Tomorrowland day 5 - First Fest Day

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Friday, July 19, 2019. Suddenly the Train Hostel was way busier than it was the last few days. I may have been the only person there doing the Belgian Journey, but I was far from the only guest going to Tomorrowland. For the next three days the hostel would be full or close to it, and those others were apparently staying in bunks in large rooms full of them. I think I was the only one with a single room.

The bus left at noon and it took about 40 minutes to get to Boom. And the closer we got to Boom, the more I could see the high level of local support for Tomorrowland. As our shuttle buses approached every day, anyone could look around and see countless Tomorrowland flags hanging from the windows and balconies of almost every house and apartment building.

I mean, just look at this:

It was a little bit of a walk from the bus to the festival. We got dropped off not to far from some apartment buildings. We had to walk the rest of the way from there to the entrance, and that was a bit of a hike. This required a little bit of waiting to get through security. Now, they are definitely more thorough than other festivals I've gone to when it comes to security. First, they hand out little clear plastic bags that you empty your pockets into (except for jewelry and loose change). So your phone, your wallet, anything else lying in your pockets that isn't coins goes in the bag. Then there's TWO security checkpoints. The first is somewhat quicker. Show them your clear plastic bag, and if you've got a backpack, purse, or the like, you get in a line for such people and they'll look at that too. After that, more hiking...


Are we there yet? Pass by the DJ keeping it lively and go through the second and final checkpoint. Put all your bags and stuff on a table, walk through a metal detector, maybe get a pat-down, and finally you're in! Now you can rent a locker if you want and after that EVEN MORE hiking...you're gonna burn a lot of calories at this place without even trying.


Yes, People of Tomorrow, we're finally here.

First things first: I was hungry and needed something for lunch. Just like with any US festival, there was a wide variety of food to be eaten, with food stands selling just about anything you can imagine. I stopped at the first food court I found, where I managed to meet up with two of my fellow Belgian Journeyers while getting myself a chicken pita wrap.

Before I go on, I have to digress and explain a little-discussed feature of Tomorrowland: the quirky virtual currency everything is paid for with, Pearls. While other fests will let you link your credit card to your wristband for cashless payment, with this one you have to buy Pearls to upload to the chip in your wristband, making it a virtual wallet. Everything sold inside Tomorrowland--food, drinks, merch--has its price quoted in Pearls. But the exchange rate of 1.60€ to one Pearl is perplexing. It's almost like they don't want you to be able to do the calculation quickly in your head. Clever! So a small (33cl) cup of Jupiler beer costs two Pearls, which is really 3.20€ or about $3.55. Food prices vary but are usually between five and seven. Buy a wrap for six Pearls, you're actually paying 9.60€ which is $10.66! I'm not sure I want to know how much I spent during the whole weekend...

With it still being early, with no one playing who I was particularly interested in seeing, I spent these first few hours exploring the vast expanse of the festival grounds and planning for later. First, I found a place called the Belgian Beer Bar. If you ever get bored with Jupiler, which I often did, the Belgian Beer Bar has got some better options, including Kwak, Leffe, Karmaliet, and Hoegaarden. I enjoyed a Leffe Blonde.

The Belgian Beer Bar, along with the B-Eat restaurant, was built into the back of a certain massive structure. It wasn't until I stepped out of the bar and walked around it that I discovered that massive structure was, in fact, the Main Stage where Carl Cox was playing his Daybreak Sessions.

Most of Friday afternoon was a bit of a blur, to be honest. There was so much to be seen, heard, and found. There are no less than 17 stages at Tomorrowland, and even to a festival veteran like me that's really a lot, considering Lightning in a Bottle had six, Electric Forest had seven, and Austin City Limits had eight. Looking back at my photos I can see I spent a few minutes at Lotus, Freedom, Rose Garden, and L'Orangerie during Sam Feldt's set.

Somewhere else in there I also checked out Q-Dance which, that day at least, was dedicated to hardstyle, a sub-genre I had hitherto known nothing about. I wish I'd stayed a little longer, but part of me just wanted to explore some more.

One thing I noticed about Friday, but not the other two days, was that the lines for drinks were slow as hell. I bring that up here because one of the times when I spent an insanely long time waiting in line was at the Q-Dance stage. Seriously, we're talking a half hour. Just standing in line waiting to get a beer. Thankfully I didn't have to deal with this on Saturday or Sunday but it was a real plague on Friday evening.

At one point during my wanderings I checked the WhatsApp group on my phone that I was a part of, to see what the other people I met on the Belgian Journey were up to. One of them mentioned going to the Main Stage for "Shaq." My first thought was, "they don't really mean Shaquille O'Neal, do they?" Well, a lot of lesser-known producers have stage names that are intentionally or coincidentally similar to more famous people's names, so I figured it had to be another one of those. But the official lineup said someone named DJ Diesel was playing the Main Stage at that time. So I went back to the Main Stage for the end of Diesel/Shaq's set. At the end he descended from behind the decks and into the crowd, and even from as far away as I was, I could tell it really was THE Shaq, the basketball legend. Huh. Apparently as "DJ Diesel" he's found a new career these days. His whole set is up on YouTube now; I thought it was...OK.

Finally as it was getting later and later, after getting some Korean chicken and rice for dinner, I headed to my final objective: the Youphoria stage. Today it was dedicated exclusively to trance producers signed to the Anjunabeats label, owned by Above & Beyond, with A&B themselves being the headliners tonight.

First I saw two Anjunabeats artists who I wasn't too familiar with (outside of their tunes that have appeared in Above & Beyond sets), Adam Beyer and ilan Bluestone. They put on good sets but I'm afraid I don't remember them too well, although I will say I saw Bluestone again at Untold two weeks later and was really impressed.

Gabriel and Dresden were up next. Now that was a name I hadn't heard in a long time; they had a few songs I listened to a lot back in the late 2000s.

Finally, the headliners for Friday night: Above & Beyond. I'd seen them once before, at Euphoria 2016 in Austin, so it was a kind of nice coincidence that I was seeing them again at a stage called Youphoria.

One thing Above & Beyond are known for is communicating with the audience by typing out messages that appear in real time, letter by letter, on the screens behind them. It was one such message that drew my attention to the lyrics in one of their songs that I hadn't paid much attention to. As "Northern Soul" finished up, messages appeared on the screen which ended with "NOW PUT YOUR HANDS UP FOR DETROIT." Wow, is that what the song was actually about? Yes, listen to the words, it's a tribute to the Motor City.

They wrapped it up with, as always, "Sun and Moon," with is A&B's best-known song and a trance anthem, even if it is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard.

With my trance journey over, I mosied on over to the main stage. The crowd there was pretty huge, but nothing compared to what it would be the next day. The Chainsmokers were finishing off the night's last set. They did a few songs I vaguely knew, and then a new one on which surprise guest Bebe Rexha came out and sang on. They wrapped it up with "Closer," which everyone knows, and that was the end of Friday night.


Bebe Rexha during one of the Chainsmokers' songs, "Call You Mine" which was brand new at that point and not too well known.

Now time to go back, which proved to be an arduous walk. Did I mention this festival burns calories? The festival grounds are huge, and the main stage is a bit of a walk from the gate one must leave through to get to the buses. So the crowd with me in it flowed from the stage to the gates, the people who were camping split off and headed to Dreamville, and those of us going to a hotel went out our gate. And then...more hiking. Up some stairs, alongside a road on a sidewalk, and eventually a paved walkway with a high fence along the right side. At points along this path there were occasionally people handing out water bottles, some performance artists dressed like statues, and soon a sign informing us that from that point it's a 15 minute walk to the buses. Yeah...don't do this if your feet and legs aren't ready for it.

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