Walter Broes
Enlightened Member
We had the "Sjock" festival in Belgium this past weekend, a festival that started out very small and local 35 editions ago, but has been steadily growing into a bigger and bigger festival that balances between punk rock and rockabilly between two stages, and has been attracting people from all over Europe these last few years on the strength of the acts they book.
Some of the better known bands on the bill this year were The Fleshtones, The Reverend Horton Heat, Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys, and the Paladins.
We had a bona-fide heatwave over here, and after a couple of hours I just started walking around with a towel permanently over my shoulder because it was SO hot and humid, but none of that mattered - the stars were in alignment, and it was one of those weekends that made me forget about all the travel, bad food, low pay, shady promotors, broken down vehicles and strings, etc... that I complain about a little too much after trying to make a living playing music for all those years.
My own band played on saturday backing up the lovely Sue Moreno from the Netherlands, and I'm borrowing some of fellow Belgian/LTG-er Caveman's pictures :
We were on the bill the next day too, with yours truly at the mic/Guild, and had one of those shows you remember even 200 shows later, a LOT of fun!
The Paladins closed the festival, and it was great hanging out with them again (my band shared the stage with them a lot in the 90's/early 2000's, and we got to be buddies), and both Dave G. and Brian (drummer) seemed very happy with our offer to use our backline instead of the generic usual rental stuff provided by the festival.
This is how the final encore of the night turned out :
(that's Dave Gonzalez, yours truly, Big Sandy, and Thomas Yearsley in the pic)
Some of the better known bands on the bill this year were The Fleshtones, The Reverend Horton Heat, Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys, and the Paladins.
We had a bona-fide heatwave over here, and after a couple of hours I just started walking around with a towel permanently over my shoulder because it was SO hot and humid, but none of that mattered - the stars were in alignment, and it was one of those weekends that made me forget about all the travel, bad food, low pay, shady promotors, broken down vehicles and strings, etc... that I complain about a little too much after trying to make a living playing music for all those years.
My own band played on saturday backing up the lovely Sue Moreno from the Netherlands, and I'm borrowing some of fellow Belgian/LTG-er Caveman's pictures :
We were on the bill the next day too, with yours truly at the mic/Guild, and had one of those shows you remember even 200 shows later, a LOT of fun!
The Paladins closed the festival, and it was great hanging out with them again (my band shared the stage with them a lot in the 90's/early 2000's, and we got to be buddies), and both Dave G. and Brian (drummer) seemed very happy with our offer to use our backline instead of the generic usual rental stuff provided by the festival.
This is how the final encore of the night turned out :
(that's Dave Gonzalez, yours truly, Big Sandy, and Thomas Yearsley in the pic)