overview

True to its name, this has to be the pinkest festival by far. Different shades of the colour can be seen floating around the festival, and the sale of pink sunhats (with the proceeds going to Amnesty International). There's pink fancy dress, T-shirts, all of the merchandise is pink, the focus is definitely on Pink. Whether the name comes from the Dutch word for 'Pentecost' ('pinksteren'’) for the date it is held on (though it is later this year for the first time) or for the pink doll logo, who cares, it gives many a man the chance to dress in pink without their friends taking the mick.



The festival has been going since 1970, making it the oldest annual festival in the world (according to the Guinness Book Of Records). The mixture of people here is as varied as the music; unlike Rock Werchter that has a rock day, indie day, dance day etc, PinkPop chucks all of its artists in together, you can watch KT Tunstall then immediately after catch Eagles Of Death Metal. The headliners are filled in with top rock acts however, and the same varied people can be seen dancing together to the likes of Metallica, Foo Fighters and Rage Against the Machine.

Megaland is an oval shape, which means that the two large open air stages have to play after each other, not at the same time. The smaller (undercover) GM Next Stage, adjacent to the Main Stage, plays host to smaller acts whilst the 3FM Stage (second stage) takes it's turn. In theory you can watch most of the bands on the bill; the two smaller stages clash but it is possible to watch all the sets from the two main stages or the main stage and tent (if you run the short distance between the two). This again is better then Werchter, as they had bands on the stages (that are next to each other) at the same time, meaning the music bleeds into each other. This set up should be adopted by many a festival with a small number of stages in my opinion.



If nothing takes your fancy on the music side of things there are a couple of things to try, like Guitar Hero battles in the activity area (along with climbing and Playstation games), otherwise there is the chill out area near the entrance, around a huge tree, featuring a quaint little ferris wheel and alternative snacks and drinks.

Talking of consumption, this, like other European mainland festivals, requires bonnen (food tickets) to buy food and drinks. 1 bonnen costs 2 euros, that will get you a drink (a small beer (still as strong as a pint), cider, pop or water, barcardi and JD cost more) and food is around the 1 to 5 bonnen mark, mainly consisting of chips, pizza, chicken or Vietnamese (and of course Haribo).

Also a regular at these fests is the recycling theme; however I think PinkPop are asking a bit much. For 100 cups you get 3 bonnen, whereas at places like Werchter for 20 you get 1 ticket, Pukkelpop you get a T-shirt etc. I think 100 is a lot, though a lot of kids are collecting them. The place does look like a pig-sty, but it is mainly paper plates (there are not enough bins by far) and old rain coats.



The cloudy weather stays dry until the Friday night, when the heavens open to Metallica. Again a little rain shows up during Saturday afternoon, but Sunday is a day for the sun cream, it is red hot all day. There is not much shade in the arena, but a little can be found outside in the small market area. There is a little to do outside the arena too, with a cinema screen showing films like 'Harold & Kumar 2, Escape From Guantanamo Bay' and 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'. The campsite closest to the arena has a dance tent with limited capacity, however a few stalls play music into the early hours outside the other camping areas.

Which brings me to the worst part of this festival, the walk from tent to arena. We arrived (early I thought) 2 hours after the gates opened at noon (the festival does not open early for camping, it opens 3 hours before the music starts), to find that camping A and B are full. This leaves camping C, half an hours walk from the arena, over quiet roads. Yeah, there's plenty of room there, and there are buses, but they do not appear to run that frequently and have large queues (taxis charge 2 euro a head for a lift). Having taken a look inside camping A, we seem to be in the 'poorer' campsite; they are lined with trees, lots of choice for food and facilities, we have three stalls and a few toilets. I know where to head next time...



After queuing for an hour to get my wristband, I can make it into the arena half an hour away. It's a good job the beer is strong, otherwise I would have felt the blisters that I acquired after three days of trekking backwards and forwards.

Friday's main acts for me are Incubus, Porcupine Tree and of course Metallica, hogging the stage for two and a quarter hours, fireworks and all. The hits are there, 'Sad But True', 'One' etc, but they need to play more hits to fill in their 'allocated' time slot, and do less glossy endings.

Saturday sees a mixture of acts, from Bad Religion (asking for pink hats) to the Stereophonics, and The Verve Vs Groove Armada leading into the Foo Fighters' headline set. Again the Foos have a few of hits in there, mainly from the newer albums, and 'This Is A Call' is the oldest track here, but with the line up including Pat Smear once again this is a good show. Their hour and a quarter set seems really short after Metallica's round.



Sunday, and the day many of us are waiting for. You see, this is Rage Against The Machine's first European show since their reformation, and many chants of theirs can be heard from folk all day. Plenty of other music first though, with Fiction Plane, Alanis Morissette, SOAD mainman Serj Tankian and Queens Of The Stone Age warming us up (though the sun is doing a fine job of that already!).

Counting Crows have the headline slot on the 3FM Stage, and play a range from their albums such as 'Recovering the Satellites', 'Long December' and 'Mr Jones' as well as new tracks like 'Cowboy'. We make the decision to leave one from the end, to get somewhere decent for Rage, but as previously mentioned it is possible to catch all of both bands sets.

The moment of truth, is it all for the money or are Rage back for good? As they come onstage dressed in Guantanamo Bay orange jumpsuits with black bags over their heads and stand their through sounds of a siren, all is looking good. As 'Bombtrack' kicks in, with them still dressed up, it's clear we are going to hear a lot of hits. Bamm! Hit after hit; as the band are not recording new material, their hour and a quarter slot is full of the likes of 'Bullet In Your Head', 'Sleep Now In The Fire', and 'Killing In The Name Of'.

The songs are a little slower, and to be frank there a quite a few timing errors (which makes me think if the band are actually rehearsing together in the first place), but it's all there, Morello's trademark guitar stylings and De la Rocha's political lyrics and hard hitting speeches. Their hug at the end says it all, Rage are not going anywhere yet, just don't expect anything new straight away.



Even though we have a long journey home (to be environmentally sound and because mainland Europe have trains that are reliable) we are up early to catch a total of five trains, so an early night is called for (though the party is going on in the campsite until the early hours). I would recommend this festival for its line up; it is not different to any other festival like Pukkelpop, Rock Am Ring and Rock Werchter, but the arena set up is easier to work with and the line-up is sure to be fantastic year after year. Just take some good walking boots, or better still a bike!

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