BASE at the summer festivals

The summer, and that includes BASE's summer festival season, is already midway through proceedings. High time then for a backward glance at what has already been. As of old, in recent weeks the BASE logo was omnipresent at the Cactus Festival in Bruges, at Suikerrock in Tienen and the Lokerse Feesten (in, you guessed it, Lokeren).

Throughout its 29th edition too, Cactus more than lived up to its honorary title as the best small festival in Europe. This year too, "Hear, see and feel the world' proved the rallying cry in Bruges, with all ingredients for a felicitous festival in place: lovely weather, a friendly atmosphere, and above all an impressive line-up including David Gray, Elvis Costello, Macy Gray and Tori Amos as just some of the big guns gracing the stage. Running for three days, the festival's Minnewaterpark location welcomed over 25,000 festival-goers, with audiences already looking forward to next year's jubilee edition with impatience.

This year saw Suikerrock adopting a new ‘extended' approach, involving 5 instead of just 3 days. The Kick-Off evening on 20 July certainly got the festival underway in no uncertain terms lifting the sold-out Tienen Grote Markt to exultant mood. What followed was a bumper edition drawing no less than 130,000 visitors who were served a particularly varied musical offering, ranging from the irrepressible funk of British act Jamiroquai, via the hard-hitting beats of Belgian dance act Milk Inc. and the raucous guitars of Customs, across the kleinkunst (Flanders' home-grown gentle singer-songwriter tradition) of national hero Raymond van het Groenewoud and the unadulterated classic rock of Dutch stalwarts Golden Earring.

Finally, the 36th edition of the Lokerse Feesten passed with flying colours. All full (10-day) festival tickets were sold out well ahead of time with 1-day tickets too veering dangerously close to the sold-out mark on several days. Same as last year, the ten-day event drew around 120,000 visitors to the festival grounds in Lokeren town centre where audiences lapped up the live concerts by the likes of M.I.A., Dizzie Rascal, Wu-Tang Clan, Alice Cooper and The Cranberries, as they did the Mojito cocktails and that local delicacy known as Lokerse paardenworst (horsemeat sausage).

We are looking forward to plenty more BASE festival oomph to come at Jazz Middelheim (12 - 15 August), Feest in het Park (12 - 15 August), Marktrock (13 - 15 August) and Boombalfestival (26 - 29 August). The photos from the Lokeren, Tienen and Bruges festivals are certain to get you in the right festival mood for what is yet to come ...