Tomorrowland day 6 - Second Fest Day

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Saturday, July 20, 2019. After the usual breakfast at the hostel, the first thing I did was walk over to a small produce market/convenience store across the street to get some fruit and vegetables for the next couple days. Just one way I try to be good to my body at this massive party while not being good to it in other ways (like all the alcohol consumption). One item I got there was a rather large cucumber. Later, while everyone was boarding the bus, there was a Tomorrowland photographer there who got a humorous picture of me taking a bite out of the cucumber. I still have yet to see this photo.

Everyone loaded onto the bus which took off at 13h00 (or "1 pm" as we Anglophones would write it) for another 40-minute ride to Boom. Getting in was just like the previous day, except THIS time I got sniffed by a drug dog while waiting in line to get a locker.

Right around here I have to discuss the incredible, impressive diversity of the people going to Tomorrowland. I had half-expected the festival-goers to be mostly European, but this was a HUGE miscalculation! Thursday in Antwerp, everyone got issued the flag of whatever country they're from, and many people brought their own as well as various unofficial, state/provincial/regional, and historical flags. People often wore these flags as capes when they weren't waving them above the crowds during the shows. Sure, there were plenty of representatives from every western European country and several eastern ones, but they must have been less than half the attendees. There was a veritable sea of US flags and more than a few Canadian. Almost every Latin American country was represented, especially Mexico. I'll never forget seeing a group of Peruvians carrying around a big inflatable llama. I did see one Jamaican flag, and one person whose flag I didn't recognize; I asked what it was, and he was from Suriname, a small Dutch-speaking country on South America's north coast.

There were countless people from nearly every east and southeast Asian country: Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and even one group, about 10 or so people, from Myanmar! (I had to ask what that flag was) Naturally there were a good deal of Australian and NZ flags there. But, I did not expect to see so many from India, of which there were quite a lot.

Least represented parts of the world were the Middle East and Africa, but that's not to say they weren't there at all. There were a couple from Jordan, at least one from Egypt, Lebanon, and Kuwait, plus a handful from Tunisia, but I think all of them were outnumbered by the Israelis. South of the desert, I did glimpse one person with a Ghana flag and another from Kenya, and unsurprisingly many more from South Africa (and NOT all of them were white). But most unexpectedly, at Thursday evening's pre-party I noticed a couple wearing four-color flags I didn't recognize, so I just had to ask. They were from a little island nation in the Indian Ocean called Mauritius. They said they were the only ones at Tomorrowland from there. And, I'm pretty sure they're the only people from there I've ever met!

Like I said, there was a veritable sea of US flags, and early on Saturday afternoon all of the American contingent tried to meet up at a certain spot for a huge group photo. I totally missed it because I went to the wrong place. The photo was done near the Main Stage and I think I was at Lotus! I didn't realize it until it was too late.

While wandering around the massive festival area, I hiked up the steep hill in front of the main stage to see what lay beyond. The first thing that stood out was yet another long row of food and drink stands, one of which was the only coffee bar in all of Tomorrowland. Seriously. If you wanted any coffee in this festival, you had to go to this one specific drink stand.

After enjoying my coffee I continued heading back until I found one place called The Moose Bar. Apparently this counts as one of Tomorrowland's 17 stages, since there's a DJ booth and dancefloor inside, although it doesn't really feel like a "stage" as such.

I loved this place. I couldn't get any good pics that day, but it's meant to look like the kind of bar you find on Alpine ski resorts. And being a snowboarder, I visited quite a few Alpine ski resorts last winter, so this whole place looked quite pleasantly familiar. The beer was the same Jupiler as throughout the rest of the fest, but the 500ml "XL" was served up in glass mugs. But it wasn't just the appearance of the place; it was the music too. The DJ here was blasting out Schlager music. If you ever visit a restaurant or bar in an Alpine ski resort, you're likely to hear a lot of Schlager music, which I would describe as music with a traditional German "oompah" beat, but played with modern instruments like synthesizers and drum machines. If you've ever been to a bar or restaurant at an Alpine ski resort, you've probably heard a lot of it. If you haven't...listen to "Johnny Däpp" by Lorenz Büffel and that's pretty much all you need to know. I actually heard that song at the Moose Bar and everyone was in a big conga line jumping up and down to it.

As cool as the Moose Bar was, I couldn't just hang out there forever; there was still more festival to explore. So after I finished my mug of Jupiler XL, I stepped out...and right into the rain. Dammit. I'd been hoping this wouldn't happen. It fell harder by the second, and I had to join a bunch of other people under one of the shelters in the food court that was in that area. The rain just fell harder, so much that I'd describe it as falling in blobs rather than just drops. Thankfully, if there's anything I've learned about rain, it's that the harder it falls, the sooner it's over, and so it only lasted a few minutes.

I continued my wanderings and found myself soon at the Lotus stage, where an up-and-comer named Empra was playing. You can find his set on YouTube. He spun some OK songs. I'd rate this set as "pretty good" (there's a reason he's playing to a thin crowd in the early afternoon). Give him a few more years and some more experience and he could be drawing bigger crowds. Anyway, like I said, this set is on YouTube, and while I was there I could see the cameras, some swooping around on robotic arms, others being wielded by cameramen. I tried to get captured on camera a few times, and succeeded! But it wasn't easy. I quickly realized that they were more a little more interested in capturing cute girls in miniskirts than me, go figure.

At first I wanted to facepalm when I first learned that there was a stage, called Freedom, sponsored by none other than Budweiser, the bland and tasteless face of American beer to the rest of the world. It kind of makes sense, though, since for the past decade Budweiser has been owned by a Belgian conglomerate, InBev.


If you went to weekend one, this is what the Freedom stage looked like. If you went to weekend two, this is NOT what it looked like, because it burned down in an electrical fire during the intervening weekdays.

They did bring some top notch talent to the Freedom stage. The first artist I saw there was German trance legend Paul van Dyk. I used to listen to him a lot back in the 2000s, saw him at "Cream Ibiza" night at Amnesia Ibiza in 2011, and then pretty much lost touch with him since then. I wandered in about halfway through the set and really enjoyed what I heard there. Maybe I didn't recognize the newer stuff but he did throw on classics like "For an Angel" and "Nothing but You." The whole set can now be found on YouTube. Speaking of which, you know how I wrote a few paragraphs up that there was a group of Peruvians carrying around a big inflatable llama? You can see them in that video.


It's impossible to see but Paul van Dyk is on the left obscured by the lights.

For a little while as the sun went down I dropped by the Main Stage while Armin van Buurin was there, but found the enormous, tightly-packed crowd to be stifling. Two weeks later at Untold it was no different.

Finally I made it to the Garden of Madness for Alison Wonderland. I had experienced her set at Middle Lands in 2017, a festival I've mentioned a couple times before. This set was just as good as that one, with many of the same songs ("You Don't Know," "Run," "I Want U," etc.) plus newer ones like "Church."

With the second festival day in the can, it was time to head back, which meant another half-hour hike to the buses, ugh...


One of my favorite pictures from that day: right in the center, there's an Israeli and a Lebanese flag, one above the other. Tomorrowland does what diplomacy never could.

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