DAY 1

We started the 5-10 min walk to the gate along with all of Belgium it seemed. An endless stream of people along the road and footpath as far as the eye could see in either direction. This whole little community completely shuts down for the festival, the locals board up their houses and head out of town,  all roads are closed and food and drink stalls line the main street.
Judging by the flow of music lovers heading in the same direction as us, we would not have been surprised had we been made to wait for an hour or so to get through the gates, but again, the Belgians really had it going on, as the crowd quickly and effortlessly passed through the turnstiles, wristbands tightly fastened.

Main Stage - Seasick Steve

The first act we caught was this old boy that I instantly recognised from the tv show I miss most from home, Spicks and Specks.
Seasick Steve is a 70 year old blues guitarist/singer/songwriter who is never seen without his faded old John Deere cap and long white, bushy beard.
We accidentally stumbled upon Seasick Steve's set as were still walking around the festival site and exploring the different stalls and things to do.
I was very glad we did, Steve played a different guitar for every song, including a couple which looekd like his grandson had made at preschool with an old ice cream container, and was joined by John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin and Them Crooked Vultures fame.
Seasick Steve really did have the crowd eating out of his hand and I really enjoyed the old fella's set and urge everyone to familiarise yourself with Seasick Steve.
If you want to know why they call him Seasick Steve, its because he gets seasick on boats......
7/10

Next on the Main Stage, was one of my highlights of the weekend.
Swedish rockers The Hives, with their eccentric frontman Pelle.

The girls who I rocked out at Rock Werchter with, whose opinions are wrong.... thought Pelle was arrogant and annoying.
My view (the right one) was that this crazy Swede is an awesome extroverted showman, who puts on a great live show. For the whole set he dished out a ton of crowd interaction, involvement and energy. At one stage, making the whole crowd sit down mid song until he continued the song, leading to a big crescendo and then signalling for the crowd to get up and go nuts for the final hard hitting chorus of their hit song Tick Tick Boom. I loved him.
Wished they had played Giddy Up though. 
8/10

Main Stage - Queens of the Stone Age.

I have never been a close follower of QotSA, but know and enjoy a few of their hits, and we stood towards the back as the guys did their stuff. I found their set a little boring unfortunately and I realise there will be alot of Josh Homme fans out there, but I thought frontman Josh Homme came across as not much more than a drunk truck driver. Overall I dont have much to say, I thought the set and Josh's jokes, were a bit flat.
eg. 'I'd love to be out there having a drink with you all, but I don't drink anymore.....' he then walked towards the drumset where he picked up a bottle of whiskey and took a big mouthful, before adding 'But I dont drink any less either.'
5/10

We left QotSA early as I wanted to get a good spot for Beady Eye, so we headed over to the Pyramid Stage.

At the Pyramid Stage we caught the end of The Eels. I had never heard of these bearded fellows, but did know a song or two as they played. I wish we had gotten their sooner to catch more of this American bunch of bearded  rockers. They were heaps of fun, and loved interacting with the crowd.
The mid-set introductions of the band members took about half an hour as their was a huge number of them on stage, including the main man 'E', bass players, guitarists, saxophone players, and the drummer who got the longest introduction of all. 'E' told us the drummer has 3 loves in life, I can't remember the first one, but the second was eating waffles, and his biggest love in life is to play he drums while singing a song about himself. Which he then proceeded to do for about 5 minutes until the whole band were called in by him to join in one by one.
Check them out, and definitely see them live if you get the chance. 6.5/10  Could've been more if we had seen the whole set.

Pyramid Stage - Beady Eye

I didn't expect to, but when The Eels finished, the crowd dispersed to all corners of the festival for drinks, toilets or stage changes, and we ended up fairly close with a really good spot for Liam Gallagher's Oasis gang minus Noel.
After watching the infamous frontman go about his business, I really wished I hadnt enjoyed the show. But I did.
I wanted to have not enjoyed it as, Liam, I can confirm, is a tool.
He looked totally disinterested, walked round the stage like he thought he was the messiah. But I suppose, I cant blame the guy as the brain dead Brits in the crowd idolised the guy and didnt stop chanting his name. Crowd interaction - 0/10
When not singing he walked around the stage rolling a scarf around his hand like he was going to use it to soften the blow when punching a window out of car, he occasionally looked towards a guy in the crowd holding a Manchester City flag before pounding his heart and pointing towards the flag. Like a tool.
There was no hello, or anything at all except once, he mumbled 'How many here from England?'
He's lucky he makes some pretty delicious tunes, because the guy is a world class knob.
And if he was going to be a knob, I would've preferred if he did properly and at least slagged off his brother to us in true Liam, 'I'm a wanker', style.
His best trick was leaving the stage at the end of set, when he had no more lyrics to sing, and walked off while the band finished the song off without him.
 7/10  with someone with more personality than Mr Gallagher couldve been an 8.

Main Stage - Chemical Brothers

Time for the final act of Day 1.
After Beady Eye finished on the Pyramid Stage, we wandered over to the Main Stage as the Linkin Park faithful were leaving, and the Chemical Brothers set was being set up.
The boys played all the trusty hits, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Block Rockin Beats etc, to a fairly incredible light and laser show.
There's not a lot I can think of to say about the Chemical Brothers. It was a solid set, with amazing visuals and lots of energy. But knowing I was in the crowd, I can only assume they were forewarned about allowing me to unleash my signature Salmon Dance on my fellow, unknowing and innocent audience members, as it did not get played. Disappointing.
On our way out we got numerous invites to after parties by some randoms who had heard about my talents, and promised they would give me the spotlight and play the Salmon Dance until everyone decided (which would be inevitable) that they would join me in dancing like a salmon floating upstreeeeeam... 

 7.5/10