(ieperfest.com)

‘Mörser’ (from Bremen, Germany) played unannounced (as did probably some more bands)…

This August fest was the 1^st time outside the Vort’n Vis premises (start of a new era ?) so I guess that’s why it’s sometimes referred to as Ieperfest. I had already parted with the event a few years before (because of the commercialism, violence, homophobia, sexism, etc. – see 96-08). Below are a few impressions of people who attended…

Brob

>> The leading European hardcore festival, the Vort’n Vis Fest in Ieper had to move to a bigger location. The festival was no longer in the ‘big’ barn behind the Vort’n Vis venue but was now held on a school playground. It was open-air and I thought that was odd as hell. A hardcore show in open air. I think this was the beginning of the end of the, once cool, festival. A lot of poseurs had shown up already and in the years to come things would get worse. These days the festival is fucking stupid and most of the bands playing suck. In 1999 only a few cool bands would play. Things I still remember from the ‘99 Vort’n Vis Hardcore Festival is ‘H-Street’ playing and getting a massive response to covering ‘Token Entry’s The Edge (a song that was one of my favorites that summer), being handed Like An Arrow issue #1 by Erik Tilburg, ‘Bloodpact’ being boring as shit and ‘True Blue’ playing a weird show. [...]

I think this was the first time I saw ‘True Blue’ live. I was looking forward to seeing them live, but I was a bit let down that I didn’t see 5 dudes in ‘Cro-Mags’ or ‘Chain’ shirts jumping around like idiots and being as straight-edge as can be. What I saw instead were two longhairs with rings playing guitar, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, and a singer with unposi leg tattoos featuring skulls and post-apocalyptic scenes. I was a bit baffled at first but eventually stuck around and started enjoying the show. I think a lot Ieperfest attendees were a little let down by this sight and performance as well, because the playground emptied pretty much after two songs that sunny summer afternoon. it must have been the lack of political statements. This proofs again that ‘True Blue’ was far from a popular band. There were only a few dudes moshing and I might have done the same had I had a clue as how to mosh (to ‘True Blue’), but the only true moshers doing their thing were Mark Stroeken, Pieter SDC and Erik ‘Arrowman’ Tilburg, all three ‘True Blue’ Army. Mark was dancing like an asshole, like he always did, and probably still does, Tilburg brought his signature ultra-classic T. mosh and Pieter SDC was doing something between clumsy and cool. Other than that BXL Crew jerk Bayram was bashing some innocent bystander’s head in on the tunes of ‘God Of Wrath’ (PK mid-breakdown quote “Relax buddy” addressing some Bayram pit/pit-side beef, can still be heard from time to time during ‘Rise And Fall’ shows when some pit-shit hits the pit-fan) and I think Diamond Dave was just standing in the middle of the pit being hard. Other than that there was a big horseshoe in front of the stage. ‘True Blue’, the band that gets jocked so much and would get a huge pit-response these days, brought the greatest mosh-parts of Ieperfest 1999 and no one cared. Besides the ones I just mentioned. I remember seeing my (then soon to be) homeboy Bjorn Dossche (who was in mosh-tirement from 1997 till 2000) chilling on stage next to Jan ‘Blindfold’ behind some amps and thinking “If these dudes are checking out this band they must be cool.”. [...] <<

Comment by anonymous: >> The Vort’n Vis Festival in 1999 took indeed place in a somewhat odd location, and it was the last time I visited the festival. I don’t remember all the bands. ‘Mainstrike’ were at their peak. ‘Ensign’ – whom everybody seems to have forgotten – played a crazy show with a huge circle-pit. ‘Bloodpact’ were originally not scheduled to play; I liked their set a lot at the time, they played a ‘Man Lifting Banner’ cover and I bought their split LP with ‘Varsity’. Not too sure, if I still like ‘Bloodpact’. Haven’t listened to them in many years. ‘As Friends Rust, ‘Get Up Kids’, ‘Mörser’, ‘Spirit 84’, ‘Liar’, ‘Arkangel’, ‘Reaching Forward’ and many other bands were playing; but most of those bands didn’t leave much of an impression. ‘H-Street’ were indeed playing as well: they played this curious mix of rock’n’roll and youth-crew. They were nice guys…not sure what they are up to nowadays.

If I remember correctly, ‘True Blue’ were not scheduled. They played in the early afternoon and virtually less than a dozen people were moshing; there was a big empty space in front of the stage. I was also surprised to see a long-haired metal guy on stage. I kinda liked their set, but – as you rightly said – it would have been a killer show if it would have taken place a few years later. At the time, very few people cared. When the 7” came out, I felt that it was a bit of a letdown; I have rarely listened to it. There was a peculiar aura surrounding that tape that could not be replicated. [...] <<

lionsandcheetahs2011.blogspot (2011-05-14), by Bart De Duytsche

I made the trip to Ieper from Switzerland mostly to meet friends from around Europe and to possibly enjoy some music from the few good bands booked that year. The festival of the Vort’n Vis was like a punk Mecca, it really had a certain mythical appeal to it, although in reality the punk factor wasn’t shining terribly bright, with all these atrocious moshcore bands wearing Nike and Lacoste sweaters. I remember Christophe from Stonehenge/ ‘Fingerprint’ even boycotting that year’s edition and selling his records on the floor right outside the main entrance. The whole thing was very clean, very safe and overall not very exciting. Well, ‘Mörser’ from Bremen did play a surprise gig if I’m correct; that was fun. But I never came back.

Vincent de Roguin, Genève

I remember there were massive circle-pits during ‘Ensign’ :-)

Michael Kopijn, Groningen

review in the Swiss Evil zine (#2); courtesy of Vincent de Roguin

Photos courtesy of Vincent de Roguin:

Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Royers (‘Rubbish Heap’ guitarist), Joris De Buysser (Conspiracy recs) & Tom Verstraete

Jeroen ‘Beertje’ Vrijhoef (‘Mainstrike’ guitarist, Coalition recs)

Markus Haas (Per Koro)

Marc Hartmann (Scorched Earth Policy, ‘Man vs Humanity’ drummer)

Fabien Thévenot (Molaire Industries, ‘Iscariote’ vocalist)

‘Sabeth’

attentive audience (L: Pedro Tallieu, ‘Instinct’ bassist)

additions wellcome!…

(full posts with photos of some bands playing are planned…)

Did ‘Gluebag’ play??? Can’t remember… (See guestbook… Was a short-lived band with Phil ‘Hiatus’…)

Brob

I think ‘Dystopia’ didn’t play that show [They did write something in the V.V. guest-book and ‘Mauz’ remembers…]. It was our (‘Deconsume’) 1^st gig by the way… I believe ‘Unhinged’, ‘Hypocritical Society’ and ‘ABC Diabolo’ were billed but ‘ABC …’ never made it over… So there were only 3 bands.

‘Deconsume’ were 6 class-mates [Koen, Bart, Steffen, Pieter, Michiel, Nico] who decided to make music. After having seen ‘Disrupt’ (93-10-31) at the Vort’n Vis the choice to also play crust was easily made. We did about 6 or 7 shows I think, but they were all great: two at the Vort’n Vis but also with ‘Masskontroll’ in the Antwerp region, with ‘Kosjer D’, ‘Insane Youth’ and a lot more bands in Tongeren. After secundary school the band fell apart. Half also got different musical interests. One of our singers (Steffen Geypens) sang for ‘Visions Of War’ for a moment (he’s on their first split 7”). Koen Luyckx became the second singer for ‘Vuur’ for a few years after Yannick Daems had to stop singing. I still jam with Stef ‘Empower’ & Nico Peeters (‘King Terror’) sometimes (in the vein of ‘Drop Dead’, still hard and fast). I’m also in ‘Nervous Mothers’…

Bart Jansen, ‘Deconsume’ guitarist

I clearly remember being really disappointed when ‘ABC Diabolo’ was supposed to play but didn’t turn up as one of their guys had to get his welfare-stamp that day or something…hehe. [They did play the year before: 93-12-20.]

Stijn Druyts

It was the first appearance of ‘Deconsume’ (Bart Jansen – guitar, Koen Luyckx – vocals, Michiel Mostmans – bass, Steffen Geypens – vocals, Pieter Brosens – drums & Nico Braspenning – guitar) here but they came back 95-04-29…

‘Unhinged’, from Liège, was the band of my mates Manu (vocals; later Nat) & Alain (guitar) – both running Nabate recs & distribution, with some lads of ‘Hiatus’: Wills (later Tomoy of ‘Scraps’) on bass and Azill (later Ben) on drums. They’d played at the Vort’n Vis a few times before (94-01-30 & unannounced on 94-08-06). Their 2^nd demo was recorded (at Ape studio) April ’95 and these songs were later released (combined with 4 songs recorded in ‘96 at 195 studio) on the band’s debut LP Win Our Freedom In Fire (released by Nabate in ’96).

‘Hypocritical Society’ had been here before with ‘Disrupt’ (93-10-31)… Bart ‘Deconsume’ had the idea they were due here again but no-one seems to be able to confirm this…

‘Dystopia’ (from California) was termed ‘sludge’ (a mix of heavy metal and crust-punk – “doom-laden, metal-tinged, down-tuned punk”). Their sound embodied all of the horrors, pain, agony and desperation of modern day society; brutal, hateful and misanthropic – a “love earth – hate people” philosophy. The band consisted of Anthony ‘Dino’ Sommese (drums/vocals; nowadays in ‘Noothgrush’ & ‘Ghoul’), Matt ‘Mauz’ Parrillo (guitar/vocals), Todd Kiessling (bass/vocals) & Dan Kaufman (vocals; also ‘Mindrot’). Their very first European tour was booked by Michael Knopp of the German label Common Cause (he also did their tour in ‘97). They had a split-12” with ‘Embittered’ & a split-7” with ‘Grief’ out on Misanthropic recs (1993). The Human = Garbage LP (1994) was without Dan. (Later it was released as a 12 track CD on on Life Is Abuse (Mauz’ label), Misanthropic recs and Common Cause, featuring additional songs from their splits with ‘Embittered’ and ‘Grief’, and one unreleased track).

Brob

‘Dystopia’ did indeed play. ‘ABC Diabolo’ did not, they were supposed to but one of the guys couldn’t miss work that day for some reason… I think half of the band was there with us. We had van-trouble along the way there and arrived late, showing up right when ‘Unhinged’ was starting. So I don’t remember if ‘Deconsume’ played? I don’t think ‘Hypocritical Society’ played as we’d met them before and I don’t remember them being there. But yeah, we had a great time playing there with ‘Unhinged’ which was the beginning of a long and great friendship with them and the ‘Hiatus’ folks. After the gig we had wonderful evening partying with them and the locals… The equipment was still set up after the doors were locked and we started jamming covers with Azill and Wills. And I remember drinking a lot of amazing Lambics as well!

Dan wasn’t there as he left the band 6 or 8 months after we formed. Everyone in ‘Dystopia’ are still in contact with each other and we’re still good friends (though the band will remain finished; it’s much easier for all of us). Dino is still in Oakland and now singing in ‘Noothgrush’. Todd lives in Minneapolis now – he was playing in ‘Sour Vein’ for awhile but not active with any music at the moment. Dan lives in Long Beach, working at postman and plays in the band ‘Destroy Judas‘. I’m currently playing in the band ‘Kicker‘ and running a print-shop.

Matt ‘Mauz’ Parrillo, ‘Dystopia’ guitarist (monolithpress.net)

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

‘Strain’ – Remorse 7″

This gig was organised by Hans Verbeke…

‘Strain’ was a band from Vancouver (Canada) that played “metallic mosh-core in the vein of ‘Snapcase’ & ‘Chokehold’, with staccato rhythms”: Eric ‘Flexyourhead’ Thorkelsson (bass; ex ‘Fratricide’; does the Flex Your Head radio-show), Jody Taylor (vocals), Len Greenblat (drums), Greg Dinardo (guitar) and Sean Lande (guitar; seanlande.com). They had put out some 7”s (self-titled on Overkill recs ’94, Cataract & Driven on HeartFirst ’94, Remorse on Pushead’s Bacteria Sour recs ‘95) and later recorded for several more releases on the label ran by Flo(rian) Helmchen (my mate from Berlin, ex ‘Squandered Message’ bassist): HeartFirst recs. The latter was on the road with them and present here. On this tour Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Mantle stood in on drums, and I believe Jennings ‘Jinx’ Stringer stood in on guitar. The band came back on 96-09-22…

‘Mainstrike’, a SxE band from Arnhem/Nijmegen did their first gig at the V.V. that day. They were Jeroen ‘Beertje’ Vrijhoef (guitar; together with Marcel Palijama he also ran the label Coalition recs), Jasper Meijerink (bass; later replaced by Johnny van de Koolwijk), Jonas Moberg (guitar), Roland ‘Big’ ‘Lord Bigma’ Roller (vocals, also guitarist ‘Man Lifting Banner’) and Pepijn Oostenbrink (drums, later also in ‘One Day Closer’). They had a demo out, called Youth Crew ’95. After the summer they did a 7”, Times Still Here, released on Peter Hoeren’s Crucial Response recs. They came back a bunch of times: 95-08, 95-10-20, 97-08 & 99-08…

‘Rancor’, an ‘edge’-metal band from Dutch Limburg were Michel ‘Mike’ Senden (guitar; also ‘Bloodsport’), Fabrice Zander (bass), ‘R2D2’ (drum-computer) and Pascal Crombach (vocals). Later Armand ‘Persecution’ took over bass later so Fabrice could play guitar. They recorded a CD entitled Distinguish, released in ’97 by Lifeforce recs (Leipzig). Mike & Fabrice ran One Solution recs…

At the time of this gig ‘Congress’ (who’d played here already a bunch of times, e.g. 93-04-25, 93-05-22, 94-01-08, etc.) consisted of Joost ‘Josh Fury’ Noyelle (guitar), ‘Uniform’ ‘UxJx’ Jan Vandekerckhove (bass), ‘Pitbull’ Pierre Vanrumbeke (vocals), Ilja ‘Chill Jay’ De Ceuleneire (drums). Their additional guitarist Michael ‘Micha Soprano’ Pintelon (also in ‘Deformity’) played here too. GoodLife’s marketing-strategy (“H8000 vegan edge-metal”) was taking form. After the ‘release’ of the Euridium 7” (at first on Warehouse recs – the precursor to GoodLife – GL started officially on Jan 1^st ‘96; a limited edition was handed out at their gig in The Pits, 94-12-23) and the band working on the Blackened Persistance (should actually be ‘Persistence’) album, Ed had “things going for him”…

Brob

‘Rancor’ and ‘Congress’ played here too. I wasn’t at the festival [95-08] so the pics are from this gig. ‘Rancor’ played with balaclavas that day. And it was also the first day the ‘Congress’ LP was available. [Brob: Blackened Persistance LP/CD was actually officially released on the “release-show” on Nov. 26^th 1995 with ‘Nations Of Fire’ in Izegem.]

Jeffrey Kroesen

‘Rancor’….the band I started with Michel (ex ‘F.T.F. & ‘Point Of No Return’ guitarist)! I played and we asked Pascal as vocalist. Michel and I were programming sounds/beats but eventually Michel did it on his own. Even before the 1^st show Fabrice got in the picture, in the beginning as second bassist (if it was my call) but the other 2 didn’t like the idea (too heavy?). But Pascal already had it in his head: Fabrice would definitely be in the band; as he had promised him. That became a bit of a problem. I then chose myself, stupidly enough, to leave the band to save everything. Fabrice became bassist and from the first show on they were a trio, without me. Still regret this, because it was also my ‘baby’ and Fabrice turned out a big asshole! I’ll save you the details… So, no, I never was on any stage with ‘Rancor’ (unfortunately). I did help ‘em set up on stage at the V.V. and when they played the Ieper-fest, in the barn at the back [95-08].

The music I’ve been making (solo) since 1995/1997 is not an extension of what ‘Rancor’ did, or what I wanted to do. It’s dark ambient/drones/soundscapes. ‘Monotonos’, check my website: monotonos.org (quiet room, good speakers/headphones recommended!), enjoy.

Roger ‘NBH, Nothing But Human’

Len Greenblat had some sort of break down; that’s what I heard anyway…

Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Mantle, ‘Strain’ drummer on this tour

I was on that tour in ‘95 (guitar) but I wasn’t on the tour in ‘96. (Four your interest: due to some member-issues, ‘Strain’ was almost not going to do the tour in ‘95 but glad they did. Fun times!!!) Sorry, I don’t remember the club or show exactly, but I do remember Ypres… First time for me in Belgium, first time I had some Belgium fries… Yum. I believe there was an air-balloon festival of some sort at the time? Also remember visiting the war-monuments, but it seems like a long time ago. Just by looking at the show-lists, ‘Strain’ played with ‘Congress’… I remember them being pretty damn heavy, probably heavier than any band we played with on that tour. I believe they were still pretty unknown at the time, I think I may still have a 7”?…

Jennings ‘Jinx’ Stringer, ‘Strain’ stand-in guitarist

I was 19 and it was my first big tour. A lot of it was a blur. I remember the ‘Congress’ guys but my memory is so bad. I actually recall playing that show and something about the stage. I don’t even remember most of the shows whatsoever. It was a 7 week tour with shows almost every night.

Sean Lande, ‘Strain’ guitarist

I was indeed on tour with ‘Strain’ and at this gig. I do not have a lot of recollections of it; mainly that I met Ed [GoodLife] and Bruno [Genet]. And that I thought what a bunch of clowns this whole H8000 thing was. I also remember ‘Mainstrike’ taking SxE very seriously with their white hooded sweaters, esp. the singer. The gig was pretty OK but I don’t really have much interesting and positive to write about it.

Flo(rian) Helmchen

I have fine memories about the Vort’n Vis. I came over regularly with Jean-Paul of Value Of Strength zine, long before the ‘Rancor’ period. That were always great weekends that I will never forget. ‘Rancor’ played there twice. This first time was enormously embarrassing because the P.A. wasn’t prepared for a drum-computer. Our 2^nd performance [95-08], on a sweaty afternoon, was more succesful.

Pascal Crombach, ‘Rancor’ vocalist

photos courtesy of Jeffrey Kroesen:

‘Strain’

‘Rancor’

(in the back: Roger ‘NBH’)

(on the right: Joeri Hoste (black tie), Ed GoodLife, Aaron Vyvial)

crowd (with some ‘Sektor’ members) during the ‘Congress’ set

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Diana B. (‘Mainstrike’ driver): “… I loved it here! The bands were great, the atmosphere good, and it’s always nice to meet up with friends and acquaintances, and meet new people …”

additions wellcome!…

More on this concert:

92-09-05 Ironside – Strong Event – Blindfold – Shortsight – No More – Feeding The Fire – Spirit Of Youth

Here’s some extra photos, courtesy of Jason Fox:

Léon Kleikers (drums; also guitarist of ‘No Sense), Illona Stephan (guitar); co-organiser Hans Verbeke

Rob Franssen (vocals), Roger ‘NBH’ (bass); Tom Chapman (‘Ironside’ guitarist) in the crowd

Illona, Har(ald) Brosselt (guitar; also in ‘No Sense), Rob; Nick Royles (‘Ironside’ drummer) & Jase Fox (‘Step One’) in the crowd

Har, Illona, Rob, Roger; Nathalie Depuydt & Jörg Jacoby in the crowd

Illona, Har, Rob; Edward Verhaghe & Jörg Jacoby in the crowd

Har, Rob, Illona; an astonished Michael Müller (R)

A gig that Michael Maes kindly arranged when I proposed him to organised this for ‘Divide & Conquer’ and ‘Robotnička’. I also booked them a gig at he Boma Squat in Gent the day before and the day after they played in Leuven (@ Clockwork)…

‘Divide & Conquer’ came from Greensboro, North-Carolina but they contacted me via Murray ‘Christmas’ Briggs (drummer of ‘Oi Polloi’) in Edinburgh… The latter played on their Amputate 7” an toured with them here. Orginal drummer ‘Stanimal’ (Stan ‘Dup’ Gibson) couldn’t make it over… The others were Brian ‘Tumor’ Tipa (guitar/vocals ; ex ‘Blownapart Bastards’, also in ‘Robotnicka’ & ‘Oi Polloi’) and Tony Wackett (bass). Percussionist Matt(hew) Miller a.k.a. ‘Matt Zohball’ (also guitarist of ‘Catharsis’) and bassist Nathan/Nate ‘Thor’ Tarr didn’t tour Europe with ‘D. & C.’. [Xavier ‘Robotnicka’: ‘D+C’ did tour Europe once before with a minimal US line-up – Brian on guitar, Matt on bass & Stan on drums.]. They played melodic and poppy HC/punkrock with political lyrics. Sanjam recs (Yann Dubois from Rennes) had released a 4-way split CD (with ‘Lee Majors’, ‘Eterna Inocencia’ & ‘Juggling Jugulars’ in 1997. Later they put out the Cop Corpse Bonfire and the The Need To Amputate 7”s on Brian Tipa’s Ginger Liberation recs (he ran this from Dijon in France and wrote me to help with distribute their 1^st EP; Nate Tarr did the label in Greensboro). Maloka (also from Dijon) released the ‘Robotnicka’ / ‘Divide & Conquer’ split-LP in the noughties.

‘Robotnicka’ (who haven’t actually stopped to exist), from Dijon, describe themselves as an “electric / glam / jam band” (robotnicka.poivron.org). They’re are a “dancing” band of anarcho-geeks (2 from Dijon, 1 from Lyon in France and 1 North-Carolinian living elsewhere in Europe) “bent on having fun”. “Originally trapped in guitar-rock land, we robots are breaking out in search of synthesized thrash insanity. Love of revolutionary politics, hatred of the totally sick oppressive system and the international need to indulge in utter freakiness has forced us to tour all over and to rock out in a generally unconventional style.”. In the band on this 1^st mini-tour were Brian Tipa (drums), ‘Gravier A’ Xavier (bass) and ‘Zeseal’ Cécile (bass/vocals). ‘Titi’ (= Thierry Rambaud, drums; also in ‘Alcatraz’) and Vincent Bertholet (guitar) joined later. Besides the aforemnetioned split-LP, they did a CD (Spectre En Vue…) after the turn of the century.

‘Mad Punk Disease’ (Groningen) started around the end of 1996 with Steve (drums/vocals), Richard (guitar; ex ‘Oereboere’ & ‘E.N.E.’) and Piet/Pierre Erickson (bass; ex ‘E.N.E.’, ‘Fleas and Lice’). Robbie Tempel (‘Fleace and Lice’) did the UK tour (including this date here) as extra vocalist in 1998 but got kicked out… Gam joined in 1999 as vocalist. They played noisy crust-punk and only appeared on the compilation They Won’t Take Us Alive (on the German label Harmony recs). Not sure if ‘Mad Punk Disease’ came back 98-06-05 with ‘Slum Gang’…

Claire A. (Xavier’s sister) helped with the artwork for the the ‘Robotnicka’ / ‘Divide & Conquer’ split-LP. She hung out in Gent at some timepoint and visited our @ infoshop (Tabula Rasa) at the 3 Charels Squat there. Can’t remember if she was here…

Brob

All this is a long time ago and I don’t remember a lot; just that the concert was with ‘Mad Punk Disease’. It was one of our first gigs. Funny that night was that Pierre of ‘M.P.D.’ had plenty of ‘herbs’ that he was trying to sell to some people to get some money for gasoline but he didn’t have a pick to play and I borrowed him one.

At the time of this concert, ‘Robotnicka’ was Cécile, Brian and myself, a trio with 2 bassists and drums. We toured the US with ‘D+C’ 1998 with the addition of Nicolu (guitare) and Béa (vocals). These quit after that tour and we took on guitarist/bassist Vincent (who plays in ‘Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp’ and other projects nowadays) and ended up as guitar-bass-drums. Later (2000-2001) ‘Titi’ joined to play drums and Brian took on playing keyboards… We never officially stopped but since we live in different places (Berlin – Lyon – Saint-Etienne – Bordeaux) and some of us have families, things haven’t gotten any easier we’re on a permanent stand-by until the situation is appropiate. It doesn’t matter, we see each other reguliarly and we’re good mates!

I’m not playing in a lot of bands at the moment. We did play with ‘Baygon Vert’ and also ‘Robotnicka’ at the festival for the relocation of Les Tanneries [Brob: autonomous centre and venue in Dijon]. And I also did 6 days of recording with Brian when he was in Lyon with mates of ‘Défaite’ and ‘Coche Bomba’. I continued doing some posters but not too many for concerts. Here’s some stuff that might be interesting: http://art.squat.net/bik3sab/

Xavier, Robotnicka

Here are some photos of gig. We were dressed as pizza-boys for some reason??? Plus one of me in the Vort’n Vis toilet. This was one of the first places I played when I was in ‘Oi Polloi’, aged 18. I remember being totally humbled by all the names on the war-memorial in Ypres. The red-haired bassplayer is Piet from ‘Fleas & Lice’. His other band were playing that night. Piet has been a friend of mine for a long time now. I remember he sold me a bag of weed that night but don’t tell the kids!

Murray Briggs, ‘Divide & Conquer’

‘Divide & Conquer’

‘Robotnicka’

‘Mad Punk Disease’

Murray Briggs

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Someone wasn’t happy… ;-)

additions wellcome!…

Paul Van den Berg wrote me (around that time) that ‘Seein’Red’ had discussed the fact whether they would play this fest or not (also with people like Bernd ‘Stack’, ‘Beertje’ & Marcel of Coalition recs, Theun Koelemij and some others) because there had been a lot of communication from various people (and myself) that this fest was not truly D.I.Y. They’d taken a collective decision to confront the audience and not compromise… “By staying away, you’re not gonna change things!”. I might’ve gone there for an afternoon (allthough I have no recollctions, it might’ve been the year before) to try and explain some people but I definitely didn’t pay entrance or saw any of the bands, because I considered this whole thing nothing more than a ‘year-market’/fair(ground) intended as promotion for the record-labels GoodLife and Genet… The latter also relased a CD of the Fest.

Brob

The HC-fest was a mix of fun and some irritation. We travelled down with a whole gang and that was cosy of course. Also met nice people in Ieper; old friends and contacts. A minus was ‘Arkangel’ and the monotonous program. ‘Seein’ Red’ was great. A real party and they also had sensible things to say. Also ‘Eyeball’, ‘Reiziger’, ‘Stack’ and ‘Highscore’ were good.

Jeroen ‘ Beertje’ Vrijhoef, ‘Mainstrike’ guitarist; personal communication Sep ‘98

I was at the Ieper SxE festival this summer and it sucked. I didn’t pay entrance and only managed to get in when ‘Seein’Red’ played. But besides the dumb consumerist kids, I met some nice friends from Germany so being on the train for 15 hours was worth it.

Philipp Smeh (Austria), personal communication Nov ‘98

That was my first Ieper fest ever, great memories! First time to I saw ‘Seein’Red’ and ‘Stack’ as well. Great! I remember there was some fuss during the ‘Stack’ set when a girl was asking the band to say something about some people dancing violently in the back during their set.

Stig Koppen

[Brob: “propaganda-flyer ‘Stack’ frontman Bernd wrote a few years later…]

This was the first time I went to this Fest!

Vincent Troplain, Rouen (nowadays Emergence recs & photo-zine)

additions wellcome!…

(full posts with photos of some bands playing are planned…)

98-08-14: One X More (Bel), Ashlar (Bel), Building (Bel), Firestone (Bel), Stack (Ger), Timebomb (Ita), Liar (Bel), Culture (USA)

98-08-15: Sad Origin (Bel), Highscore (Ger), Opposite Force (Ita), Pray Silent (Swi), Clouded (Bel), Seein’Red (Nl), Spineless (Bel), Thumbs Down (Bel), Facedown (Bel), Earthmover (USA)

98-08-16: Driven (Nl), Congress (Bel), Reiziger (Bel), Reply (Bel), Lifecycle (Bel), Arkangel (Bel), One Fine Day (Ita), Inflexible (Pol), D.S.A. (Bel), Eyeball (Ger), Caliban (Ger)

crowd-shots by Patrick Federli

British HardCore women – Camilla Bradshaw Burke / Louise Brown / Nicola Waterson (photo Nick Royles)

Gig-review in Pyrobolum #3 (by Dieter Roelstraete)

‘Chaotic Contrast’ (Roeselare/Torhout, Belgium) were originally a ‘project’ of Kris ‘Kid’ Verhelst (guitar & vocals) and a changing group of people. They recorded the ‘You’ve got a Brain so Use It’ demo (May ‘89). In June ‘89 Joeri Vleurick joined on bass and they recorded a tape -’It’s the individual that Makes the Change’ – that contained 158 (!) ‘songs’. Then they met up with Elke (vocals & guitar) and Steve ‘Sling’ Slingeneyer (drums; also ‘Chronic Disease’ & ‘Rise Above’) – don’t know if these were on the ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’ demo but they played the V.V. ‘Kid’ was quite creative and always full of plans… He also organised gigs (in Eernegem’s B52) and tried to set up a tape-label/-exchange…

‘Memento Mori’ were a German metal-influenced hardcore-punk band from Neuhofen (near Ludwigshafen, Germany). At the time they had just recorded an LP (The Cultural Value Of Fear, Distrust & Hypochondria) that was released on my friend Frank Babel’s label Blasting Youth recs. At that time ‘M.M.’ were: Thomas (bass), Mich(a)el Volkmer (drums), Sacha (guitar) and Jochen ‘Delle’ Dell (vocals; ex ‘Die Perversen Weihnachtsmänner’).

‘Oerboere’ were squatters from the W.N.C. (Wolters Noordhof Complex) in Groningen (North of the NL). “Import Groningers!”, Maynard Schut informs me: “They’ve never been in any other bands but one of them is now playing in a klezmer band from Amsterdam. At every gig they did, there were riots with the police… Rather militant squatters-band it was.”. They had a changing line-up: Cor ‘Roc’ Weiss, Mauro, Dirk, Roland Hurrelbrinck, … They had a track on the Als Je Haar Maar Goed Zat ‎compilation-LP (WRF recs, ’92), entitled Juppies.

Brob

At the time I was singing for ‘Oerboere’ (89 & 90), we never played in Ieper. This one must’ve been after I quit. The band was: Janfie van Strien (drums), Mauro (guitar) & Cor (vocals).

Roland Hurrelbrinck

‘Oerboere’ started at the W.N.C., where we lived from 1986 until 1990. The poet Bart Droog had joined us that weekend. He’s extremely interessted in World War 1 & 2, and wanted tot take the opportunity to visit the war-cemeteries…

Janfie van Strien

Some pics (courtesy of Janfie van Strien):

‘Oerboere’ L => R: Mauro Farigu (‘Mao’), Janfie van Strien, Cor Weiss.

Johan Dewancker (V.V. ‘shitworker’ at the time), enjoying a beer and the band

‘Memento Mori’ (Dieter Roelstraete sporting his ‘Doom’ T-shirt)

additions wellcome!…

This show was – again (see also 97-10-12 for ‘Catharsis’ first appearance here) – organised by Lieve Goemaere (Ugly Duckling zine)…

‘Catharsis’ (“starving artists in capitalist countries”) was an anarchist hardcore band from Greensboro, North Carolina, releasing their albums through the CrimethInc. collective. Their singer, Brian, was editor of the political hardcore punk fanzine Inside Front and later went on (with other ex-members of ‘Catharsis’) to form the band ‘Requiem’. Ernie Hayes (bass), Alexei (‘Rasputin’) D. Rodriguez (drums), Brian D. (vocals/guitar) were still in the band. Guitarist Dan(iel) Young had died so guitarist was Matt(hew) Miller (Who was the second guitar-player on that tour?). Wicked Witch recs did a split-LP (Live @ CBGB’s) with ‘Gehenna’ around ’98. The Samsara album was finished late ‘98, I think (with Matt Miller playing bass; and Dan Young taking care of the guitars – Jonathan Raine & Jimmy Chang are referenced for the tracks from the 7” that were include). The Passion album was recorded May ‘99 and Bernd Bohrmann put it our it on his label Scorched Earth Policy (’99).

‘Catharsis’

‘Man In The Shadow’, from Solkan / Nova Gorica (Slovenia), played emotional and political HC (“anarcho-emo”). In ’97 they did a self-titled one 7” on Dejan Pozegar’s Jay-Walk (label from Maribor) and in ’99 they put out the Pax Americana 7” (their 2^nd, on their own Choose Life recs; later also a complete discography on CD). The band consisted of vocalist Marko & guitarist Miran Rusjan (later in ‘Analena’), Nenad Kostadinovski (drums) and Valter Cijan (bass). The brothers did 13.Brat zine…

Valter Cijan’s other band, ‘Entreat’, toured with ‘Man In The Shadow’. That year there was a CD out on Choose Life recs (the label of Miran Rusjan) – entitled City Of… – featuring ‘Entreat’, ‘Low Punch’, ‘Man In The Shadow’ and ‘Straightforward’. ‎The music of ‘Entreat’ was labeled emo-metal. They were: Patrik (vocals), Matjaz (guitar), Milos (guitar) Valter (bass; replaced by Peter) and Rok (drums; replaced by Samo).

The music of ‘Leiah’ (from Gävle, Sweden) was decribed as indie-rock/emo-punk (“clone of the ‘Get Up Kids’…”) by some, others called it pop-music. The band consisted of Annsofie Lundin (bass), Anders Gustavsson (drums; later Gunnar Forsman when Anders moved to bass), David Lehnberg (vocals/guitar) and Klas Joakim Eriksson (guitar; ex ‘Serene’). In 1999 they had 3 releases on Genet recs: a split-7” with (the Belgian) ‘Hebriana’, a 7” & CD entitled Mood Shifting Tones. They ‘d already played on the ‘Ieperfest’.

‘Convinced’ (from Karlstad, Sweden) were: Martin Magnusson (drums), Amir Tehrani (bass), Jessica Johansson-Jern (vocals), Joakim Johansson (guitar) and Johan Gärdt (guitar; replaced Christina ‘Kicki’ Sundqvist). Their early material had a hardcore edge to it and the late material is more heavy metal/hard-rock (references to ‘Iron Maiden’ & ‘Helloween’). They had done a demo (Believe In Yourself) in 1996. In 1999 they released two 7”s on Joakim’s label Words Of Wisdom recs (Silence & A Dream Of Reality.) The album Life Is My Enemy came out on Genet recs (who also did the The Carnival CD in 2000).

‘Convinced’

‘Man vs Humanity’ were Bastian Gaeng (vocals), Hilmar Demant (guitar), Jakob Rupprecht (guitar), Marc-Antonio Hartmann (drums) and Max Hebel (bass). That year they released a split-7” with ‘My Hero Died Today’ on Bernd Bohrmann’s label Scorched Earth Policy (1999) and the Anti Imperialist Culture Sound 7” on Paracelsius. Their music was grindy “extreme hardcore” with metal influences; often compared to ‘His Hero Is Gone’ and ‘Acme’. They did a bunch of shows with ‘Catharsis’ but not this one…

‘Lifecycle’, a ‘new-school’ HC band from the Ieper/Kortijk region (H8000 but not with that typical sound), had done their first gig the previous month. Here the line-up was: Sofie Vantomme (vocals; co-founder Vincent Merveillie soon went on to sing for ‘Spirit Of Youth’), Karel Deweerdt (guitar), Steve Noyelle (guitar), Jan Volckaert (drummer of ‘Resist The Pain’; was stand-in a few times for Jan Verhelst ex ‘Convict’) and Jurgen Degryse (bass; later replaced by Jelle ‘Jay D’ Dobbelaere). There were some more people involved (Steve explains below). Don’t know exactly who did drums and bass here… They did a demo (There Is Hope Again!; recorded by Michael Maes) and a mini-album (CD) Forever… Until… on SoberMind recs (’97; recorded in Labie’s 195 studio). When Sofie gave up SxE but still wanted to continue ‘Lifecycle’, Steve decided to quit the band… Because of that, the band split-up, they couldn’t continue without him…

Here’s a photo of ‘Liar’ with drummer Bert Guillemont and 2 young kids I didn’t recognise: Ward Dufraimont (ex ‘Firestone’; who kindly provided it) played bass here. He explains a bit of his ‘history’ below.

That is ‘Liar’ on the photo, indeed. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that I play bass. U.J. couldn’t make it for one reason or another. I remember it was kind of a big deal, because it hardly ever happened; but he couldn’t/wouldn’t play… You also see Lennart [Bossu] on guitar. Out of sight is Hans [Verbeke; vocals] and Christophe Herreman on guitar. The night before I had already replaced Christophe for ‘Mainstrike’s last show (Goudvishal in Arnhem). So this was my second time. I was playing in ‘Firestone’ with Lennart; so that’s why. I did a few more replacements, like the second Deathrow Earth European tour in April 2000. Lennart had quit a few days before that tour. After the tour Matthias ‘Empathy’ [Halsberghe] joined and I went on with ‘Firestone’. That ended somewhere in May 2002 (when Lennart started to play for ‘Janez Detd.’) and I joined ‘Liar’ again for a European tour in the summer of 2002 because Christophe couldn’t make it. Halfway the tour Matthias was told to leave the band and I stayed until the last show in October 2006 (at first with Christophe and later with Matthias again). Lennart joined by the end of 1998 if I remember well: he was there during the recordings of Deathrow Earth but didn’t play a note because Joost wanted to take his last ‘Liar’ record completely in his own hands. Joost quit around May 1999 and Christophe (who was in ‘Aborted’) joined. On the pic I’m playing Jan Maelfait’s bass, thé legendary ‘Blindfold’ bass …

I can’t remember anything about the other bands, except for the handsome blonde of ‘Convinced’!

Ward Dufraimont

When I see pictures of us playing that show I see we were all dressed up in our PJ’s (costumes for Halloween). Ward D. was playing bass because UxJx did not want to play that show cause of the pyjama thing… Seems to me now the most obvious explanation. We then just went on with Ward on bass.

Bert Guillemont, ‘Liar’ drummer

At the gig at Vort’n Vis I was ex-member of ‘M.I.T.S.’ but my new band ‘Entreat’ toured together with ‘M.I.T.S.’. ‘Entreat’ was the opening band that night.

Valter Cijan (nowadays in ‘Hellcrawler’)

We never played at the V.V.! We played a few shows with ‘Catharsis’ but not here. We were asked later on but we broke up …

Jakob Rupprecht, guitarist ‘Man vs Humanity’

Indeed I don’t remember seeing ‘Man vs Humanity’ in 1999, though they are on the flyer. We did play in Aalter with them in December of 1998. I have some good shots from when we played Halloween 1999, let me get my stuff together and get back with you.

Ernie Hayes, ‘Catharsis’ bassist

I remember wishing we had planned some sort of Halloween thing. Like costumes or a few covers of a band or something. In general, I remember touring with ‘Convinced’ and the men in that band treating the woman singer so badly that she rode in our van many days. Not sure who organised the ‘Convinced’ tour. Maybe Patrick [Federli; Drive To Play], maybe Bruno [Genet recs], maybe us. Maybe some combination…

Matt Miller, ‘Catharsis’ guitarist

I wasn’t in ‘Catharsis’ during those years. I’d left the band to start the band that would become ‘Undying’.

James Chang

My perspective is that we’re both seeking similar goals in different ways… We could bicker for years about which one of us is more pure in our struggle against capitalism but that would be just plain dumb and a waste of our time…

Brian D.; personal communication Sep. ’99 [Brob: This is reference to my questioning their dealings with a commercial label here. To me that didn’t seem to accord with Brian’s anarchist ideology… Below is a pic of ‘Catharsis’ with my correspondent Eric Boehme (editor of After The Revolution; on the left) touring Europe in –supposedly- the summer of ‘98)]

Just a couple quick notes to get the historical details perfect… The Samsara album was recorded in spring 1997, not late 1998 – I think what was released in late 1998 was the vinyl version of it for the US. You know, we made GoodLife put Samsara out of print after that first pressing and never worked with them again. Basically, the whole thing was a result of not understanding the context of the Belgian hardcore scene until we got there. As you know, we were playing a DIY show set up by Lieve.

The photograph of us with Eric Boehme is indeed from our European tour in summer 1998. In fall 1999, on that tour in Europe (which was 3 months long), we had a second guitarist, Jon Ridenour, who was also the guitarist of ‘Zegota’, a band that later toured Europe themselves. The live photo is indeed from the 1999 show (you can tell because we have eyeliner on our faces for Halloween) but Jon and Alexei aren’t visible in it. We were probably at our best as a band with Jon – he was a very expressive guitarist, and balanced out Matt nicely. Today Jon lives in Stockholm.

I remember it being a really intense show. But my only actual clear memories from the night are of meeting ‘Man In The Shadow’. I had already been corresponding with Miran about his zine for some years. Their drummer struck me as one of the warmest, sweetest people I had ever met, and I remember he had a big, dreadlocked beard around his neck.

Brian D.

This was kind of a Halloween show and I was dressed up in a sparkling, pink dress wearing a Belgian ribbon, as a Miss Belgium candidate (N° 8). It was the first time ever I was wearing high heels, terrible! ;-)

Lieve Goemaere

The gig went really well. I was kinda proud of myself. The Slovenian bands were really good; I was really impressed by ‘Man In The Shadow’. Better than I ever could’ve imagined.

Lieve Goemaere; personal communication Nov. ‘99

The performance of ‘Catharsis’ was very inspiring…

Bart De Geeter; personal communication Nov. ‘99

Halloween… Most bands were dressed up… ‘Convinced’ also played: glam-rock from Sweden, with female vocals. A bit like ‘Purusam’ but less technical.

About ‘Lifecycle’: After Jurgen Degryse had quit, he was replaced by Maarten Kinet (later played for ‘AmenRa’)… When he abandonned the ship we got Peter Leuwers… And after him there was Céline Delqueux and then Jelle Dobbelaere… Concerning drummers: when Jan Verhelst stopped, Vincent Tetaert [‘AmenRa’] took his place… And when things got too busy for him (with ‘Firestone’), he quit ‘Lifecycle’… He was replaced by Tim Jult [‘Empathy’, ‘Liar’, ‘Congress’, …]. Yeah, we had ours share of drummers and bassists…

Steve Noyelle, ‘Lifecycle’ guitarist

The first time I played at the V.V. was actually ‘97 with ‘Serene’ and I visited for the first time in ‘96 when I drove ‘Separation’…

Klas Joakim Eriksson, ‘Leiah’ guitarist

I remember seeing ‘Entreat’ and ‘Man In The Shadow’ in Belgium (I drove with them home to Ljubljana)… Actually, all that I remember is that on the way from Ieper to Gent, the rented van went on fire, that is: the engine went on fire! Pretty scary but we were all fine.

Tea Hvala, Pssst zine

I was here at the V.V. with ‘Catharsis’. I did that entire 3 month tour back then, since we (Scorched Earth Policy) put out the vinyl that year. ‘M. Vs H.’ never played there, that’s correct. I recall that ‘Catharsis’ were in a desperate spot prior to the this tour, which would have been their 2^nd European tour. As I recall, they had a loose agreement with the guys who worked on their first tour in 1997 (Pat Federli; if I am not mistaken). Apparently, they were not able to get that going. Having met the band two years earlier I was eager to help out. After I had gotten the ball rolling, Bernd Bohrmann and I have then starting booking the tour and also started talks regarding the vinyl version of ‘Catharsis’ Passion album.

Marc Hartmann (Scorched Earth Policy, ‘Man vs Humanity’ drummer)

additions wellcome!…

The people who set this up called it the ‘Pure Kajos Tour’. It was meant to be a ‘benefit’ to gather some money for their ‘organisation’ to try and get an alternative for ‘t Clichée, a pub annex venue (where they’d done gigs for bands such as ‘Citizen Fish’, ‘Contropotere’, etc.) in Sint-Niklaas that got sold so they could no longer use it. The group was a loose collective mainly consisting of the people in the bands ‘Insane Youth’ & ‘Totaal Marginaal’. The bands playing here were all Belgian.

One of ‘Insane Youth’s many appearances at the V.V. First time was a month before at the Leed festival. Being from the Sint-Niklaas area and supporters of ‘t Clichée, they had to play here aswell, of course. The band consisted of Steve ‘Stiv’ Descamps (vocals), Thomas ‘Tomaz’ Van Rumst (bass), Jan ‘Fons’ Wuytack (drums; he replaced this guy named ‘Smet’) and Tim De Baere (guitar). Vanessa Hoskens was the 2^nd vocalist at some timepoint. Stef De Leersnijder (who’s in ‘Visions Of war’ with Steve nowadays) was briefly in the band aswell. Their music could be labeled as crust-core. At that moment they hadn’t released anything yet, I think. Nice guys with their hearts on the right place. Later they did a presentation in my zine Tilt! (#9) and I remember doing an interview for Profane Existence #35 with them…

‘Totaal Marginaal’ – another band from Sint-Niklaas – were Tim Audenaert (vocals), Wouter (guitar), Mieke (bass) and Pim (drums). They played punk-crust and did a tape entitled Abuse Of Music.

‘Nahende Vernichtung’ (“imminent destruction”; from Beernem) played “gruff, heavy, Swedish influenced; crust-core-punk”. Don’t know if the 1^st vocalist ‘Lazy’ was still in the band then. It might’ve been Rik & Paul singing. Second guitarist Wouter had left in ’92… I think the band here must’ve been Paul Lamont (bass, replaced Stefan; later ‘Hitch’, ‘Thee Plague Of Gentlemen’, ‘Waldorf’), Rik Vandenbruwaene (guitar) and William ‘Willie’ Maes (drums). In ’98 (after Paul quit) they recorded for a split-7” with ‘The Barjackers’. On the Vertigo 7” that Tim Leten put out on his label Filth Ear recs in the noughties, there was a new vocalist (Ward).

‘Muffie Puffies’ – from Lokeren – were the band of Christophe De Keukelaere (nowadays in an ambient duo ‘Tantrack’). He recalls: >> ‘Muffie Puffies’ were Klaas Arbyn (vocals); Joris de Fré (guitar); Michael Mauro (drums); Filip Van Pollaert (bass) and myself (guitar/vocals) offered own compositions such as Animals Have The Right To, Artificial World, Nuclear Waste, I’m Free… We also did Police State (a ‘Disorder’ cover). When we split up (around ’96), I started a solo-project – mainly crust/grindcore (some covers like Police Bastard by ‘Doom’ & Warsystem by ‘Anti-Cimex’. I still have rehearsal-recordings (tape) but the sound-quality is not that good… <<

‘Hiatus’ (Liège) line-up here was the one with Jonas on bass, besides Willy (vocals), Ben (drums), Phil (guitar) and Azill (guitar). The period before the release of the El Sueño De La Razon Produce Monstruos LP.

‘Hiatus'; photo by Wim De Leersnijder

At that time ‘Skatta’ (from Antwerp) were Mukti Gabriels (guitar; later ‘Tachyon’, etc.), Zen Deklerk (bass), Mario ‘Junior’ Middendorp (vocals) and ‘Tile’ (bass). They played rough hardcore-punk with rather simple but direct lyrics (e.g. Bont Past Geen Mens; “Fur Doesn’t Fit Anybody”).

‘Skatta'; pics courtesy of Zen Deklerk

Around ’95 Zen & Mukti did a rap-project called ‘Antwerp Attitude’ (see tape-cover):

Can’t remember anymore who ‘Convicts’ were…

Brob

What I can remember from that concert is that we we were not too drunk and played a rather tight set. Later we played the Vort’n Vis on another occasion with ‘Hiatus’ and a band with a female singer (forgot the name, but I recall they did a cover of We’re The Kids In America [Brob: ???] …

Christophe De Keukelaere, ‘Muffie Puppies’

Pure chaos , that gig… Can ‘t remember much about the other bands. Some names sound very familiar though. I believe we regularly shared the stage with some of them. About our performance: that was in our ‘disguise’ period (haha) … Balaclavas and scarfs… Sweating like a horse!!! There was also some pretty ‘violent’ dancing going on… Gregor [‘Terror’ Engelen; plays in the ‘Antwerp Gipsy Ska Orkestra’ with Mukti nowadays] and Mad Fred [who used to be in ‘Brutal Society’, runs the autonomous centre Antifa-brick in Antwerp nowadays] were there, hehe, and that were their wild years! Anyway , we played damn hard and without compromise. The audience (the few that could handle it anyway) were merrily slamming into one and other, much to the dismay of the ‘nice’ fans. We just couldn’t be bothered then… Let’s say we held a pretty radical vision at that time… Perhaps still… ;-) Zen has great pics of ‘Skatta’ on stage (in full action and in full ‘regalia’)…

Mukti Gabriels, ‘Skatta’

I remember that period and that festival as being fantastic but to be honest nothing more than that. :-) Our demo was a DI.Y. release.

Tim Audenaert, ‘Totaal Marginaal’

The only thing I can remember is that we were pretty impressed by ‘Hiatus’, who played right after us. I left my distortion-pedal on stage then, so I think someone in ‘Hiatus’ went home happily. I believe we played in the pub, not in the ‘barn’ in the back. The gig went reasonably okay, even if I had to play on a hideously ugly white five-string bass because my own had gone to smithereens.

Paul Lamont, ‘Nahende Vernichtung’

‘Convicts’ were from Stekene, if I’m not mistaken… One thing I do know, is that Tim and I interviewed Willy ‘Hiatus’ upstairs (for the zine of an American friend of Tim), with wine and beer. Haaa the days ;-)

Steve, ‘Insane Youth’ vocalist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

I think ‘Caducity’ played there too, did they replace ‘Spina Bifida’…?

‘Narre’, ‘Dreft’ drummer

The flyer states “+1 more”… That might’ve been ‘Caducity’. I know for sure I’ve seen them play at the V.V.: I remember us all joking about their vocalist growling theatrically and spreading his legs so wide out that we feared he was gonna shred his pants…

‘Spina Bifida’ were a death/doom-metal band from Tilburg (The Netherlands). I believe the band’s line-up here was Gerard van Boxtel (drums), Harrie Van Erp (guitar), Veronika ‘Vroon’ Wilking (bass; Jeroen van Veen, the founder of ‘Within Temptation’ played on the demo), Rob Kesselaar (guitar) and and Werner van Rijswijk (vocals). They had a demo out entitled Symphony Of Indictment and just recorded (October 1992) for a their album Ziyadah. They reunited in 2010.

‘Spina Bifida’, photo by Henk Loobuyck

‘Dreft’ (Kortrijk area) had played a few times at the Vort’n Vis already (89-07-09, 92-08-29). I think their line-up at this stage was Bernard ‘Narre’ Demeulenaere (drums), ‘U.J.’ Jan Vandekerckhove (bass), Kris Maes (vocals), Erwin Devriendt (guitar) and Sammy Windels (guitar). I don’t think Joost Noyelle (guitar; also ‘Burning Fight’, ‘Congress’, ‘Liar’, …) played here. On 93-03-28 (their last or one of their last shows – ‘Caducity’, ‘Spithead’, ‘Dreft’ in De Gilde, Ruddervoorde), they recorded their set live…

‘Dreft’ in action

‘Dreft’, posing

‘Trail Of Sorrow’ were a local band: Arjan (bass), Bart (guitar & vocals), Johan (drums) and Breeb (Kurt ?; guitar).

‘Caducity’ was a death-metal band from West-Flanders (Oostrozebeke/Waregem); at that time consisting of Steven Suys (bass; later guitar), Koen Arnoys (guitar; replaced by Vinnie Bonduwe in ‘93), Dirk Peirs (bass), Bert Van Thuyne (drums) & Guy ‘Nirion’ Cnockaert (vocals). They had 2 demos out: Incarnated: The Abhorer’s Tale (92) & The Imperishable Mystery (93).

Brob

I remember we played our set twice. There were some real ‘Spina’ fans at that gig. The line-up you mentioned is not correct. We played with Veronika on bass, Joris did drums, Michel on guitar, Norbert singing and Rob playing guitar. This was the third ‘Spina’ line-up. Jeroen van Veen never played with ‘Spina’, though I know you can find it on internet. We started playing in 2011 again with almost the same line-up we recorded the CD back then.

Rob Kesselaar, ‘Spina Bifida’ guitarist

‘Neuthrone’ played with ‘Spina Bifida’ in Lauwe (La Gare) May 1993.

Steve W.

I can’t remember exactly who joined ‘Dreft’ when… Erwin came first; when Sammy quit we replaced him UJ (bass) and only later Joost popped up.

Best line-up of ‘Caducity’ was the one of the demos and first 2 CDs (with Guy – who’s an MD nowadays – doing vocals)!

Kris ‘Mosh’ Maes, ‘Dreft’ vocalist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

A concert, in the very beginning of the Vort’n Vis, illustrating the strong connection between punx from Brugge and seminal Vort’n Vis bands… A non-SxE 8000 connection long before the name H8000 crew surfaced… ;-)

By that time ‘Chronic Disease’ didn’t need an introduction anymore. We had offered them a chance to play already at Smurfpunx shows; first in Netwerk (Aalst) with ‘R.K.L’ but they’d had to cancel that; then (which they did play) in Eeklo with ‘Rose Rose’ (88-11-11). They’d already performed at the V.V. aswell (89-09-16) and they would be back a couple of times more. Bruno (His Master’s Noise; later Genet recs) had helped them release their demo – Trapped Again – ‎in ’89. A few months after this gig (March ’90), they (Leffe, Vrokker, Peter & Sling) went into the studio to record for their 7” (Born To Live In Chains, out on Kurt Horeman’s labele Innerforce).

‘Gnuft’ (actually ‘Gnuft v.z.w.’, the latter being the Belgian term for ‘non-profit organisaton’) were locals David Stubbe (later the drummer for a variety of bands) & Dieter Roelstraete sharing vocals, Wouter playing guitar, Fabrice Baclet (also in ‘Silly Old Fart’, later ‘Neuthrone’) plucking his bass and Pascal “smashing” the drums. I saw them a few months later at the gig with ‘Sore Throat’ (90-05-27); all I can remember was ‘noise’ ;-)

‘At Last’, from Brugge, were: Dries Van Damme (guitar), Christophe Depree (guitar), Chris ‘Hazy’ De Neve (drums), Peter De Meyer (bass; guitarist of ‘Chronic Disease’) and ‘Zoef’ Wijnand Desreveaux (vocals) played fast trash-metal. The demo that Dieter is referring to (in the review) was called Peace On Earth. Later that year the band changed it’s name to ‘After All’ (played at the V.V. as such: 90-10-13) and as of today these still exist…

‘Damage Done’…can’t remember I ever heard/saw them… “Batrock à la ‘Sisters Of Mercy’…”, as Dieter described them.

concert-review by Dieter Roelstraete in his zine Pyrobolum #2

Brob

I was on stage myself that day, with ‘Concortium Musica Perverza’, a choir. We performed right before ‘Chronic Disease’. [Brob: ‘C.M.P.’ also performed during the SxE fest August ’96] Peter Arthur Caesens also did his ‘dance-routine’ that day…

Joost Dierick, BZN productions

Twenty-five odd years ago – 25! – we started gigging in the local hardcore/crossover scene. We had started as ‘At Last’… in the fall of 1988. [line-up above] We rehearsed at an old school-building in the small village of Stalhille (Jabbeke). We shared the rehearsal-space with bands such as ‘Chronic Disease’ and ‘Toespieze’, and later on ‘Private Jesus Detector’ and ‘Rise Above’. We played our first live shows in 1989 and recorded a demo in the summer.

I believe it was our connection with ‘Chronic Disease’ that got us in touch with Bruno Vandevyvere of Genet recs, and he got us this show at the Vort’n Vis. To give an idea of how young and unexperienced we were: I had just turned 17 and it was our 5^th gig. Other bands on the bill were : ‘Chronic Disease’, ‘Gnuft Inc.’, ‘Damage Done’, ‘W.C.P.’ (“speed-trash”) and ‘Masturbating Kangaroes’. [Brob: The latter 2 aren’t mentioned in Dieter’s gig-review. I can ‘t recall them either…]. From what I remember, they were all straightforward hardcore bands, with the exception maybe of ‘Chronic Disease’. That was a truly awesome band. Always thought it was a shame they only did that one EP on Genet.

I remember we got along well with the bands in the scene at the time, although we were definitely a different kind of ‘animal’. In the eyes of the ‘hardcore kid’, we were ‘a metal band’. At that time being called ‘a metal band’ wasn’t exactly cool. Not that we cared: we were wearing our ‘Metallica’ shirts with pride, had guitar-solos in our songs, drank beer, smoked cigarettes and generally didn’t care much about anything, haha. We were totally into the crossover idea. We listened to ‘D.R.I.’, ‘Heresy’ and ‘Doom’, but also ‘Morbid Angel’ and ‘Death’, and more traditional heavy metal like ‘Iron Maiden’, ‘Dio’ and ‘King Diamond’. Not all hardcore kids thought along those same lines. I remember ‘Nuclear Assault’ was labeled ‘satanic’ because of some of the lyrics on their first album. And obviously ‘Slayer’ was seen as downright fascist because of the lyrics on Reign In Blood. A couple of years later, it was rather amusing to see how the H8000 scene that emerged from the Vort’n Vis was based almost exclusively on ‘Slayer’ riffs – but that’s a different story.

To be quite honest, I don’t remember much of that first gig at the Vort’n Vis. I guess we played most of the songs of the demo and – I think – a cover version of ‘Metallica’s The Four Horsemen. Maybe a song by ‘Doom’ also, or one by ‘Terrorizer’. Don’t know why, but I do remember the smoke in the room. From the back of the room, you hardly could see the stage.

[continued on 90-10-13]

Dries Van Damme, ‘At Last’ guitarist

additions wellcome!…

It was way back in the early 90s when I first came to the Vort’n Vis for the concert of ‘Trottel’, ‘Greenhorns’ (a local rock-band that played in a country-rock style à la Neil Young / ‘Green On Red’); ‘After All’ (which I don’t remember any more)…and ‘Pietje Roze Konin’ (also no remembrance..)

Henk Loobuyck

‘Pietje Roze Konin’ en de Zeven Gèssprietjes’ (Pete the Pink Rabbit & the Seven Grass-blades), from Menen (between Kortrijk en Ieper) were a bunch of lads who just picked up some instruments to make “a mess”: Vincent Windels (drums), Rudy Denis & later Karel Lauwers (guitar), Kurt Deprez (bass), Jeroen Lauwers (screams; later replaced by Wim Vandekerckhove & Sacha Baelen). Some of them would later end up in ‘Shortsight’ and ‘Blindfold’. There’s an interview with them in Jimyh Anti’s zine in the post about their earlier performance (89-07-09).

According to Bruno’s description on the flyer, the ‘Greenhorns’ were “local rock-out blokes in it to break major rock business”… They were Alex(ander) Brackx (guitar/vocals), Carl Vansuyt (bass) & Guido Dieusaert (drums).

‘After All’ were a trash-metal band (The flyer says: “now with a new & extremely expensive drum-riser”) from Brugge, (they were the follow-up to ‘At Last’ that played at the V.V. 90-01-20). Playing in the band: Dries Van Damme (guitar), Christophe Depree (guitar), Chris ‘Hazy’ De Neve (drums), Peter De Meyer (bass on the 7”; also ‘Chronic Disease’ – Yannic Kermarrec did a short stint in the band in ‘92) and ‘Zoef’ Wijnand Desreveaux (vocals). Their first 7” (Dusk) got out in 1992 (recorded in autumn ’91). As of today these still exist (see afterall.be)…

‘After All’ (L => R: ‘Hazy’, Christophe, Dries, ‘Zoef’, Peter)

‘Trottel’ (or ‘Die Trottel’; German for ‘idiots’) was announced as “Hungaria’s punkrocknoise – No shit!”… Others used the words ‘indefinable’ and ‘psychedelic’, ‘spacey’ to describe them. Their lyrics were socio-critical; female vocals. The band at that time consisted of Tamás Rupaszov (bass), Ildi(ko) Asztalos (vocals), Kakuszi ’Kaktusz’ György (guitar) and Péter ‘Garfield’ Nagy (drums; or was it Sándor Orosz?). After some demos in the late 80s, their tape Borderline Syndrome was also released by a French label in 1989. In 1990 Armin Hofmann also put out their Your Sincere Innocence tape out as a 12” EP on X-Mist. They came back 91-10-12. For more info: trottel.hu

Brob

I can only recall that we played that night because ‘Trottel’ used my guitar-amp. Well, it was more like a cage used to breed guinea-pigs. As a naive youngster, I had bought the amplifier from a crook. ‘Trottel’ had a lot of trouble producing a decent sound during the sound-check. the Hungarians did play a tight, convincing set that night. One of my favourite concerts at the Vort’n.

Karel Lauwers

My legendary memory isn’t so legendary anymore. I only remember a Sunday morning when we got locked in at the sleeping-place. Finally I climbed out of the window… and found myself in the streets of Ieper and saw people going to the church… It’s a cloudy picture in my head…don’t even know which year this was. I did over the 1,5 million kilometres since the beginning of the 90s so my brain is quite full I guess :-).

Tamás Rupaszov, ‘Trottel’ bassist

[continued from 90-01-20] We returned to the Vort’n Vis for our 10^th gig. By that time, we had changed our name from ‘At Last’… to ‘After All’. In fact, that was our first show we played under the new name. Other bands on the bill were ‘Pietje Roze Konin’, ‘The Greenhorns’ and ‘Die Trottel’ from the Czech Republic [Hungaria actually]. I remember ‘The Greenhorns’ put on a ‘professional’ rock show, which was not really the thing to do at the Vort’n Vis. We liked ‘Die Trottel’ a lot. I remember ‘Zoef’ bought the album they sold at the show. I dubbed it on tape. Yes I know, hometaping was already killing music back then… Don’t remember the set we played but I’m quite sure we played Surf Nicaragua by ‘Sacred Reich’ that night. I also remember that the end of the night ended with a huge food-fight backstage [Leffe mentions it 90-01-20].

A quarter of a century, gone in the blink of an eye, or so it seems. The band always persevered, although only Christophe and myself are left from the very first line-up that played those shows in 1990. From those very humble beginnings at the Vort’n to touring Europe, playing Graspop or opening for ‘Judas Priest’ at the Lotto Arena is quite a stretch – but we wouldn’t want to have missed it for all the money in the world!

Dries Van Damme, ‘After All’ guitarist

pics (courtesy of Dries Van Damme):

Wijnand Desreveaux / Chris De Neve / Dries Van Damme

Peter Demeyer / Wijnand Desreveaux (and Vrokker ‘Chronic Disease’ sitting on stage)

Danny Borny (who was with the band as roadie, stage tech & merch guy from 1989 until 2012) / Christophe Depree

additions wellcome!…

‘Supertouch’, a hardcore band from New York, was more or less considered “a legend” by some of the SxE kids here (although they stated “we’re not a SxE band”); probably because when they started (1985) Mike ‘Judge’ Ferraro (connected with ‘Youth Of Today’) played drums in the band… There was even a documentary made about them in the beginning of the 90s. In the band on this tour: Jon Biviano (guitar), Richard Edsell (drums; replacing Andy Guida), Mark Randall (bass; replacing Joe Graziano) & Mark Ryan (vocals). They released the 7” What Did We Learn on Combined Effort recs (NY hardcore label) in 1989 an LP entitled The Earth Is Flat, on Revelation recs in 1990 (“Heavy, brooding music with a lot of emotion.”). ‘Supertouch’ played with ‘Farside’ (also on Revelation recs) at the 1 in 12 in Bradford (92-12-19) but they didn’t tour together, they sort of linked up in the UK. ‘Supertouch’ crossed the Channel that night to end their tour on the continent… ‘Farside’ also played in Leeds on 92-12-29.

‘Subway Arts’ 1^st gig here… Not their last: 93-02-06, 93-07-04, 93-08-01, 94-04-02, … The Luxemburgers released a split 12” (All Life is Equal) together with their mates of ‘No More’ in 1991. They were: Claude ‘Bourano’ Bour (drums; Mike played on the split-lp but left also soon after), Steve ‘Diff’ Differding (guitar), Fränz Laureys (bass), Sabrina D’Aurelio (vocals; David on the split-lp) and Xavier (guitar).

‘Spirit Of Youth’ had played plenty of times before this one: 91-06-08, 91-09-01, 91-12-21, 92-08-09 & 92-09-05. Their line-up here was the one of the Abyss 7” (Crucial Response recs) – recorded at Cats studio in Brugge, October 1992 – with Jan (Maelfait) back on vocals (after a short stint by Ed ‘N.O.F.’), little Fred (Frederik Denolf) hitting the drums, Ignace De Meyer on bass and ‘Dompie’ (Dominiek Denolf) playing guitar. Their performance here was taped (see cover) and there’s also some video-footage on the H8000 DVD.

‘Spirit Of Youth’, Jan crowdsurfing (supported by Peter Hoeren and others)

Brob

I didn’t tour with ‘Supertouch’ (nor ‘Farside’)…

Jordan Cooper, Revelation recs

I wasn’t in the band in 1992. I’m on the 7” from ‘88 and The Earth Is Flat. We broke up in ‘91. I came back in July 2010. I don’t know who was in the band when I was not.

Andrew Guida, ‘Supertouch’ drummer

Our European tour of October-December 1992 was arranged by Steffen Rose at Navigator Booking. ‘Supertouch’ played in Ieper a day after playing a show in Bradford, England. We were really pressed for time so we did the Bradford gig, loaded up the van immediately after and started driving to Dover to catch a ferry. Our driver from Berlin (Tobias) was very good and got us to the ferry in great time. The boat took us from Dover to Calais, France and instantly got back on the road to Belgium. We reached the gig a little late but with enough time to set up and play a full set but unfortunately we missed the two bands before us. The staff were very nice. They fed us after the show and supplied us with drinks and a case of beer. Everyone we hung out with that night was very cool. It was a good after-gig party. I vaguely remember the room we played in but I do remember the stage was fully carpeted. I found that interesting. The club let us stay the night. We all slept on the carpeted stage, with our backline still set up. I also remember the beer the venue gave us (Duvel). So whenever I have a Duvel, I think of Ieper. It was our only show in Belgium on that tour in 1992.

Jon Biviano, ‘Supertouch’ guitarist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

This ‘Jawbreaker’ tour was organised by Mary Jane Weatherbee (later MRR collaborator; she ran Lookout! recs UK, together with Aidan Taylor & Christy Colcord). ‘Jawbreaker’ resided in the Californian Bay Area (Berkeley/San Francisco) and played melodic hardcore. They were guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach (and lead-vocalist; with very recognisable, hoarse vocals), bassist Chris Bauermeister and drummer Adam Pfahler. Their music was melodic mid-tempo HC. I’d seen them play live in San Francisco in 1989 and liked them a lot… But when they signed to Geffen recs (a major label) – after this tour – my ‘love’ for them cooled down a lot…but hey, they were “never punk” (their own words)… They had been announced already before (92-10-04) but didn’t show up then… They had a bunch of 7”s and LPs under their belt by this time. Their latest ‘DIY’ LP 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (out on S.F. label Tupelo recs) was recorded May/August ‘93.

photo from Stonehenge #3 (Christophe Mora’s zine)

‘Lash Out’ was a Norwegian hardcore/metal (“combining dark metal and classic hardcore”) band from Molde. Members were: Anders Wimpelman (vocals), Bjørnar Næss (guitar), Vegard Waske (drums), Frank Johannessen (guitar) and Håvard Godøy (bass). They had some records out on Stormstrike recs from Germany. The Worn Path 12” was recorded in June 1994. That year there was also a split-7” released with ‘Contention’ (also from Norway; ‘Onward’s Arne Olav Haabeth sang for them); these were supposed to come along as support but that didn’t happen. The tour-schedule mentions two dates in Langemark but I guess that was because this was where their contact Joost Noyelle (‘Congress’) was living. They played there the day after this one (with ‘Blindfold’ and ‘Congress’).

‘Undone’ appeared here for the 2^nd time (after 94-04-23) and they’ld play here a few times more. A bunch of great friends: Christophe Mora (drums; Stonehenge recs & distro), Stéphane ‘Scholl’ Brochier (guitar, also did Kleines Mädchen distro & Infest zine), Stéphane ‘Stu’ Joly (bass & vocals; later ‘Ananda) and Sullivan ‘Sully’ Chédanne (vocals). They had recorded for the split-EP with ‘Shatter The Myth’ earlier that year. The studio-sessions for the Dark Future LP weren’t until April 1995…

‘Undone’ photos courtsey of Joeri Hoste

Can’t remember who ‘Bitter Smile’ (also from France but not ‘Behind The Smile’) were…

Nice meeting up with Olivier Lépine (another correspondent) here aswell. And Aaron ‘Cometbus’!

Brob

To be honnest, I don’t have a lot of specific memories of ‘Undone’s gigs in Ieper… All I remember is that it was always such a pleasure and a great moment for us to drive up there and meet up with all our friends. We had the feeling to be part of something larger and more coherent, thanks to the people we met there and the experience we had…

Christophe Mora

‘Jawbreaker’ in 1994; I must have been there. Christy & I organized that tour together.

Mary Jane Weatherbee

I was at the ‘Jawbreaker’ show in the Vort’n Vis. I was so overwhelmingly happy to see people again after moving alone for so long and far… [Aaron (who’s zine Cometbus I’d been distributing) was riding his bike through several European countries; he wrote about it in one of his issues.]

Aaron ‘Cometbus’; personal communication

I certainly remember our Vort’n Vis gig, midways in our European tour… ‘It was initiated and organised by Johannes Schrammel of our German record-label Stormstrike recs. We were on the road for approximately 2 months, playing shows in Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and UK. As far as I can recall, our show at V.V. was OK, an enjoyable affair, musically and socially. I guess we did our usual ‘94 European tour set, which mostly contained material from the mini-album released the same year (Worn Path), in addition to maximum 1 song from our ‘93 debut The Darkest Hour, 1-2 songs that were to be featured on the ‘95 album (What Absence Yields) and probably a cover (Burning Fight by ‘Inside Out’, Just Like You by ‘Judge’ or Break Down The Walls by ‘Youth Of Today’)…

Anders Wimpelman, ‘Lash Out’ vocalist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

‘Virtual Reality’ (Bradford) was a project/band that played ‘Black Sabbath’ influenced stuff (varying from groovy beats and heavy riffs to techno-based tracks) featuring Brian Talbot (guitarist of ‘Doom’; here on bass). He’d teamed up with Steve Butler (guitar) and Darron ‘Bill’ Ward (vocals), both of ‘The Next World’ (see 90-05-01). At this time they still used a drum-machine. They did a split-7” with ‘Neuthrone’ on Genet recs in 1994 and released their LP Dreamstate (Genet recs & Flat Earth recs) in 1995. During this tour here, they also did a show in Brugge where ‘Health Hazard’ played aswell (94-03-26) so I guess they were touring at the same time… Bruno (Genet) invited them over a couple of times more (94-05-08 & 96-04-27).

‘Virtual Reality'; photo by Wim De Leersnijder

The Bradfordian invasion was complete with ‘Health Hazard’ (uncle Sned & Alec’s band between ‘One By One’ and ‘Suffer’) on the bill. They had been here already the summer before (93-09-18) and even earlier on this tour 94-03-05. They also did a gig here when Mandy had quit already 95-02-11. Their set in Toulouse (94-02-22) was recorded and Fred Jourdan (‘Ultimate Disorder’) put it out on a split-tape (with ‘Hiatus’). After this tour they recorded (with Bri ‘Doom’ Talbot behind the desk) for their 10” (released on Alec & Sned’s Flat Earth recs). For those who don’t know (?) or can’t remember: “abrasive, thrashing, overpowering blasts of hardcore fury with caustic female vocals”…

‘Brawl’ (another Genet band: they did their LP entitled Gulag on Bruno’s label – it was recorded July ‘94), had also been here before (93-09-04) and would come back (95-09-08). They toured with ‘Fleas & Lice. They were from Ireland and played straightforward HC/punk with some slower parts; some people said they have ‘Fugazi’ influences but I don’t hear that…

‘Fleas & Lice’ also didn’t need an introduction anymore (after 93-02-06). On the photo of this night we see vocalist Robbie Tempel, Joshua Lagerwerf (bass) & Esther (vocals). The others were Piet/Pierre Erickson (guitar) and Maynard Schut (drums). A few weeks after this, they recorded (in Dublin) for the split-LP with ‘Bleeding Rectum’ (another band with ‘Brawl’s drummer ‘Crispo’). The band would come back once more: 95-07-09.

‘Fleas & Lice'; photo by Wim De Leersnijder

Probably the band that holds the record of number of shows at the Vort’n Vis (being locals and having ‘signed’ to Genet recs): Steve Wackenier (guitar & vocals), David Stubbe (drums) & Tim ‘Nutje’ Denutte (bass). (Jan Lacante, an old budy of the band, just sang on recordings done in 1994 who were released in 2004). ‘Neuthrone’ had a split-7” with ‘Virtual Reality’ out. Their track Silverline (recorded Augustus 1993) should’ve been on another 7” already but something went wrong, so it was used for this split.

‘Portobello Bones’ were a “noise rock” combo from Tours/Orléans (France) with Lionel Fahy (guitar/vocals; Forked Tongues zine), Franck Leprêtre (drums) & Jeremy Johnson (bass/vocals). Or was Fabrice Metais still playing bass? At that time they had a 7” (Negative) under their belt, and a self-titled album. Not sure if they actually played (but they were announced in the newsletter)… Lionel says they didn’t but he did write me in ’94 thanking for the hospitality (see below)…

Brob

The picture shows ‘V.R.’ before we got a real drummer. L => R: Steve, Darron & me. Duncan (an old punk band from Hebden Bridge; he used drum in ‘Crash’, they did a split EP with ‘Crux’) joined on drums later.

Brian Talbot, ‘Virtual Reality’s bassist

‘Neuthrone’ indeed did a split-7” with ‘Virtual Reality’ and we toured with them (also with ‘Health Hazard’) in April 1994: Belgium, The Netherlands & Germany.

Steve Wackenier

Our track on the split with ‘Virtual Reality’ was from the same recording-session as the second single – relased right before or after the tour with ‘V.R.’ & ‘Health Hazard’. The title was “Silver Linings” [Silverline] but I hadn’t gotten that… Jan Lacante sang for ‘Neuthrone’ for about a year (e.g. on the Tilleherte demo).

David Stubbe

We all have great memories of Belgium becasue over there people know how to be hospitable. We’re definitely not anarcho-punks nor do we play pure, politically engaged hardcore but we all know which side we’re on…

Lionel Fahy, ‘Portobello Bones’ guitarist; personal communication ’94

About sleeping-places… Last time we played there, people were coming in and woke us up all night. Early in the morning someone was also playing drums. So we didn’t get much sleep. But the breakfast was excellent…

Piet, ‘Fleas & Lice’ guitarist

Six months after our first appearance, it was back to the V.V. on tour again with ‘Brawl’. Their bassplayer was still not touring with them so I got the call again to fill in. On this tour we were out every gig with ‘Fleas & Lice’ from Groningen – we are life-long friends at this stage, and they are one of the main instigators of the annual GGI festival which is organised every year rotating between the punks and bands of Groningen, Glasgow and Ireland.

I also had a replacement Rickenbacker thanks to Kleister of Skuld releases (organising for me to buy one of Flo from ‘Squandered Message’ in Berlin who was selling it – a real stroke of luck). Unfortunately this one would also be stolen in later years! I am on my third Ric now – if that is ever stolen, I will take that as my cue to retire…

Anyway, there was a big Bradford contingent on the day there too with both UK bands containing mutual friends and acquaintances of members of ‘Brawl’ and ‘Fleas & Lice’ – it was always great to play such line-ups as you were guaranteed to meet up with old friends and to make new ones. I think ‘Sned’ from ‘Health Hazard’ may be the only person who could equal ‘Crispo’ for the amount of great bands he has played in over the years. Murt of ‘Brawl’ was a non-drinker and never missed a chance to network at such gigs to get the band new contacts/gigs/releases, etc. – a shrewd and charismatic guy when it came to promoting his band – that combined with the fact the guys had their own van (a total rarity in Ireland at that time for any band) meant they were the first DIY punk band from the South of Ireland to tour Europe. I was so glad to be along for the ride. Good times.

On the gig itself: I remember very little of it other than some of the bands on the bill were a bit too noisy for my liking – I had started to get older and do the old jaded touring guys trick of half-listening to the bands whilst drinking outside and talking shite to whoever would listen – a habit I carry with me to this very day.

Thomas Maguire a.k.a. ‘Tommy Trousers’

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Edward Verhaeghe (‘Nations On Fire’):

“This concert was the first in a long series where everyone felt really good. What a wonderful atmosphere! Everyone was super-friendly to everyone: Liège ‘loves’ 8000 crew … or something of that kind??? Fantastic. This is the day where cook Hans [Verbeke; ‘Blindfold’, SoberMind recs] decided to ‘sign’ ‘Virtual Reality’. Also a day where all bias and stereotyping was contradicted. Some would describe this in many poetic verses.”

additions wellcome!…

The ‘Varukers’ played a bunch of gigs in Belgium in 1986 but then kinda ‘disappeared’…to re-emerge in the 90s (they’d split and reformed). On their website (www.thevarukers.com) ‘Rat’ wrote: “I think about 2 years or less had past, when ‘Biff’ got in touch with me and mentioned that the ‘Varukers’ should get back together, ‘Biff’ would play guitar; ‘Rat’ on vocals, Kev Frost on drums and ‘Biff’s mate Brian on bass (This was the longest running and most stable line we ever had.). We recorded and released the 7” Nothings Changed (‘cause nothing had, the music, the attitude, the underpants) on Weird recs [in 1994; which indeed featured Anthony ‘Rat’ Martin (vocals; also in ‘Discharge’), Kev Frost (drums), ‘Biff’ Ian Smith (guitar) & Brian Ansell (bass)] and it sold well. Nothing’s Changed let people know we were back and offers for tours came flooding in: the band’s first American tour in 1994, a tour of Japan; the momentum was growing, we signed to We Bite recs from Germany and released Still Bollox But Still Here (1995), new versions of some of the band’s early materials that a lot of people could not get hold of the originals, unless they wanted to get ripped off by record-dealers.”. I guess people know ‘Varukers’ played D-beat à la Discharge… (The year after, 95-07-09, they would be back already)… The line-up changed quite a few times; people that were in the band at certain timepoints include Les Duly (‘Concrete Sox’), Todd (‘Distraught’, USA), ‘Kenko’ (‘No Security’, Swe), ‘Taff’ (‘Chaos UK’), etc. Tony ‘Stick’ Dickens (‘Doom’, etc.) plays drums for them nowadays…

‘4 Minute Warning’ were a gang of squatters from Gent: Fred ‘Fré’ De Vos (vocals), Leffe (guitar, ex ‘Chronic Disease’), Tom Van Hauwaert (drums) and Gratiën Versypt (bass). There were also some extra vocalists (Bart/Marleen) at a certain timepoint, if I remember well… They just had some tracks on a compilation-tape. Leffe told me he only played at the Vort’n Vis once with ‘4MW’ and Tom revealed that the one on 93-02-06 was indeed without him…

‘Corpus Christi’, by this time a new line-up, were: Bram De Cock (drums), Peter Vancolen (vocals), Stef De Leersnijder (guitar) & Koen ‘Siesele’ Lammens (bass). See also 92-11-22, 93-10-31, 93-11-21, 94-09-16

‘Corpus Christi': (1-2-3) by Wim De Leersnijder; (4) by Jurgen ‘Spatje’ Fiems

‘Agathocles’ (Jan Fredrickx – bass/vocals, Steve Houtmeyers – guitar/vocals) and Burt Beyens- drums). Second show at the V.V.? (91-09-01, 94-09-17, 95-11-05)

Brob

‘Agathocles’ (pic by Wim De Leersnijder)

This was the only gig that Marleen Deneys did with us… We played an anti-XXX song (Middleclass Rebellion) and the PA was briefly turned off (by Ward ‘N.O.F.’???). Our first concert at the V.V. was indeed just Gratiën, Tom and me. The gig in Oldenburg was with ‘Oi Polloi’ and ‘Legal Suffering’ [from Brugge]. We did a gig @ Democrazy (Gent; organised by ‘Zwarte’ Jan) [93-12-03] with Bart ‘Xinix’ singing. He didn’t know our lyrics and had written them on a piece of paper. We did a “cover” of ‘The Dead Kirks’ song Mr. Kirk, Your Son Is Dead. A bit before a bunch of nazi-skins had died in a car-crash so we sang “He died in a car crash.” Instead of “He died of an overdose.”. Stefaan Van Leuven (‘Soulwax’) rehearsed with us a few times (for fun). He was a buddy of mine; he wasn’t into punk but we swapped tapes and he thought ‘Crass’ and ‘Conflict’ were OK.

‘Fré’ De Vos, ‘4 Minute Warning’ vocalist

‘4 Minute Warning': (1) by Wim De Leersnijder; (2-3-4-5) courtesy of Fré De Vos

Don’t recall much more than being super-psyched about playing with ‘Varukers’… and the healthy rivalry between us and ‘Corpus Christi’… according to some haha…

Tom Van Hauwaert, ‘4 Minute Warning’ drummer

I’d made the banner of Squatter Bart especially for the trip the Germany (our gig in Oldenburg; 93-12)…

Gratiën Versypt, ‘4 Minute Warning’ bassist

I know we played with ‘Varukers’ in Geel [94-05-02] but forgot about this one…

Peter Van Colen, ‘Corpus Christi’ vocalist

This was our first time out for a very long time. I definitely remember this venue as we slept upstairs & it was bloody freezing!!! The windows were broken and the mattresses were on a concrete floor. We also nearly killed ‘Rat’ as he snored all night! I remember the bassplayer Brian passing out just before we went on stage due to drinking too much. He can always still play notes perfect though. We were well pissed if I remember correctly as we had been out all day. I recall the venue well though. Reminded me of an old café. Small stage & great audience. The ‘Varukers’ line up at that time in my opinion was their best.

I have vague memories of ‘Corpus Christi’ whom I liked. The other bands I’m afraid I have no recollection. Over the years we played with thousands of bands. 99% I have no idea about.

Great venue & we played there again over the coming years (with ‘Chaos UK’) [95-07-09].

Kevin Frost, ‘Varukers’ drummer

Looking at the date of this gig, I guess we played a lot of new songs which we had just recorded for split 7”s with ‘Man Is The Bastard’, ‘Social Genocide’, ‘Audiorrea’, ‘Smash The Brain’…at the end of 1993. A session which was more D-beat/raw punk inspired. As most of the time, it was again very nice to play at V.V. and also to meet people from that time. Great to see these old photos.

Jan Fredrickx, ‘Agathocles’

I remember that we played a ‘Varukers’ cover, as a tribute: Protest To Survive, if I’m right…

Bram De Cock, ‘Corpus Christi’ drummer

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

‘Kito’ and ‘Baby Harp Seal’ toured together; in Belgium they also played in Tongeren (94-07-12 @ Concordia’; with ‘Down By Law’ (& Dave Smalley), ‘Kosjer D’ and ‘Who Moved The Ground’) and in Leuven. They toured in 1995 and ’97 aswell (see 95-07-14).

‘Kito’ (from Middlesbrough) played, as Ian Glasper put it, “gnarly hardcore punk-rock in the vein of ‘Rorschach’…” others described it as anarcho-punk meets sludgecore. There was a definite metal influence. Originals were Rob(ert) Hallowes (vocals), Matt Burke (guitar) and the omnipresent Tom Chapman. The latter played bass for them but when he relocated to Lille by the end of summer 1992, he was replaced by Chris Coulthard. He switched to guitar when Chris Campbell-Lee joined to play bass. Chris Coulthard left in ’93 and was replaced by Stu(art) Smith. Fom Ian Gasper’s book: “1994 saw the band heading out to Europe for the first time with ‘Baby Harp Seal’ before unleashing their debut EP, Johnson, Mary: 188897764. Tom would re-join in March 1995 (read 95-07-14) when Matt Burke had left. So playing here were Rob ‘Kito’, Matt Burke, Chris Campbell & Stu Smith; Matt(hew) Woodward (also ‘Sofa Head’; see 93-03-28) was the drummer (and the photographer)… Besides the aforementioned 7” (out in ’94 on Richard Corbridge’s Armed With Anger recs), they also did a split-7” with ‘Konstrukt’ from Austria (Hammerwerk, ’95) and later (‘98) Sned released an LP on his label Flat Earth recs.

‘Kito’, photographed by Ian Congdon

‘Baby Harp Seal’ (Leeds) played emo “in the vein of ‘Fugazi’/‘Hoover’/‘Heroin’…”. They were: Neil Turpin (drums; also ‘Polaris’), Rob(ert) Holden (guitar/vocals; also ‘Manfat’) and Seth Bennett (bass). Tom Chapman (guitar) left the band when he was moving to Berlin – where he did Now Or Never zine – and was replaced by Andrew Raine in 1995. They did a split-7” with ‘Polaris’ (Kwyjibo ’94), a self-titled 7” (sometimes referred to as Devour; on Helene Keller’s Subjugation recs in‘94) and another self-titled 7” (Chainsaw Safety recs from NY, ’95). In March ’95 they recorded tracks for a split-7” with ‘Kosjer D’ (co-release of Genet recs & Jason Kilvington a.k.a. Jase Kilvo’s label Caught Offside recs) and the LP on Subjugation was recorded in early 1996. Jason also joined them on this tour…

‘Chorus Of Disapproval’ & ‘Ironside’ on tour (source unknown)

Vegan sXe metalcore or hardline? ‘Ironside’ (from Bradford) were here for the 2^nd time (after 92-09-05). This must’ve been around the time their Damn Your Blooded Eyes 7” (recorded April ‘94) was out on Stormstrike. Still in the band were Rich(ard) Michael Armitage and Doug(las) Dalziel (bass). The rest (Nick Royles formed ‘Cracked Cop Skulls’ with ‘Ripcord’s Jim Whitely) had left to be replaced by Shaun (Taylor-)Steels (drums; later in ‘My Dying Bride’, ‘Solstice’ & ‘Anathema’) and guitarists James Rushby (later ‘Geriatric Unit’, ‘Hard To Swallow’, etc.) & Clive Hughes. Armitage wrote about their tour with ‘Chorus of Disapproval’: “The biggest mismatch ever – us listening to ‘[Black] Sabbath’ on the booze, them not.”.

I once read someone calling ‘Chorus Of Disapproval’ awesome “two-brain-cell” XXX-mosh… Singer Isaac had a huge ‘X’-tattoo on the calf… They travelled through Europe with ‘Ironside’; a tour organised by Steffen Rose (Navigator). You guessed that they were a straight-edge hardcore band (from Long Beach, California): Isaac Golub (vocals), Jeff Banks (guitar; also briefly in ‘Half Off’), RD Walter Davies (drums, replacing original drummer Jerome ‘Jerry’ P. Hohman) and Regis Guerin (bass). That year New Age recs put out their discography under the title Firm Standing Law.

‘Who Moved the Ground?’ (from Farnborough) were: Richard (guitar & lead-vocals), Sid Stovold (guitar & vocals), Chris Redmond (drums & vocals) and Les Green (bass). Sounded/felt a bit like an indie band to me. They’d sent me some promo-stuff but I wasn‘t really keen or able to help out. Don’t know how they ended up at the V.V. anyway… In their own words they were influenced by ‘Mega City Four’, ‘Bad Religion’, ‘New Model Army’ and ‘The Housemartins’. They had 2 7”s out on Icarus recs by that time: Barneydancing (’93) & The Chase / What’s That? (’94).

Brob

I guess we met a couple of times over the years, Brob – I used to be in several UK bands (‘Ironside’, ‘Kito’, ‘Baby Harp Seal’), then in bands when I lived in Germany (‘Miozan’, ‘Battle Royale’, ‘Cold War’). Now I’m back in the UK playing in a punk band ‘Geoffrey Oi!Cott’. I spent a year living in Lille (France) so I used to go a lot to Ieper, Roeselare, Kortrijk, etc. to hang out and for gigs… I even had a couple of issues of your fanzine Tilt!… ‘B.H.S.’ would have been Neil, Seth, Rob & Andy Raine at that time. Neil left and was replaced by Chris and that was the last line-up. Mark Simms was in ‘Bob Tilton’ but not in ‘B.H.S.’. He might have been a guest or fill in here and there but not a member. He recorded us though…

Tom Chapman

All I remember from that show was that nobody showed up! We played Dunkerque first so the V.V. was the second show on that tour…

Matt Woodward, ‘Kito’ drummer

I was in ‘Manfat’ but only played the Vort’n Vis with ‘Kito’; this one here…

Matt Burke

Indeed, I wasn’t in that ‘Kito’ line-up.

Chris Coulthard

I remember it being really hot. ‘Chorus Of Disapproval’ were all either very tall or very wide. Rob from ‘B.H.S.’ had made shirts out of old pyjama tops for sale.

Jase Kilvo

I only played in the second version of the band, I think they did play this one before I joined.

Andrew Raine, ‘Baby Harp Seal’

I was at that show. Memory sketchy. I drove ‘Kito’ and ‘B.H.S.’ around Europe that summer.

Ian Congdon

I wasn’t there. That’s when ‘Ironside’ went sludge doom.

Nick Royles

My band ‘Who Moved The Ground?’ played at the Vort’n Vis. We were a young ska/punk band in the middle of a 6 week European tour that took us to Poland, France, Belgium and Germany. Not sure how we got the gig, we did everything ourselves. I think it may have been me that made contact with someone called Joeri [Hoste?], who had something to do with organising things. He even let us sleep in a tent in his garden after the show.

Being a ska/punk band we were considerably ‘lighter’ than the other bands on the bill. We made friends with ‘Baby Harp Sea’ and ‘Kito’ though, I even ended up with one of their vinyl 7”s (I’m a huge vinyl-collector) in my luggage when we arrived back from the tour. Anyway, the venue was amazing, everyone was really nice and friendly, food and drink supplied to all the bands as they seemed to know how hard it was for touring bands. We played football outside and 4 of our friends came over to see us from England. Our singer even had to dash off after our soundcheck to pick them up from the port. The gig itself flew by, being on nice and early the venue wasn’t over-crowded but that didn’t put us off, although I think the crowd wanted something a lot heavier. We played our hearts out (as we always did), hung around to watch the other bands, made friends and generally had an excellent time. Great place, really great memories.

Sid Stovold, ‘Who Moved The Ground?’ guitarist

‘Who Moved The Ground?’, pic courtesy of Sid Stovold

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

artist’s impression of the Vort’n Vis?

There was a whole anti-women rant in the guestbook aswell (‘C.O.D’? / Brad Hamilton?); I’m leaving that out…obviously.

Who was Tommy?

additions wellcome!…

 follow-up to 94-08-19&20&21 Hardcore Festival

I admit that I don’t recall these events very well. I was 24 years old, I’m writing this 20+ years later. I don’t remember which bands played, what I ate, where I slept, and a lot more, but I still have vivid emotions about those days. The Vort’n Vis was the hardcore punk centre of Europe, the place where you had to be. I am very happy to be reminded about it. Yes, I was there and I can’t forget it.

It wasn’t easy to get to Ieper. I didn’t have the money because I didn’t have a job. Mum and dad payed a part, and temp jobs were my income. Air-travel was ruled out immediately, trains were cheaper. Another travel to Belgium after less than a year (after being there on tour with ‘Eversor’). This time a holiday with Interrail, discount-tickets to travel by train in Europe. What I did, is in the following report that was published in my zine Tough Guys Don’t Dance; it was an attempt to say something about things outside the confinement of our Italian boundaries. The English language was a means to communicate outside the country. I could have done more to distribute it though… All was translated by Andrea Marra (the author of The Vort’n Vis Experience). I did the rest (editing – a matrix-printer and a photocopier – and photos).

A fun fact: I remember that the bathrooms were partially out of order (too many people) after a couple of days; and there was a lake of water, piss and shit between the building and the yard…and crusties were wading through it as if it was a normal thing.

I don’t remember much about the bands at all! The concerts were only part of the fun, the main thing was the atmosphere. I liked almost all the bands and knew about them all, so it wasn’t crucial to talk about them in the zine. I still listen to hardcore music, I never quit it.

Massimo Moscarelli (Rome)

Some of Massimo Moscarelli’s photos (grazie mille!) – band-pics will follow in the actual posts on the festival-days:

crowd-shots

upstairs [1: Bruno entertaining the Italians (L => R: Giangiacomo De Stefano (‘Ivory Cage’), Paolo Petralia (S.O.A. recs/’Comrades’/’Colonna Infame’), Andrea ‘Ics’ Ferraris (‘Burning Defeat’/‘One Fine Day’), Andrea Marra (‘Comrades’/’Notorius’/’Bruma’), one of the Marini twins (‘Comrades’/‘Timebomb’); 2: Paolo Petralia, Massimo Moscarelli & one of the Marini twins; 3: Andrea Marra]

in the courtyard [1: Bruno ‘Genet’ & ‘Goofy’ (R); 2: prom-queen & -king Vique ‘Simba’ & Ward ‘N.O.F.'; 3: Bruno’s biz]

walk on by (or not) [2: Pawel ‘Scream’ from Poland selling stuff; 3: ‘Hazel’ (Bernd B. in the background)]

Massimo, the warrior and his aid (Jeroen Lauwers)

additions wellcome!…

Evolution of announcements in the Vort’n Vis newsletters

=> the actual ‘bill':

15 sep ’95: Undone (Fra), Suffer (UK), Carol (Ger)

16 sep ’95: D.D.I. (Ita), Oi Polloi (UK), Glue (UK), Coche Bomba (Fra), Insane Youth (Bel), Carcer Molochi (Bel), Rawness (Fra), Systral (Ger)

17 sep ’95: Spite (UK), Catweazle (Nl), Extinction Of Mankind (UK), Uutuus (Fin) => Äpärä Kaaos (Fin/Tur) [don’t think Contramenation (Ger) played]

(Quite a few other bands had been announced: Fleas & Lice (Nl) played a couple of months earlier, Brawl (Ire) came over a week before, Defiance (USA) a month later; gigs for Subcaos (Por; Joao Abrantes had left the band) / Sanctus Iuda (Pol) / Dread Messiah (UK) / Meanwhile (Swe) with ‘No Security’s Jallo Lehto & Mattias Kennhed / Kirous (Fin) / Luzifers Mob (Ger) / Third World Disease (Fin) / Warcollapse (Swe) toured Germany, Poland, Czech Republic & Austria with ‘E.O.M.’ in September ‘95 / … fell through for some reason)

* reviewed in Persons Unknown (Luxembourg zine) #2 by Brego *

Brego interviews Piero Majocchi of AZ distro/label (‘D.D.I.’)

There’s some photos of the distro-stalls, visiters and the run-in with the police in In and around the Vort’n Vis …

Some people that visited that weekend: Ilja S. (Yahoo distribution, Berlin) and his girlfriend, Gregor Kanitz & Sascha May (Evilspeak zine, Düsseldorf), Sas (‘Anarcrust’ bassist & Kbaal distribution, Rotterdam), Enco Durđević (vocalist of ‘No Limits’, Koper, Slovenia), ‘Bumpy’ of ‘Sea Shepherd’ (Orléans, France), Luc Ardilouze (Scream zine, Bayonne, France), …

‘Suffer’ meets ‘D.D.I.’ (1: Gazza, Mac, Mila, Gio, Sned / 2: Sned, Dario, Mac)

‘Oi Polloi’ & friends

Matt Finch: “Calum Mackenzie (blue top), I’m holding the bottle, next me is Colin Douglas (‘Oi Polloi’ driver). Don’t know who the guy with the dreads is.”.

Colin Douglas: “There is 4 people that I know from Slovenia there. Is that Riley beside me? The person next to Deek is Lea, and Matjaž in front of Deek. The guy behind Calum is Enzo and his partner is in front of Calum.”

Enco Durđević: “Matjaž, Lea ‘Piercing’, Marija and myself. On the left are two Finnish guys [Jonne & ‘Pedro’ from Äpärä Kaaos]. Matjaž [Lican] used to do the Atomic Fart distro-label [live-tapes of concerts at MKNZ in Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia]. We traveled from Koper [Slovenia] to Ieper in my old Yugo (car). I did around 20 hours of driving in one direction…”

Local (Menen/Roeselare) straight-edge hardcore band ‘Regression’ was announced but didn’t play. Perhaps because they just switched drummers? (Bjorn Lescouhier, ex ‘Shortsight’ replaced Raf – who played in ‘Liar’.)

‘Steadfast’, a band playing “powerful new-school sXe hardcore” from the Osnabrück/Munster region, didn’t play either. Thier guitarist Stefan Uhe and their bassist Volker Pohlschmidt (R.I.P.) did visit.

‘Chokehold’ wasn’t announced but they showed up anyway; read the story below. Also ‘Solid’, ‘Concrete’ and ‘End In Sight’ were added to the bill…

18 aug ’95: The Jedi (Bel), Solid (Bel), Burning Defeat (Ita)

19 aug ’95: Veil (Ger), Concrete (Ita), Doughnuts (Swe), Rancor (Nl), Mainstrike (Nl), Blindfold (Bel), Comrades (Ita), Kosjer D (Bel), Congress (Bel), Abhinanda (Swe)

20 aug ’95: Churn (Bel), By All Means (Ita), Liar (Bel), Fungus (Bel), Timebomb (Ita), End In Sight (Swe), Chokehold (Can)

If I remember correctly Christophe Mora (‘Undone’, Stonehenge recs) was there. Henk Smit (Kangaroo recs) was selling records. Patrick Federli took photos… Yann Boislève from Rennes wrote a review about this fest in his SxE newsletter #13.

Brob

Mathias Hartmann and I attended together. The V.V. was too full, the weather nice, so we slept a few hundred metres away on some nice grass in front of a church, I think. People strolling by the next morning were not amused about us. ;-)

This summer-festival in the bigger ‘hall’ in the back of the V.V. I remember ‘Kosjer D’ and ‘Chokehold’ from Canada played there. The ‘Chokehold’ guys were coming from the train-station with their guitars and bass in hand. Their European tour [with ‘Feeding The Fire’] was a mess (some of the last gigs of their tour got cancelled) and they got robbed if I remember correctly. I felt sorry for them for having such a bad experience over here. They mention it in an interview.

Carsten Pötter, Frankfurt

If my memory serves me right, this was my first Ieper HardCore Fest. I turned 18 just a few months earlier, I had a very broad musical taste ranging from simple hardrock to the most extreme black/death metal, but it was just a year or so that I really started to appreciate the HC-scene and started to attend a lot more HC shows than metal. Because of the music and especially the very metallic sound of the H8000 bands, but also because the HC-scene was – in my eyes and at the time – a much more interesting scene with a lot more open-minded people (that was of course, pure bullshit, but it was a nice smoke-screen that got me fooled for a while :-) …). You soon learn that assholes are everywhere but so are nice people really… You just need to know who to avoid, that’s all. :-)

Anyway, I remember this fest as the most underground thing I had ever seen or been to… I just took a backpack with some basic ‘go-away’-stuff and just headed to Ieper… There was not really a camping back in those days. I remember people sleeping in the bar, the barn, on the upper floors. I remember those funny Hare-Krishna kids that seemed to attend every show in the whole Benelux (bands like ‘Abhinanda’ and other Umea-area bands were kinda the big thing then… So a lot of people became Krishna all of a sudden – LOL).

All the bands I have seen then performed legendary sets… I was just blasted away by the atmosphere … The barn was as full as it could get and then some more, people were flying all over the place, the pictures I have of that HC fest are still some of my favourite ones. It was pure madness!!! HC the way it should be! Massive mosh-pits, pile-ups, sing-alongs, circle-pits, you name it… From morning till evening, all day long. If I were to attend now, I probably would see 1 band and need 2 other sets to catch my breath… Yeah, we were young and unstoppable then :-).

I remember also ‘taking a shower’ on the Ieper market, in the fountains with a lot of people… It was a ‘group-shower’ (at least 30 people, strength in numbers huh?) in the morning. With all the soap we used, the market was quickly transformed into a big foamy place. :-) Lotsa fun, but not appreciated by the police… Ah well…what’s new???

Also, we met some nice gothic kids and had a very cool evening in their bar ‘Den Donkeren Helft’ [The Dark Half]… After an afternoon of HC-metal, nothing better than some wave/EBM/gothic to relax a little. :-). Since that day, I always go to that bar when I go to Ieper (I think it’s gone now…).

I have very fond memories of ‘Liar’, ‘Congress’, ‘Veil’, ‘Comrades’, ‘Mainstrike’, ‘Abhinanda’ and ‘End In Sight’. You can see me going nuts on the back of the H8000 The Way It Is – European SxE HC compilation-CD (GoodLife recs)… I’m in the picture with ‘Mainstrike’ playing in the barn at that fest. [Brob: There was also a pic ont the ‘Mainstrike’ 7”?] A lot of bands that played that summer in Ieper are on the CD.

After that weekend I got home with sooooo many adresses and phone-numbers, I didn’t know where to start… I made a lot of friends, had wonderfull conversations,… good times in general! From then on until 2005 I attended every single HC fest… but none were so memorable than my first one… And for me, the Vort’n Vis became an icon of underground DIY music.

Greg ‘DragonBreath’ (90s zine; Bruxel)

I’ve only been to Vort’n Vis once, back in the summer of 1995. I went there for, what we called then, the Vort’n Vis festival. I remember a lot of Italian bands were playing, so it felt like I knew half of the people at the fest. [Brob: Dario is Croatian but lived in Rome at that time…] It was almost 20 years ago, so my memory is a bit fading, but I believe ‘Concrete’, ‘Timebomb’, ‘Comrades’, ‘Burning Defeat’ and ‘By All Means’, all from Italy (the first three from Rome), played at the festival and it was bands whose members I knew very well. I remember spending most of the time with ‘Sardo’ from ‘Tear Me Down’ [Massimo ‘Il Sardo’ Leonardi, vocalist], and I recall the sleeping-place was upstairs and there were dozens of bodies and arms+legs everywhere – it was almost impossible to find a free spot to lie down.

Everything was very DIY and there were several small distros, as well as bigger ones ran by Edward of GoodLife and Burkhard [Jünger] of GreenHell [label, record-store & mailorder in Münster, Germany]. I remember meeting one of the Boislève brothers [Yann & Pierre] for the first time at the festival, and that kid [Aaron Vyvial?] that used to make a really nice fanzine and later moved back to the US with ‘Hazel’ of ‘Rise Above’. ‘Mainstrike’ played one of their first shows and the crowd went pretty wild. I’ld see them later both in Italy and the USA. ‘Kosjer D’ were solid. I liked their first 7” a lot. I wasn’t impressed by ‘Doughnuts’ and I think I missed ‘Abhinanda’. I checked both ‘Liar’ and ‘Congress’, but that wasn’t really my cup of tea. I remember the ‘Congress’ bass-player was nice to us, but musically it’s nothing I would listen to at home…

Dario Adamic, Zips & Chains zine

I was there with Christophe (Mora). Brob, you were screaming against the business during the ‘Abhinanda’ show. I found your attitude so cool; I totally agreed with you!

Fabien Charlot, later vocals for ‘JeanxSEberg’, Bordeaux; personal communication spring ‘96

I only went to the festival on Saturday. I couldn’t stand it very long. Firstly: I felt very lonely; I didn’t feel like communicating. It didn’t feel right…the people that were attending, all that typical sXe fuss. I had the feeling that a lot of these girls and boys were just there to be seen. It seemed like a competition: who has the newest T-shirt, who can dance the hardest, who knows the most lyrics by heart? It all seemed so fake. I don’t want to generalise though: there were also kids that seemed sincere…

Dirk De Vriendt, Introverted Outlet zine; personal communication August ‘95

I was seriously annoyed: everybody’s speaking out against pollution, using big words; but for perhaps half of them it remains just that: words. Have you seen the public road? Simply outrageous! Do people still understand what HC is about? The ‘scene’ has grown enormously but the ideals haven’t evolved. I think it’s sick!

Nico Peeters, ‘Outrage’ bassist/Day One distro; personal communication August ‘95

I thought there were only few really good bands. ‘Kosjer D’, ‘Mainstrike’ & ‘Burning Defeat’ were cool though. I saw a video of the fest and it was cosy. There was a bit of a fight between ‘Rancor’s guitarist and someone. What struck me was that flirting with satanism seems to become popular…Scary, because it equals extreme rightist ideas (egoism, fascism, war, etc.).

Peter Kroes, Ruinerwold (NL); personal communication December ‘95

I’ve been at the Vort’n Vis once in 1995. I was young, my first festival abroad I think…travelling alone by train, by the way. I remember enjoying the concerts of ‘Abhinanda’, ‘Doughnuts’, ‘Congress’ a lot. There were many Italians there! ‘By All Means’ played a crazy show, ‘Timebomb’ were great. I remember buying the ‘Rorschach’ discography CD, great vegan food, soy-milk in stores (I was stoked: in Italy nobody knew what that was). I recall hanging out with several country-mates but also with the guys from ‘Abhinanda’ in some kind of disco. It was fun and I keep great memories of that weekend. I also think some of the Italian bands being pissed off for not being treated like the Swedish bands but I’m not totally sure about that, haha!!!

Borys Catelani, Montorsoli/Sesto Fiorentino (Ita), Agipunk recs

I have the worst memory so details are very sketchy! I had some amazing times at Vort’n Vis… Vique always drove and I spent a lot of time at the festivals (I was there in ’94 as well) helping out with her distro and checking out everyone else’s. In the pre-download/-streaming days it was amazing to be able to get hold of so much great stuff all in one place. My strongest memory from Vort’n Vis was ‘Kosjer D’ playing here… One of my favourite gigs ever. I think it may have been their last show… Anyway, it was so much fun – great band (totally under-rated) and an incredible moving joyous set.

Mark ‘Macca’ Wilkinson, Brighton

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

organisers Saskia & Hans Verbeke (of course together with a whole bunch of other Vort’n Vis collaborators…)

Italian visiters…

additions wellcome!…