This year was my sixth time at my favourite festival. The alternative rock festival called Pukkelpop, located at Kiewit, Hasselt – Belgium ( www.pukkelpop.be ). And, just as last year, I was going to go with my Irish friend Gearoid, but because he had Argentinean friends coming over, I ended up going with Jonas Engels. My friend that went on an exchange to Argentina, the same year as I did.
I was going to go to Pukkelpop by car, but my dad couldn’t make it so on Tuesday evening, the day before leaving for the festival, I had to find some friends to do the trip to Kiewit. I asked around on Facebook and through Peter, I got in tought with his brother Stijn who hooked me up with the ‘Malinas Army @Pukkelpop” group.
All of them are 16-21 year old music- and festival lovers and were really excited about having a four day during blast. Nothing during D-0 could have predicted what was going to happen the first day around 18.15hr.
Stijn, Jonas, Céline and me had just gotten back from the camping and were watching Netsky at the famous so-called ‘Boiler-room’ when it started raining. At that moment, and thanks to our Argentina flag, we met up with Lieven and Maarten, two friends of mine. And also with Leen and Eva, the two sisters with whom Jonas and I went to Rock Werchter with as helpers for the AFS-stand there. When it started raining really hard we decided to take cover beneath the white cover tent which was located between the Boiler room and the ‘Dance Hall’.
Stijn, Jonas, Céline and me had just gotten back from the camping and were watching Netsky at the famous so-called ‘Boiler-room’ when it started raining. At that moment, and thanks to our Argentina flag, we met up with Lieven and Maarten, two friends of mine. And also with Leen and Eva, the two sisters with whom Jonas and I went to Rock Werchter with as helpers for the AFS-stand there. When it started raining really hard we decided to take cover beneath the white cover tent which was located between the Boiler room and the ‘Dance Hall’.
The moment we got beneath that cover it started raining even harder and the wind started to cry like I’ve never experienced it before. Lightning struck in the north, east, south and west off us and the sky turned green and black… It was crazy. At a moment the cover started to fill with water. The shelter, that was at about 10metres high before the storm, started to lower because of the weight of all the water that was coming together at one point. At that point Leen shouted to all of us: “it’s going to collapse! RUN!” And at that point we all started running in different ways to literally save our own lives! At the moment we got out of that shelter, it started to hail really hard and everyone that came out of the shelter ran for the Boiler Room, Dance hall or backstage as the emergency exits were opened. Jonas told me afterwards that he had taken cover in a truck, together with about 20 other people. I ran for the Dance Hall, and hid for the hail and the rain. But once I got inside, a lot of people tried to get outside because of the discoballs that where about to fall. We were really lucky that they didn’t all fall.
In this article you can see the damage of the shelter where we took cover at first. If my information is correct, this is also where the couple died. (4people died at the festival because of the storm)
After the storm, I went back outside, to the place I last saw my friends and started to wave with the flag. I refound my friends and, after hanging around at the festival site for about 45mins, we went back to the camping site. We were really lucky to find all of our compagnons alive and well, but our tent was totally wet. Then Leen and Eva offered us to stay at their place, as they live really close to Pukkelpop and so we went to spend the night there and dried our clothes. We continued to follow the news until 1.30 am and then went to bed.
The next morning, Jonas and I hitchhiked back to the festival site to find our friends, the few that remained, there hanging around as they’d just heard the news about the cancellation of the festival.
The next morning, Jonas and I hitchhiked back to the festival site to find our friends, the few that remained, there hanging around as they’d just heard the news about the cancellation of the festival.
So we went back to Mechelen, by train and Stijn and I walked to the city centre, to a bar Called Panique d’O where we encountered Stijn’s brother and some more friends, who were delighted to see us alive and well!
- This article, written by the chief editor of De Morgen, is about who’s to blaim about what happened at the festival. I must say that it’s one of the few articles that really says who’s fault it is: NO ONE’S!
- Some bands’ reactions were amazing. They offered help through Twitter etc. and e.g. Foo Fighters talked about the incident at their next gig in Austria (Frequency festival) and dedicated a song to Pukkelpop
- Some major festivals, like Lowlands (the Pukkelpop of the Netherlands), also remembered the disaster that took place last weekend:
That evening when I got home, I couldn’t stay inside. I had to go out and talk to people, be with people in order to be able to cope with all the things that had happened in the last 24 hours. So I got out and when i was about to ride away on my bike, my mom shouted at me ‘be carefull!’. Then I answered her: ‘come’n mom, I survived Pukkelpop. I’m not going to die this weekend…’ (I don’t want to be rude against the victims etc, but it was a funny comment right? J)
So saterday we met up with all our festivalfriends to go to Maanrock in Mechelen, the group of Dour festival, the group of Pukkelpop and the group of Lieven and his friends, which led to us being 25 or so, all united beneath the Argentina flag, which gave quite a good impression on national television here in Belgium: http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/mediatheek/nieuws/cultuurenmedia/1.1092950
As Stijn and me were wearing shirts saying ‘survived Pukkelpop 2011’ we got lot of attention and even got interviewed by several newspapers: The pictures are beneath this article. And the intervieuws:
All the bands we saw were pretty good, except for one or two maybe and we had loads of fun at Maanrock festival, which was good as we were able to forget what had happened just 2days before and in this way we could rearrange our minds.
This year’s Maanrock, the first time in 7 years –if not in ever- that I went two days, was the best edition I ever had. Not because I went two days, but because the friends I was with were so awesome and because there were so much of us and because we had the argentina flag –which always leads to funny situations (and meeting Argentineans (met some at Dour, Pukkelpop & Maanrock!)-….
It was a pitty that some of my best friends couldn’t be there because of examinations, but I’m sure that they will study harder next year so that they can join me to –hopefully- a new edition of Pukkelpop and to a new edition of Maanrock festival!
It was a pitty that some of my best friends couldn’t be there because of examinations, but I’m sure that they will study harder next year so that they can join me to –hopefully- a new edition of Pukkelpop and to a new edition of Maanrock festival!
Damn, appereantly it was a pretty long text I just wrote. Hope you readers enjoyed it. Only ONE MORE WEEK before my next big adventure:
ERASMUS SEMESTER IN RENNES – FRANCE!
Hasta la proxima amigos!
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| Het Nieuwsblad Op Zondag - 21/08/2011 |
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| De Gazet Van Antwerpen - 22/08/2011 |
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| De Gazet Van Antwerpen - 22/08/2011 |
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| A Brand - Maanrock 2011 |
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| A Brand - Maanrock 2011 |
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| CPeX - Maanrcok 2011 |
Ten slotte nog een artikel van een Lokerse festivalbezoeker waarin Chokri een hart onder de riem wordt gestoken...: http://www.nieuwsblad.be/article/detail.aspx?articleid=BLLCO_20110822_001
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