"What's Up Ieperfest?" (1/3)

That's what every band was wondering last weekend. Some even multiple times. Sometimes I answered that I was feeling fine. Mostly I didn't answer. I guessed it was rhetorical. Anyway, here's my report on one of the greatest festivals of summer: Ieperfest.

I woke up at 6 am. I got at the camp-/festsite at 10 am. I went shopping for some food and beers and got back right in time for, actually, one of the bands I was most stoked for: the Midnight Souls. They were sheduled to open up the main stage at 11h30. So, the atmosphere was one of tiresome, disinterested hardcorekiddos and no drunks yet. I got into mosh-mode when they started olaying Always Simple Never Easy, but it didn't really last. Nevertheless, once a agin a fun show from my favourite Belgian hardcoreband.
After that I went to see Dukatalon, a sludge band from Israel. Cool for a moment, but the moment didn't last. Luckily there's lots of hangout space at Ieperfest, there's lots of distros to browse records (this would turn out to be the death of my wallet). And the sun was out, there was coffee and beer available, so really, what more could anyone want?
Oh yeah, of course, music! Watched Take Offense from a distance, not really a "thing of mine". Coke Bust sounded cool, fast & pissed off, which I really dig, but for some reason I didn't stay. I missed Dean Dirg although I wanted to see them. (EDIT: Woops, apparently they didn't even play because they broke up! Bummer!) Death By Stereo was fun for a while, but... well, yeah.
Kylesa was fun to watch because of the 2 drummers and the female guitar player, but kinda boring otherwise. Homer was cool because, you know, they're Homer. It was actually a really solid show, their second time at Ieper already!
I went to grab some delicious vegan food while Knuckledust played, which was alright. I don't like it, but it's no-nonsense, straight-forward and I respect that in that band. The food was great as well! I'm not a vegan and I really couldn't be, but I enjoyed every meal at Ieperfest and the plates were worth every one of their 7 euros.
After that it was time for The Chariot, who put up a cool show. I haven't got a clue about most of these bands, so I just check out what sounds cool mostly. I wanted to check Mucky Pup real bad, but I went to drop some records at my tent and woke up 2 hours later. Weird, right? Probably being up since 6 am, drinking beers since 12 pm and the wheather being really hot had something to do with it. So I missed Mucky Pup and Aborted, 2 bands I was eager to check out.
I wen to hang at the Souls merch spot with Donny, who was the only soul left (no pun intended, actually), so I talked to him a bit and I did an interview with him which will be in the next zine. I had composed a lot of great questions at home, then forgot those questions at home so it's not as good as I hoped but it came out all right, defenititely because he's a great guy.
Anyway, I went to eat a vegan burger and I heard Funeral For A Friend start their set, and I was like "whoa!". I really liked it. Hadn't heard it before, but of course I had heard of 'em before. It was really cool. I was kinda tipsy so I decided to dance. And so I danced, and I had a really fun time. There was this guy with an Alkaline Trio cap who was really cool and he jumped in my neck and we ran around and shit. It was like a punkshow at a hardcorefest in front of an emoband. I loved it. Defenitely my favourite set of Friday, one of my favourites of the entire weekend.
Congress, although a legendary act, didn't strike me. Agnostic Front straight-out sucks. They did a Ramones cover and it was really bad and I hated them for doing it. But it was nice to see they acknowledged "the greatest rock'n'roll band of all time" (paraphrasis of Roger Miret).

Then some dancing ensued at the awesome afterparty, but due to tiredness, friendlessness and general sleepyness I didn't make it past two. Perhaps a good thing, as there would be still 2 days to go.