Big Happy Crowd At Rock Werchter 2017

Belgium’s Rock Werchter welcomed 88,000 visitors per day, who celebrated peacefully and enthusiastically. 

Courtesy Rock Werchter – Rock Werchter 2017
in Belgium

There wasn’t one artist this author witnessed that didn’t voice their appreciation for what was a super-engaged crowd.

Lorde bathed in her audience’s cheers, Beth Ditto chatted up a fan in one of the front rows who she had recognized from past shows, Jain – one of the unexpected highlights of Rock Werchter 2017 – stood on the barriers and passed the mic to her fans who sang along with fervor.

The second revelation was Benjamin Clementine, who vowed his audience with a stoic demeanor, which makes every word that leaves his lips so much more powerful. So when he announced his last song and quietly, almost shyly, said “you were amazing,” everybody knew he meant it. System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, who always astonishes with the calm demeanor he maintains even during his most violent songs, simply said, “this is a great crowd, guys.”

Bonobo was overwhelmed by a packed Barn, one of the alternative stages at Rock Werchter, and kept repeating “thank you so much” throughout his set.

He paid the crowd back with the most spectacular visual show of the festival, at one point lighting up the entire Barn with thousands of fairly lights that were hung from the ceiling. Rag N Bone Man, who must be one of most in-demand artists these days, has seen his fair share of large audiences.

The Barn’s 10,000 capacity was far too small for the singer. Luckily the festival’s organizers had set up a screen and PA system outside the venue to allow people that couldn’t get in to enjoy the show as well.

The audio in front of every stage, including the outdoor screens, was fabulous. Stageco build the Rock Werchter stages, PRG handled sound and light. The festival’s production director, Walter D’Haese, told Pollstar that the speaker array was made up of Adamson E15 and E219 subs.

“We have been using the rig since 2015 with great success,” he said. Blink 182 threw a great party, Radiohead sucked the audience into their space of overwhelming sounds as usual and Foo Fighters closed the festival appropriately on Sunday. Dave Grohl let the audience know that he had enough songs to play through the entire night. The band was determined to make up for its cancellation in 2015, when Grohl broke his leg.