Friday:

After driving like crazy all night from Denmark to make it, we finally arrived to the small town of Dessel in Belgium, where the Graspop festival is held. As tradition goes, there was an insanely long queue of cars waiting to get in; when will people learn to arrive in good time (us included)?
For someone with interests also outside the festival this isn't too much of a problem though, as the houses of Dessel seem to be one designer's wet dream after the other. Everything always looks new and fresh, even though we've been through here for several years now.

There had been some changes in the parking layout this year, compared to before, which allowed us with the combi-ticket to park our car right next to the camp area. Or so we thought. Actually, this parking area was already pretty full when we came, so we ended up all the way down in the other end, which gave us a five minute walk just to get to the camp site. From there it's almost ten-fifteen minutes more to get to the festival area, but so what? The billing at Graspop is usually filled with so many bands you want to see, that you rarely or never have time to go down to your tent in the middle of the day anyway. To further ease the walk, the kind citizens of Dessel have (almost) all opened up their backyards and parking lots to offer food and cold beverages to all us festival goers.

We didn't have much time to take all this in this year though, as we were running late for the first show we wanted to see, which was Moonspell playing in the Marquee I tent stage. Here another change came to our aid. The ticket booth had had a change of location, so instead of having it together with the festival area entrance, it had been placed at the end of the camp site. There was an intimidating line waiting for us when we arrived, but due to good organization, the wait was very short, and we were yet again free to run towards the upcoming show. Due to the fact that the ticket booth had changed place, there was almost no line at the actual entrance, and this is something that in earlier years have been a place where you had to wait for several hours, with full packing, to get through. On the upside, this had been a good place to meet a lot of interesting people, but on the down side, all your energy, and your beer supply, would be used up upon entry.

After Moonspell, we decided to walk around the area a bit, looking at the official merchandise stand and finally settling down in one of the enormously long food and drink ticket lines. At Graspop you can't use money in the festival area; instead you can buy food and drink coupons which can be used for shopping later. This is a good way to save time at the food and drink tents because people doesn't have to look for even money and such; sadly all that time is probably lost standing in line to buy the tickets instead. They really should think about having some more booths for it, especially on the opening day. The lines are there throughout the festival, but the first day is always a killer, and since you can't buy both kinds of tickets in the same booth you have to stand waiting in two lines, missing out on a lot of other stuff.

After we finally got through the lines, all the while listening to Saxon playing in the background up on the Main stage, we quickly grabbed a beer and headed over to the Marquee II to see Obituary, and after this it was time to find something to eat. We decided to skip Def Leppard this time, knowing we would be able to see them at another festival later on...
Here we were also informed that both Volbeat and Opeth had cancelled their shows. Volbeat because of the tragic passing of singer Michael Poulsen's father, and Opeth because of illness. There was as of yet no information about who the replacements would be.

After Def Leppard the rain started to come down, not in a big way, but enough to make people go and take shelter in the two tent stages, which made it really hard for us to come in and see Testament.
After Testament we also decided to skip Whitesnake, since they too were playing at the same festival as Def Leppard would be attending later. Instead, we chose to go back to the car and get the tent raised before the weather got any worse.
We wanted to be back for Morbid Angel and Ministry, playing at the same time at the two tent stages, but when we finally got all the way back to the car, we were so tired we just went to sleep. We didn't even get the tent out of the trunk.

Saturday:

Arriving at the festival area, we saw Sabaton playing on the Main stage which told us Graspop had only moved them one step up in time to fill out for Volbeat. There had probably not been anyone taking Sabatons time. We decided to spend a bit of time doing some voluntary (but paid) work. Graspop has this good rule, that if you collect a certain number of cups or Coca Cola bottles and deliver them at the drink ticket stands, you can both enter a competition and you get free drink tickets. This year it was twenty cups/bottles per drink ticket, and even though there were A Lot of people collecting, you would be surprised to see how easy it is to pay for your entire drinking need in this way. And the festival stays a bit cleaner, so it is a win/win situation.
Here I should mention that you shouldn't cut the ends off of your wristband. There are people offering to do so right after the ticket booth, but if you keep them on until you get into the festival area, they allow you to enter another competition with some nice prizes.

Anyway, the first band of the day was the Bay Area thrashers Forbidden, whose acquaintance we had made only a short time ago, when they played in Copenhagen.
After them, it was actually time for Dying Fetus, but we decided to do something with our newly acquired drinking tickets instead, and wait with music until the next big thing on the Main stage, which was Sonata Arctica from Finland.

After Sonata it was straight over to the Marquee I where another Finnish band was holding a clog-dancing party of big dimensions. O course I'm talking about the ever happy little drunks in Korpiklaani.
Since there wasn't much time for pause in today's program, we didn't have much time to live an actual festival life, but that's the way it is with Graspop.
Right after Korpiklaani it was straight back to the Main stage where we saw a bit of Iced Earth.
However, we felt we needed a small break here, to be able to finish the rest of the day, so we took a step back after a few songs.
When Iced Earth was over it was time for Immortal, who were playing in Marquee II and then straight back to the Main stage for Cavalera Conspiracy.

We had planned to go our separate ways after this, since Lunah wanted to see My Dying Bride and I was interested in Helmet, but instead we both decided to stay put to be able to get a good spot for tonight's high-light, the last show of the Kiss - Alive35 tour, which ended the second day of Graspop.
After this great show, we wandered the site a bit, while we waited for the double live-CD recorded for tonight's show was being finalized, and then went to pick it up before returning to the car.

Sunday:

We overslept a bit here, and had to skip Rotting Christ who were opening the tent stage this day. Luckily, since we were still pretty tired, the program wasn't overfilled with bands we wanted to see, and we didn't get up to the festival area until a few hours later, when Apocalyptica were playing the Main stage.

After them, there was an almost four hour long break before we had to see something again, and there it was time for the reunited Swedes in At The Gates.
We left At The Gates a few songs before the ending to be sure to get in front for the next Swedish band, In Flames, who gave a great show on the Main stage.

While waiting for Iron Maiden, we passed the time in front of the stage by inventing a tic tac toe game by using long strands of grass, some cigarette butts and confetti paper from last night's Kiss show. It worked great, until some upstuck git from Stockholm decided to trample all over it, then using the rest of the time until the show started to annoy everyone around him. Are there really no decent people (except for Amon Amarth) hailing from Stockholm???
Anyway, Maiden made a very good show as the last band of the festival.

And so, yet another Graspop ended with the merry melody of Monty Python; Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life...