Finally. Rock Werchter made its return. During 4 days, some of the biggest acts worldwide were back in one of the biggest festivals in the world. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Imagine Dragons, The Killers and many more played on the 4 stages during the whole weekend. Throwback to this great festival with the 10 best shows!
FEVER 333
When the band has been announced for Rock Werchter, we were a bit surprised. After seeing a few songs of Airbourne on the first day and the energy of the crowd during the whole weekend, we’ve been reassured about what we could expect from this show. And we had a kick-ass time! Obviously not as crazy as what we got at Jera On Air or Graspop before Covid hit us but it was still great, especially with Rock Werchter audience. A good pit, some circle-pits and and walls of death. Jason and his teammates had a good, so we had. And we can’t wait to see them again on July 5th for a really different show opening for Bring Me The Horizon in France!
IMAGINE DRAGONS
Finally some fresh headliners at Rock Werchter. This Saturday was not what we have the habit to see at Werchter: it was more likely a Reading day. Imagine Dragons and Twenty One Pilots as headliners, Anne-Marie, Yungblud and Maneskin during the afternoon, Nothing But Thieves in the openers. A great day with an amazing performance of Imagine Dragons – after the big disappointment of 21P – that was even better than expected. So many people doubt about them headlining a festival of 88K people: they proved to all of them that they were totally wrong!
METALLICA
One of the biggest metal bands ever. Maybe one of the two biggest with Black Sabbath? This is a long debate. Anyway. We can say it’s rare a metal band has such a huge mainstream success! Not a surprise then to see them headline Rock Werchter once again, their favorite festival rumors said. And they didn’t really disappoint: 2h of show, a good production (big screens, great lights, some pyros), so many classics. It was really pleasant to see them. Yes, the prime of James behind him. Yes, Lars is not the best metal drummer at all. Yes, Kirk made a few mistakes. But look at the big picture: they still can make a show good enough to have more than 80k people. Only a few bands can say the same!
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
After almost 2 days of suspense, we were glad to see on Sunday morning that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were in Belgium and ready to rock to end these 4 days of festival! Unfortunately, it seems sure that the sick member of the band was Anthony. But they did their best to not cancel the festival and play their 1h30 set as scheduled. Not a lot of surprises in the setlist: they start with Around The World like they did a few times and played Wet Stand which is not often on the set-list. For the rest, it was more classic, which is not too bad for a festival show. The highlights of the set were definitely Dani California, Snow, Californication and the encore with Under The Bridge and By The Way. The Red Hot Chili Peppers show in Barcelona was really better but we still had a really good times with Chad Smith, Flea, Anthony and Mister John Frusciante.
SUM 41
They were supposed to play during the afternoon on a packed Sunday but due to technical issues they had to reschedule their show and the festival found them a spot as opener for the Friday. Not their usual schedule. And like we would expect, there was a lot of people for their performance and they delivered once again a real rock’n’roll show even if it was only 12.45! The best way to start the day… too bad they didn’t fill-in the spot of Greta Van Fleet as opener for Metallica in the evening!
YUNGBLUD
There’s a special relation between Yungblud and Rock Werchter. Or Belgium in general. One of the country he got the best success when he started. Now, obviously, he played near the headliners at every festivals he’s performing. This time, it was an afternoon show but it was fire: in the crowd but also literally on stage! For all his classics or new songs, the public followed him. Just before him, Maneskin set the bar very high but he did even better!
THE KID LAROI
One of the big surprised of the weekend! It was not our initial plan to see his show but the shitty weather made us change our plans. So we went in the marquees the all evening. After a little boring show of Beck, we didn’t know what to expect from The Kid Laroi. And we had the best time of our day! During about 1h, he gave us all his biggest hits and the audience was on fire all time. We were able to feel the floor shaking. Special mention of course to his biggest hits: Stay and Without You! It’s just too bad that he played sometimes only a part of this songs like F*ck You Goodbye (original feat. Machine Gun Kelly).
THE KILLERS
Co-headliners of the last day, they had to open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And they did everything we expected from them: a rock party. But during 1h15 instead of the 1h30 scheduled… A shorter set because of the singer’s voice not as its best? Maybe, as they skip some recent hits like The Man. But we got all the others: Somebody Told Me, Human, Mr. Brightside, When We Were Young, etc.
CHARLES
With The Kid Laroi, she’s one of our great surprises from the festival! Announced only a few days before to replace Sam Feeder, she proved to everybody she deserved this spot during the afternoon at The Barn. Her electric vibes with some influences like Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga or Muse and a very melancholic atmosphere brought us to her world during almost 1h. The world – at least the Belgian world – discovered her when she won the 8th edition of The Voice Belgium in 2019. And we gonna see her live again for sure, so you should! She’s playing at the Ancienne Belgique on October 20th. Make this date in your calendar.
MANESKIN
A lot of people were looking forward to discover live the Italian winners of the Eurovision. So did we. And we haven’t been disappointed at all! They provided one of the best rock shows of the whole weekend. So powerful, so charismatic and a joy of being there shared with the whole audience! Zitti E Bueni, Mammamia, Begging, the newest SuperModel, a cover of The Stooges (I Wanna Be Your Dog) or I Wanna Be Your Slave, we got all their best songs, all played as much powerful as possible.
We could have mention Airbourne and Rag’n’Bone Man too we unfortunately we only saw a part of their great show. Because of the traffic for the first ones, because of the shitty weather for the second one. Anyways, this is our list: we don’t all see the same shows and maybe don’t have the same expectations. We would love to hear what you think about the festival! And we can’t wait to be back in 203 with hopefully acts like Rage Against The Machine, System Of A Down or My Chemical Romance!