Groezrock's punk and hardcore line-up attracts a good mix of friendly europeans

I have seen this festival in past years and wondered what it would be like to make the trip over. The line-up is always immense if you are into the punk and hardcore scene. I don't know why but the Belgians always get it right, even Pukkelpop has its own skate punk stage.

This years list of bands reads like the cream of the crop; reunion shows for the Refused and Good Riddance, plus bonus acoustic sets from bands and band members playing over the weekend like The Bouncing Souls, Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music) and Kevin Seconds (founder of punk greats 7 Seconds). Refused headline the last night of the festival, while Rancid headline the Saturday at the sobering hour of midnight. Again the Belgians know how to party! I have sussed out their secret though, get drunk all day and then drink Irish coffee at gone 10pm! Party animals indeed...



With so many loved bands on the line up clashes were expected, but for myself it was kept to a minimum. There was only Lifetime against Face To Face that was a problem. The main stage has the pick of the bands obviously, with Chixdiggit, The Menzingers, Reel Big Fish, Lagwagon, Alkaline Trio, Hot Water Music, and Thrice rocking it. The second Impericon Stage features yet more hardcore acts like Parkway Drive, The Ghost Inside, The Bronx, Anti-Flag, and Unearth.

The smaller Etnies Back To Basics Stage hosts a mix of the more veteran acts as well as newer bands like 7 Seconds, Lifetime, Gallows, and Gorilla Biscuits. Finally the Fender Acoustic Stage has band members playing their own solo stuff like HWM's Chuck Ragan (who completely fills the tent; you cannot get in and cannot hear for the Jagermeister stage across the festival). Mike Herrera, Dave Hause, and Tom Gabel all appear as well as full bands stripping it back like Anti-Flag and Yellowcard. Macbeth have their own mini outdoor stage featuring new bands like the amazingly named We Butter Our Bread With Butter.

Jagermeister has a smaller DJ stall and Monster lives up to its name by having a large two tier dance bar with games consoles and an outdoor balcony, complete with great views of the site. Local beer maker Juliper have a mechanical bull area where a go on a bull gets you a cowboy hat and a free beer.

The good thing about all of these stages is that they are all undercover. A couple are the same colour so it can get confusing in the first few hours of entering the arena but that soon wears off. The arena has mainly food stalls filling in the gaps. All market stalls are located under their own marque, as well as all band merchandise has its own huge tent. There is a cash kiosk and lost and found kiosk. The selection of food could be a lot better in all truth; it's mainly baguettes, kebab and chips with the odd vegan stall (always with massive queues).



The beers are sold in half pints (although one stall does sell full pints). It is mainly lager, although a stall near the main stage sells 'special beers' like Hoegarden, Leffe and wine. All food and beer have to be purchased with tokens ('bon). The food can be anything from 2 to 4 bon, with beers at 1 to 2 bon. The price is different, 2 Euros gets you 1 food ticket, while the drinks tokens are 3 for 5 Euros. They have to be bought at different stands, meaning two queues. These queues may look long on the Saturday morning but they do not take long and apart from the queue for the arena entry first thing they are the only queues all weekend. No toilet queues, no food or drinks queues, not like over here! The toilets did have water taps but not for drinking, which there should be really, but you can spend a beer token on a cola or small bottle of water.

The campsite is only a 10 minute walk from the car park, and in turn only a 10 minute walk (from the furthest parts) to the arena. The amenities are a little lacking; there are three sets of toilets and only one with water taps and showers. There should really be water at every set but it does not take long to walk to them, and again, no queues (except for morning showers). There is hardly any food choice in the camping area; outside the entrance are pizza, hot dog and chips stalls, around the corner is an undercover bar and another food stall, but inside there is a small stall selling camping gear, breakfast packs (ok if you have a BBQ) and drinks and bread and such. BBQs and cooking is only supposed to be done in the BBQ area near the showers. There is a charging point and a place to inflate mattresses near the entrance. All in all though the site has enough here for its 30,000 visitors.

Unfortunately, as you have to buy your camping and festival ticket separately, this means that some people in the campsite have only paid 15 Euros to enter. Some of these are thieves. On the Friday night many tents were robbed of phones and money; my friend had all of his money taken and his iPhone, as did people behind me and to the side of me. It seemed to be a huge problem. Rumours soon surfaced that they had been caught and had their jaw broken, but who knows. There were signs telling us of pickpockets in the mosh pits in front of the stages too. Although this festival allows crowd surfing and with the vigorous pits it could have been a mixture of things… The police did take down your details if you reported it and gave you a letter to bring home, though what good that will do I don't know. Best thing to do kids is not take anything valuable in the first place. Many people did not let this affect their festival though and carried on as nothing had happened.



The festival attracts many people from across Europe and beyond; in our area alone we are camped with Germans, Kenyans, Australians, Swedes, French, Belgians and many English. The conversations get a little muddled but not always and I feel bad that I do not speak another language but they all understand me, which is great but lazy! We all have one thing in common though, punk! And you could not ask for a friendlier bunch.

This is a festival I would go back to in a second, but with definitely more clothes (the days were a mix of light rain, blaring sun and clouds but the nights were absolutely freezing, I could not sleep well because of the campsite's (and Belgium's) open and flat land). Because we drove to the festival (takes around 8 hours from Yorkshire minus the ferry time) I cannot comment on public transport, but as with all Belgium festivals they are easy to get to (once you get to Brussels) on the train link with connecting free coaches to the site. Parking is 10 Euros, not that much as many people take a full car load of people. There are no queues into the festival or upon exiting the festival. Awesome.

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