check out a drunken Erland Oye (Kings of convenience/Royksopp) on the wheels of steel. It’s funny, its shit. It’s funny because its shit. Decidedly embracing his comparison to Napolean Dynamite, the bespectacled Norwegian prances around the stage dancing to early Madonna and the Monkees. He plays records at the wrong speed, forgets to cue records up and generally makes a shambles of it. It’s like spying on your mate’s yet-to-come-out little brother dancing in his bedroom when he thinks no-one else is looking. It’s sad and embarrassing yet I can’t turn away. Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the valiant return of Miss Kitten. It’s been over 5 years since Miss Kitten and The Hacker dropped First Album and she’s vastly developed as an artist. For those people in the crowd expecting a full electro set there’s disappointment. Playing a set in a similar vein to her Live at Sonar record, Miss Kitten proves that she is by far the greatest progressive DJ on the planet at the moment. Its 2 hours of uninterrupted indulgence, dropping everything from minimal electronica to pounding house and experimental techno. And then when she’s bored of spinning she’ll pick up the mic and treat us to her uber-sexy french vocal. It’s the highlight of the day, if not the highlight of the weekend. After all those bleeps, sqweeks and house-breaks its time for something a little harder. As we stagger merrily across the field we’re confronted with pounding drum and bass violently spewing out of the dance tent. It’s the sound of London’s very own Andy C. It’s exciting, for like 5 minutes, then it just becomes very dull. Now we’ve all been through a drum and bass phase at some point during our adolescence but fortunately most come out of it unscathed. For some reason however while I’ve been off experimenting with other musics, drum and bass seems to have become stagnant. These are all exactly the same records that I was bouncing around to many years ago, and by the time Andy C drops Body Rock, the ‘key’ point in his set, I’m just embarrassed for him. I guess some people never grow up. Amazingly we stick Andy C out to the bitter end as we loiter by the bar making the most out of our first night here. Next up we get the harder and arguably more credible Dillinja on the decks. It is slightly more exciting but equally after barely 15 minutes we’re left looking around and debating which bar is the closest. By
5am we finally stumble back to our tents. So far so good. And we still
have another 3 days we all cheer! |
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DOUR
Thursday 13th July 2006