Rock Werchter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (May 2006)

Rock Werchter


Location(s)	Werchter, Belgium
Years active	1974 - present
Founded by
Date(s)	Late June to Early July
Genre(s)	Alternative rock, Pop
Website	http://www.rockwerchter.be

Rock Werchter is a music festival in the village of Werchter in Belgium. The editions of 2003, 2005 and 2006 gained the Arthur award for best festival in the world at ILMC. Since the 2003 edition Werchter has become a 4-day festival, as it was sold by owner Herman Schueremans to American organizers Clear Channel Entertainment which had both positive and negative effects.

[edit] History

The festival started in 1974 as a one-day festival with performances from Banzai and Kandahar. Over the years it became Belgium's largest music festival. Originally it was a double-festival, called "Torhout-Werchter", with two festival areas on different places in Belgium: one in Werchter and one in Torhout. In 1999, the festival dropped the Torhout site and since, it only takes place in Werchter.

The festival started off as a one-day event, became a two-day festival in 1996, went on to become a 3-day festival in 1999, and has been a 4-day festival since 2003.

[edit] 2003 Festival

The 30th edition of the Werchter festival, in 2003, was the first time Werchter became a 4-day festival. The full lineup (in reverse order) for the main stage was:

Day 1: Underworld, Radiohead, Björk.

Day 2: Massive Attack, Moby, Ozark Henry, The Roots, Feeder, Morgan Heritage, The Polyphonic Spree.

Day 3: Metallica, Arno, Queens of the Stone Age, Anouk, Xzibit, Millionaire, Stone Sour, 't Hof van Commerce, Krezip.

Day 4: R.E.M., Coldplay, Counting Crows, Cypress Hill, The Cardigans, Supergrass, Stereophonics, De la Soul, Das Pop.

[edit] 2004 Festival

The 2004 festival took place from July 1-July 4, with a reported attendance of 280,000 people. The festival shared bands with Roskilde Festival in Denmark which was held at the same time. The Cure, Metallica, Lenny Kravitz, Pixies, Muse, Moloko (among others) were top of the bill for Werchter's 2 stages.

Muse at Werchter Festival 2004

The full lineup (in reverse order) for the main stage was:

Day 1: Basement Jaxx, The Cure, Pink, Sean Paul, Michael Franti & The Spearheads.

Day 2: Metallica, KoЯn, The Darkness, Dropkick Murphys, Monster Magnet, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Lostprophets.

Day 3: Lenny Kravitz, Muse, Moloko, Wu-Tang Clan, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, The Black Eyed Peas, Within Temptation, Heideroosjes, The Rasmus.

Day 4: 2 Many DJ's, Placebo, Pixies, PJ Harvey, Lamb, Starsailor, Zornik, Danko Jones. David Bowie was meant to headline the ffestival but had to cancel.

[edit] 2005 Festival

The festival took place from June 30-July 3, with the headlining bands being The Chemical Brothers, Faithless, Rammstein, The Tears, and R.E.M.. The full lineup for the main stage (in reverse order) was:

Day 1: The Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, Snoop Dogg, Ozark Henry, New Order, The Bravery.

Day 2: Faithless, Green Day, Velvet Revolver, Garbage, Within Temptation, Jimmy Eat World, K.T. Tunstall, Simple Plan.

Day 3: Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails, Audioslave, The Game, 't Hof van Commerce, Daan, Pennywise, Therapy?.

Day 4: R.E.M., Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Soulwax, Keane, Feeder, Kane, Flogging Molly