Graspop Metal Meeting is an institution. The third largest metal festival in Europe, the 4 day, 5 stage bonanza welcomes some of metal and hard rock’s biggest bands every year since 1996. Iron Maiden is its official house band, attending no less than 10 times, and since the 2005 edition was the first time I’ve ever seen Maiden live, the festival holds a special place in my heart. Living within an hour’s drive is a sweet bonus, so I’ve made the trip multiple times over the years. This was my 5th time attending overall, the third time with my partner, and to celebrate this milestone, I gave myself homework in the form of an off-the-cuff liveblog dumped onto my unsuspecting colleagues. With more than 30 bands visited over the course of the weekend, no one in the age of TikTok would read as many full paragraphs. So instead, enjoy this rapid fire look into the confines of my mind while dust, sun, overpriced beer, painful feet and ditto knees beat my partner and me into submission over the course of 4 days of metal.
Day 1 (Thursday, 15th of June)
12:46 PM — Still at the campsite. Beast in Black sounds like ass even from this distance.
2:42 PM — Fetching a friend1 during Mammoth WVH, Wolfgang Van Halen. Sounded like good solid hard rock in his dad’s style.
4:14 PM — Spiritbox was solid and entertaining and I don’t give a shit if that makes me a hipster.
4:16 PM — Tom Morello stopped innovating 20 years ago and now it’s pretty sad honestly. Instrumental “Killing in the Name Of” followed by toothless rock while he practically begs people to jump. No thanks.
Saw another band between Morello and Epica. Later found out they’re on the shitlist for getting too cozy with Nazi cunts. I apologize for having them in this space until this rectification.
5:16 PM — Epica was surprisingly good! Lots of fire, both figurative and literal. Even got a few mosh pits going. Simons was pitch perfect too. Entertaining set.
6:35 PM — Papa Roach needs no introduction. Watched a couple songs to bridge the gap to Septicflesh, and snuck back real quick at the end just to see “Last Resort” for nostalgia’s sake. Very enthusiastic set, did not make the music less cringe.
6:36 PM — Septicflesh was the best thing today so far. The symphonics didn’t pop enough, but Seth was in great form and seeing “Communion” and “Anubis” back to back was an absolute treat.
7:24 PM — I can confirm that Arch Enemy still exists and is still doing the same mediocre uninteresting thing they always were, but nothing else was playing and the VIP deck, for which we have tickets, has good Belgian beers.
7:59 PM — At The Gates is so goddamn old guys. But unlike Arch Enemy, they still kick copious ass. And Lindberg looks a lot like Steel when he still had the grey beard.
9:49 PM — Ghost remains one of the best live bands of the moment and I will take no questions on this matter.
10:24 PM — Guns ‘n Roses. The band is playing great! Axl is a fucking joke.
12:34 AM — Carpenter Brut was great, it was nice getting a live set with drummer and guitarist instead of just the DJ, but the tent was getting so goddamn crammed with everyone trying to escape Axl’s caterwauling.
12:36 AM — We then went back for some more torture because someone decided Guns ‘n Roses should play for 3 goddamn hours. Everyone on stage looked like they didn’t want to be there and we mostly laughed through the cringe. Second worst performance I’ve ever seen.2
Day 2 (Friday, 16th of June)
12:43 PM — Went to see Blind Channel because my partner loves Eurovision and they performed there in 2021. They’re kind of like The Rasmus but at least they have a lot of fun on stage and the small crowd enjoyed it.
1:07 PM — Thunder Mother is much like an all female 70’s era Judas Priest and it’s a nice low-key rocking set so far. Best enjoyed with a Belgian beer and airconditioning.
2:27 PM — Seen Loathe open for Rolo Tomassi before. Still a good band! I think their contrast-rich math noise thingy works best in small basements though.
3:05 PM — Gap in the schedule so went back for airconditioning and beers. Fever 333 is playing. I don’t care for it much. Doesn’t matter, have Leffe.
3:58 PM — Needed to stay put for a bit so viewing Asking Alexandria instead of Heidevolk. Alex Q&A sounds like your everyday basic bitch metalcore. I’m sure they’re lovely people though. Making plans to see Finntroll later.
6:28 PM — Vain attempts to catch up with a friend of my partner’s and a dense crowd meant we only got to see a couple of Finntroll songs, but they were played well
8:26 PM — Returned to the last few Behemoth songs after a short break. Always a solid live band, good set dressing and pretty tight execution.
8:52 PM — Amon Amarth has gotten pretty complacent with their songwriting but never with their performances. Always a treat and a crowd pleaser, and they have such passion and enjoyment in their craft.
10:33 PM — Wanted to see Clutch but our feet were stumps of pain and tired, so we went to find some food during Disturbed instead. David was a bit off vocally, but big props for his speech on addiction and depression. He spoke of all the friends he lost that way and frankly admitted he had almost joined them 4 months ago. Saw a few tears among the crowd.
11:38 PM — Gojira is still mindblowing in its precision. I’ve seen them 6 times and I don’t think I’ve ever caught a single minor stumble, and they even go far beyond the rest of the bill visually with a ton of effects, clips and filters on all the screens. Also they played “The Art of Dying” and I fucking love that song.
12:09 AM — Left after that. Machine Head was getting on stage. Fuck Rob Flynn.
Day 3 (Saturday, 17th of June)
2:07 PM — Starting the day off good with Skindred. Benji is seriously one of the best crowd workers I’ve ever seen. Perfect music for hot weather, can only watch this with a bigass grin.
4:17 PM — Feet couldn’t handle standing so listened to a bit of Antimatter outside the Metal Dome marquee, where there’s benches. Mick Moss had a great voice and the band was spot on, but there was interference from the Jupiler stage, so headed back to VIP to cool off.
4:20 PM — Listened to the end of I Prevail and the full set of The Ghost Inside. Both are boring and interchangeable but there was a bit of a gap of decent music in the schedule so we just picked airconditioning
4:27 PM — Apparently there’s no airconditioning, it’s just shade and draft pulling double duty
4:54 PM — Just kind of waiting out the Halestorm right now. It’s solid rock and Ms. Hale’s got a heck of a belt, but it’s a bit one note. The festival setting treats it better than when they opened for Ghost 2 weeks ago though.
5:59 PM — Wanted to see what all the Sleep Token hype was about. Still don’t really know because the Metal Dome is crammed and Graspop made the unfathomable decision to put parallel shows here and on the nearby Jupiler stage, so unless you’re inside you get the sound of two shows at once. Easily the worst planning decision of the festival that would have been so easy to avoid.
7:58 PM — Apparently Disturbed’s vocalist had some issues because of extreme amounts of dust at Download festival and he’s been ordered vocal rest by the doctor. I wonder whether Joel of Soen has something similar because he’s normally impeccable, a vestige of consistency, but today he’s not at his peak, and there’s persistent technical issues, mostly with the bass. Still a good show though. Soen on a bad day put a lot of their peers to shame anyway.
10:37 PM — Eivør’s synthy Faroese dark folk was an odd duck in the line-up but she is an exceptional singer and her show was like a series of haunting myths. A beautiful highlight of the day.
1:42 AM — Took a break at the tent before the main act at midnight because when your 6 year old niece wants Slipknot videos, your 6 year old niece gets Slipknot videos. It was quite a spectacle, but the frequent interludes got annoying fast and many tracks got sped up a bit which frequently meant they devolved into gibberish.
Day 4 (Sunday, 18th of June)
12:40 PM — Hippotraktor kicking off the Marquee programming. Awesome band, great riffs, good presence, and playing a home game. Fucking love it.
1:30 PM — Bit of a gap so back to VIP. Kissin’ Dynamite is playing and honestly better than I expected. Just good solid traditional heavy metal with a touch of glam. Bright and uplifting, good vocals. Good beering music. Comment from my partner: the vocalist looks like Aunty Linda from the annual family barbecue, and yet he is younger than either of us. RIP gonna buy my graveyard plot now.
2:08 PM — Elegant Weapons playing as we stuff our faces. Some sort of Priest/Pantera/Rainbow supergroup? Quite bland honestly, not outright bad but far from impressive. The curse of the supergroup strikes again. At least it’s not actively annoying. Still better than Guns ‘n Roses.
2:57 PM — Skid Row is up next. I think it’s tradfternoon or something. I like the punky energy they got going on, never listened to their music before but it’s engaging and makes for a good party! Apparently the vocalist Erik only joined last year, a former Idol winner who beat leukemia just 2 years ago. He’s doing a bang up job.
5:20 PM — I don’t get a pension yet so I’m too young for Dirk Schneider, which is why I went to see Deathstars, a band that has 1 album in my library and whom I never dove into afterwards. But it was a fun show, marred only by a slightly disinterested singer (possibly an unsuccessful gothic affectation).
5:21 PM — Walking back to find myself tuning out to Avatar, as usual. This band just can not manage to interest me somehow.
6:56 PM — Wanted to see classical musician Helmut Lotti doing metal covers but so did the rest of the festival. First At Capacity notification we’ve seen. Caught a couple of Katatonia songs instead, and Three Days Grace playing “I Hate Everything About You” for the ‘stalgia.
8:32 PM — Anti-Flag for the funzies. Reminds me why I don’t listen to punk generally, but the atmosphere was good.
9:03 PM — Skipped Lorna Shore because the people there are gonna be on the news for a stampede any moment. This band in the smallest marquee is an absolutely boneheaded move.
9:15 PM — Hollywood Vampires: “we are rich enough to tour with our hobby club, listen to us muddle through some mumbled cover songs”.
At this point, exhaustion really started to get the best of us. Mötley Crüe was just starting and sounded much better than the trainwreck we had expected, rain began coming down, and the tent began to sound much more inviting than the schedule. We left the grounds for the last time, listening from the comfort of our air mattress as the wind blew Billy Talent and Def Leppard our way. Graspop is by no means the perfect festival; the headliners aside from Maiden are often subpar, it’s quite expensive, and some of their scheduling choices were questionable at best. The trek from car to campsite is grueling, and it’s not better the other way around after 4 days of festival. But the joyous atmosphere, the surprises, and the chance to see young bands top themselves and old acts embarrass themselves all make for a fantastic experience that is certainly worth braving the Belgian roads.
