Present Perfect

A day with the least to look forward to... Forced myself to see a bunch of possibly interesting bands but came out empty-handed. Took some time out to check on the webstreams my collagues were doing. Peter, Tinneke and I killed time in various way, including demonstrating the Befmatron, a new device soon on a home shopping channel near you.

Finally, it was time to watch the triumphant return of Soulwax, our best home town band. What, you don't know who they are ? Maybe you might know their alter ego's, the world-famous 2ManyDJ's ? I really liked their show, but I missed the show and fun from previous concerts. But hearing Stephen say, after playing a song where he screamed no-no-no yeah-yeah-yeah repeatedly, in a quiet calm voice, "That song was called No no no yeah yeah yeah", made me miss the typical flegmatic Gent sense of humor.

After the show I rushed to the CD stand to buy their new album. I love the artwork, great idea, nicely done, I won't spoil it by explaining what it is. Waited for Archive, who actually did seem to have some fans, and they gave a great concert. After that, watched a bit of Hundred Reasons who have grown to be tremendously better than last time I saw them, though still too shouty for my taste. Also watched a bit of White Stripes, which were as to be expected - you hear a guitar, a scrawny voice, and someone banging pots at the back in a sort-of-rhythmic fashion.

And after all of that it was time to get to bed and go back home ...

A day with the least to look forward to... Forced myself to see a bunch of possibly interesting bands but came out empty-handed. Took some time out to check on...

Day 2 kicked off with a great concert by De Portables, a band from Gent. A few of the members used to work at the same radio station as I did at the university, and the bass player is our favourite rock chick's boyfriend. They kicked off a rocking cover of Michael Sambello's "Maniac" with some bad news: Willeke wasn't there because she was in the hospital ! On the very day that her favourite singer - which I share with her - was going to close the festival... Ran into Geert, my technician from the days at the radio. He had been struck by a mysterious disease this year, but he seems to be on the rebound now and I'm sure a good healthy day of rock will have cured him even more ! Good to see him back.

Ran into lots of people I knew today, which was great. I hadn't expected to see so many.

By this time Jeroen and Annelies had also arrived, great to see them back !

Tried to avoid the Bloodhound Gang but failed because they were rescheduled, argh !
Enjoyed Elbow thoroughly, though I'd really like to see them play a complete show one day. Melissa Auf Der Maur was as cute as ever - even though these days everyone seems to agree with her being cute so that takes away most of the fun - but the music still sucked. Streets were good, better than expected. Bloc Party was a big surprise, fast and frenetic. Enjoyed half of Mark Lanegan then made the mistake to go see Blonde Redhead. And then it was time to see our national pride dEUS make their return to the stage. Bit of a letdown though - Tom couldn't say anything interesting between songs, didn't seem to really realize where he was, and it didn't seem like the band members liked each other very much. Playing was sloppy, mix was bad, ... Sigh. Let's just hope the new album is any good.

And after that, a few hours waiting for my reason for coming - The Twilight Singers. Rocking set, though maybe a bit too similar to the last time. Their cover of Bjork's Hyperballad (easily my favourite song by her) was great. And, thank heavens, Willeke had made it to the festival in time to see them, even though the doctor had forbidden here to come. You go girl !

Day 2 kicked off with a great concert by De Portables, a band from Gent. A few of the members used to work at the same radio station as I...

So, time for a quick recap.

Day 1 had me mostly walking around by myself - Wiebe had to work, and Peter and Tinneke were on their way but not quite there yet. Started off with Peaches, which was entertaining. Then came Keane, my favourite for the day. They were OK without being brilliant - maybe too much gesturing ? Skipped through Within Tempation. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone can take a so-called gothic band that manages to bring not one, but two, inflatable "marble angel statues" on stage serious. As much a joke as this was the next band, Papa Roach. Seriously, sometimes I feel like there should be a subject in school teaching the basics of music.

Anyways, I enjoyed the Delays, Phoenix (who were loud, rocking and right on targe this time around), Ash (who sang completely in tune this time around, with Charlotte doing heavenly backups), and Groove Armada (taking home the prize for best T-shirt). Faithless was OK-ish but nothing compared to their previous triumphs here in Belgium.

So far for day one !

So, time for a quick recap. Day 1 had me mostly walking around by myself - Wiebe had to work, and Peter and Tinneke were on their way but not...

Day 3 at the Pukkelpop festival. A short dead moment, only crap bands on right now, so took some time to sit down with the laptop and check our Fluendo stream of the KDE devel conference. Seems to be going very well. Since Wim optimized the Theora codec for MMX they could make the video size a bit larger, and it looks good. About 50 people on.

Saw lots of friends and acquaintances here, which was unexpected. Peter and Tinneke decided to come as well for three days, which is great ! Jeroen and Annelies dropped by yesterday, and I ran into lots more. Sad though that our favourite rock chick Willeke was sick yesterday, but she did manage to get their in time for our favourite singer, Greg Dulli. She's back home now though, recovering.

Anyway, more later, time to check some more bands.

Day 3 at the Pukkelpop festival. A short dead moment, only crap bands on right now, so took some time to sit down with the laptop and check our Fluendo...

Our server is currently serving 1825 real persons. Sweet. So we fixed the big bug from last week and broke through the default file descriptor limit with the help of PollMan (TM). So we have one machine producing in various qualities from various input cards, and overlaying some of them, then compressing using Wim's smoke codec. And then we have another machine far away from the first, relaying the produced streams to a bunch of clients. Time to start on MPEG4.

Christian just arrived with his backpacks, he starts today.

Johan, Wim and Christian are going to Akademy to stream the KDE conference. I hope it works out well for them, but they look prepared. Well, except for Christian :)

I'm not going, because I'm off to a festival, yeeha !

Our server is currently serving 1825 real persons. Sweet. So we fixed the big bug from last week and broke through the default file descriptor limit with the help of...