Menzingers | schwingeninswitzerland

We love to see live music and summer music festivals are big in Europe. In January, we started looking at lineups and chose Groezrock Festival in Meerhout, Belgium as our first festival. It had a fantastic lineup. I am sure that many people don’t know these bands, but believe me when I tell you fans of punk rock are astounded by the sheer volume of great bands playing this festival.

Essentially, Groezrock is a giant music festival with four stages in the middle of fields in Flanders. You bounce around between four stages (one of them acoustic) catching great music. There were so many good bands that it was difficult to choose between several bands that were playing at the same time.

Arriving at the Main Stage where we saw the Menzingers. When you see the crowd surfing, you will understand why I didn’t bring my camera and only had my iPhone.

Unfortunately we arrived too late to catch Authority Zero. The Menzingers had already taken the stage and were a great surprise. We’d heard of them, but hadn’t seen them before. Their music was strong and they sounded great. We’ll definitely be buying their album now.

The Bouncing Souls on the acoustic stage

He is a huge Bouncing Souls fan. We caught their acoustic set. I think everyone tried to fit into the smaller acoustic tent to see them. For good reason, they were great.

Reel Big Fish

The Bouncing Souls followed Reel Big Fish on the Main Stage. I would have paid just to see them back to back! They both put on great shows and had such a positive vibe. The crowd ate it up. It was still relatively early and most people had tons of energy.

We didn’t have the best view of Reel Big Fish because we’d stopped to fortify ourselves. Since we were in Belgium, that meant French Fries with special sauce. So tasty. We needed energy to keep from looking like this guy.

Set Your Goals

I’d heard some Set Your Goals on the Radio One Punk Show with Mike Davies. After seeing them live, we became huge fans. They were strong. It was so crowded that I could only catch a glimpse of the stage by climbing the fence surrounding the sound booth. It looked like joyful mayhem. He saw guys in banana suits stage diving.

Yellowcard on the acoustic stage

We also caught Yellowcard‘s acoustic set. He thought they did a good job wanted to see their live set. It was even better. Yellowcard was clearly motivated to put on a great show and excited to be there. They had tons of energy and the crowd got the crowd really into it.

Bouncing Souls

We had such a great spot for Yellowcard that we decided to stay there to catch Face to Face, Lagwagon and Rancid. It’s easy to forget how many great songs Face to Face has. Seeing them live reminded me. We hadn’t bought the album they released last year and will definitely be doing so. They delivered a solid performance. I love punk concerts for the energy. It’s great to be someplace where you are encouraged to feel and move with the music to such an extent. Face to Face was about our 10th consecutive hour of rocking out and we’d started flagging a bit. By that point, I was too tired to jump around.

Face To Face

Crowd surfing during Face to Face

Even though it was their second show of the day, Lagwagon had tons of energy. People were downing energy drinks like water and it showed. The circle pit was huge and people were definitely rocking out.

Lagwagon

We lost our key. Oops We went off in search of it and missed seeing Rancid…again. Hopefully the third time will be the charm. Given all the great music we saw, it is hard to be too bummed.

Here are some other acts we missed, but that got great reviews: