PCP, Makiladoras, Fresnel, Anargeeks, Man Made Filth @ Rijzenburcht, Elst 05 September 2003

From the bacteria newsletter #1: This is the first day of a 2 day festival celebrating the squat in Elst (near Arnhem). It’s located in the middle of nowhere and it is in a big farm. All around are grasslands and excavated buildingsites. This squat is the only original house left in the area coz it is considered a monument so they are not allowed to evict/demolish it. We arrive far too early coz everything got delayed with mucho hours. Around 18.00 we get some spicy mustardsoup and soon we start unloading and checking what to use. The stage is too tiny to put on equipment except for the drums so we decide to put everything in front of the stage. When at around 22.00 finally the small P.A. arrives, MAKILADORAS can start an hour later the show. Right at the first song, tons of people come forward to see the band. The crowd starts moving and atmosphere is set. Great! FRESNEL from Austria are real kind fellows but their sound can’t excite me much. Slow to midpaced doomrock with alot of guitartinkling. I guess I am not the only one coz soon enough the place is empty. PCP is next and chaos starts to arise. A bunch of people with markers come in action and within time I see once familiar faces change into strangers with mustaches, skindiseases, beards, crazy hairdos, missing teeth… On one side I see an female Hitler fighting somekind of pirate, an another side people piling up and doing crazy stuff. It’s completely surreal and very hard to concentrate on the drumming… What a nite. MAN MADE FILTH didn’t escape the markerwar either and their singer had a nice reversed cross over his face. Musically it was kinda sloppy but cool enough to keep the attention. ANARGEEKS, a very young band from Alkmaar, are the definition of sloppyness. Wow! Reminded me abit of R.A.P.T. from France. After ANARGEEKS some other band played as well but ended abruptly when the aggregate broke down. The whole place was covered in darkness. Fortunately the maglite is standard issue with me, so I had no problem to get my stuff and get to the van to prepare for a good nite rest coz tomorrow it’s off to Stemwede for yet another fest. BUT. As soon as I wanted to enter my bed, there comes a bunch of people with a djembee. If I learned to hate something in the past years, it’s people with djembees and didgeridoos coming to punkfests “playing” their instruments all night long. You can imagine, even with earplugs there was no credit gained. However, the next morning is a treat. 75% of MAKILADORAS need to take the train back home and some of them have obligations, familycall and such… But the waterproof markers did quite a good job. Despair is maybe a big word, but it was great fun to see them frantically scrubbing their faces in our sidemirrors. A sight I won’t forget that easy. PS. recordings were made of all bands and they will probably put these out sooner or later.

PCP (Groningen, The Netherlands)
Makiladoras (Groningen, The Netherlands)
Fresnel (Austria)
Anargeeks (Alkmaar, The Netherlands)
Man Made Filth (Alkmaar, The Netherlands)