Friday, June 30, 2006

There Will Be No Mushing For You Tonight.














It's shaping up to be a pretty grim Friday.















So close, and yet, so very far away.
















Werchter festival in Belgium yesterday. It took us ages to get there from London.
There was traffic...

















Trains....


















And about 60,000 people who were there first. It began as a really bad idea, and cascaded slowly downward from there. We made it in about 45 minutes before the band was meant to be onstage.
















It was all a bit hectic, but the show was over early and I got to relax a bit, wander around and see the sights. The Deftones were on. Oh, happy day. I love that band. We hung around with them for a bit after they had finished. They are really sweet guys who know the ropes after doing this for 18 years or so.

















I watched a bit of The Streets and thought they were a bit lame. No more so than the Red Hot Chili Peppers who spent much of their set 'jamming' in front of tens of thousands of kids who paid to hear them sing that song from the damn Coneheads soundtrack. Punks. Oh, and The Black Eyed Peas closed out the night with their special brand of commercial diarrhea. I still prefer the song "Let's get it started' in it's original 'Let's get retarded' form. Not even a little bit out of line.

People always ask me why I lose so much weight when I tour in Europe. Well, I work a good deal, and this is what's on the menu today:
















Shame.


















Today I am at Roskilde in Denmark. The site where lots of kids were trampled and died during Pearl Jam's set a few years ago. It is a massive, filthy stinking festival site. People freely use the bathroom wherever they please and often drink themselves into a coma by noon. I did wander out to see Lady Sovereign today. It was excellent. She's a little firecracker. 4'11" and pretty mean looking as well. JR Ewing was the winner on the day though. An older hardcore band from Norway. They're not much to look at anymore, which would explain why there was so much smoke onstage that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.


















Death Cab is on at midnight tonight, about five hours after Bob Dylan. I'm looking forward to doing some actual work, and trying to stay up as well. On Sunday Roger Waters is doing Dark Side of the Moon at Roskilde. I'll be in Germany. Last year I saw Brian Wilson do Pet Sounds just before Turbonegro went on, so I suppose fair is fair.