Reviewed on May 1, 2007 by Roel

Groezrock: Europe’s biggest punk rock festival. Well… punk rock? One look at the line-up will tell you otherwise, as Groezrock is becoming more and more emo and pop loaded. This is of course resulting in more people visiting the festival, but other than that also a shift in the type of visitors. To honor these great new types of people (groupies) the festival organization has organized signing sessions all day long this year! People can now meet their favorite stars in person and get them to autograph a buttock, boob or cut up arm. Punk rock is idolism I suppose: this is the way it’s supposed to be in our humble scene. I for one think I’m going to be sick. Groezrock is a festival that has grown out of proportions and therefore the punk scene can’t supply the festival of acts that are big enough to draw these huge amounts of crowds. What’s the alternative? Lost Prophets I guess… Anyway; on to the actual festival:

Friday was basically the poppy day at Groezrock. With the main stage being filled with bands such as Enter Shikari, Saosin, Motion City Soundtrack, All American Rejects and New Found Glory, a real punk and ska fan like me didn’t have much to look out for. That is, except for the odd one out: Big D and the Kids Table.

Big D was the first band I saw on this year’s edition of Groezrock and it was immediately the most fun I had on the whole festival. The band mainly played songs of Strictly Rude, but didn’t forget to include fan favorites LAX and Little Bitch. It was one skanking, moshing and dusty mess and it was great.

New Found Glory played a pretty tight set and really got the crowd going, but as I said; they are not one of my favorites. Because it got a little too crowded for my taste, I excited the tent and watched the band play from outside. Not bad, just not my thing.

Due to the warm weather, the weak program and the amounts of beer in my system, I did not check out any other bands. Instead I hung around and captured some sounds sitting on the grass. Some bands on the Core stage might have been worth checking out, but I just didn’t feel much like it. With a satisfied feeling I headed back to my tent. It was a fun day, thanks to the great atmosphere, the sunny weather, two cheap barrels of beer and Big D and the Kids Table. What about the rest of the music? Meh…

Saturday was the main day of the festival and thus I felt obliged to catch some more bands. Once again, the line-up wasn’t very stunning. Sure; all bands are huge scene names, but the headliners really disappointed me. I remember Groezrock as a punk/hardcore festival, yet this year’s headliners are Jimmy Eat World and Lost Prophets. I don’t know whether I’m losing it or the festival organization is. Anyway, Saturday was an even hotter and sunnier day and I was looking forward seeing some of my favorite bands.

The first band I kind of caught was Fall Out Boy. They played second on the main stage and did exactly what everybody expected them to do: play hook-loaded pop-punk with those typical vocals you’ve come to expect from their lead singer. Not bad, not very good either.

We went for a bite right after that band as we did not feel to spend so much money on drinks and food at the festival area. Therefore I missed out on the Streetdogs and the Ataris, who I would liked to have seen perform. Then again, when it’s almost 30 degrees Celsius in the open sun; one could do with a nice bottle of water every once in a while. When we returned I watched a couple of songs from the female fronted punk rock band Deadline, who could not impress me live at all even though I liked their previous album. Therefore I moved on and caught a couple of songs from MXPX’s set. It seems one can always rely on MXPX for delivering quality live performances and terribly lame rants in between songs. These guys have been around for almost 15 years and are in their 30’s. Perhaps it’s time to act like it?

I was actually looking forward to see Mad Caddies play again, but I was rather disappointed with their show. The Caddies put on a fine show with loads of carnavalesque festival anthems. However, their new slower songs don’t quite work in this environment. I also found out I’m a little bored with their sound in general and didn’t quite enjoy myself while watching them play.

After browsing through some merch and enjoying the sunshine, I went out to watch Rise Against. I had high hopes for their performance, as I’ve always loved their live shows and most of their recorded material. However, Rise Against did not live up to my expectations. The band decided to play mainly new songs, only including a few older ones. I do not like the new album as much as I like their other albums, thus another band left me once again disappointed.

With the definite feeling that my favorites of the day Lagwagon won’t let me down, I stumbled into the main festival tent. Lagwagon had already started playing and they sounded far from tight. What I saw standing on the stage looked as five drunken dudes with bad haircuts. They sounded pretty bad and joked about altering the set list, which now contained a couple of lesser known songs that nobody was really waiting for. The second half of their set was much better and they also grabbed back on the fan favorites. However, the first half of their set was so weak that I couldn’t enjoy the second half much.

After Lagwagon I finally saw a band that lived up to my expectations: Ignite. Ignite played a great set with was evenly balanced with new and old songs. Their frontman included some social-political commentary in between songs and it seemed they drew the biggest crowd of the day.

I decided to stick around to see Hatebreed play a very tight and convincing set and even saw a couple of songs from Lost Prophets in a half empty main stage. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one that does not like the direction the festival is heading in. With a satisfied feeling I left the festival ground and returned to my tent. Saturday wasn’t much different that Friday I guess, with only one band really entertaining me and the good weather doing the rest.

The conclusion of this year’s Groezrock? If you put a load of emo and pop bands next to a dozen punk bands of which most have performed at Groezrock several times already, this just leads to disappointment. I really enjoyed myself at this year’s edition of the festival, but only because the atmosphere was great and the weather even better. Next year I think I’ll head out to the beach during the last weekend of April and save myself a 70 Euro ticket.

Related Links:

• www.groezrock.be

Gig Reviews

Apr 27, 2007 Festival Area