Original sinners return as punk festival rises again
The revived Sinner’s Day festival will take place in Hasselt next weekend, with performances by John Lydon and The Sisters of Mercy among others
High expectations
Rather than punk, this edition is post punk – no three-chord slash and burn this year: John Lydon is here with PiL; Tuxedomoon represent the experimental, avant-garde; DAF and OMD the pop and industrial ends of electro; and The Beat (the Ranking Roger version of the two line-ups that tour) fuse ska, reggae and punk.
The festival is topped and tailed by two bands that originated in The F Club in Leeds: The Sisters of Mercy and The Cassandra Complex, both purveying hard, electronic rock music.
The odd man out on the bill is Tricky, who is too young to be punk, post punk or New Wave. “I like to go a little bit outside my frame and I love his music and I love his personality,” says Sinner’s Day founder Marlon Waghemans of his inclusion.
“He has a long history in music, including Massive Attack. Fifteen years ago I had a band and we went on tour with him; I saw some amazing gigs by him.”
Not welcome
Sinner’s Day began back in 2009. Waghemans: “I still had records in my living room by those darker bands, punk bands, New Wave bands – call it what you want – and I thought other people had the same feelings about that music. But you didn’t see those bands at festivals – even in Belgium, which has a lot of festivals. They weren’t really welcome any more.”
So he took matters into his own hands.
Sinner’s Day is really an update of the Belgian New Wave festivals that Waghemans loved in his youth in the 1980s: Futurama in De Brielpoort in Deinze and Seaside in De Panne. Several of the bands who played those have played Sinner’s Day.
We needed about 4,000 people to break even; there were close to 10,000
The first edition featured Gary Numan (Waghemans’ favourite), Gang of Four, The Human League and Front 242. Lydia Lunch and The Bollock Brothers also featured lower down the bill. So did Leuven’s The Neon Judgement. Waghemans: “I’m always proud to add a Belgian band because Belgium is important in this genre of music.”
It didn’t all go to plan, however.
“A lot more people than we expected came, so we failed a little in organisation,” Waghemans says. “We needed about 4,000 people to break even; there were close to 10,000. We didn’t have enough people to serve the beer or the food … it went a little bit wrong. We received criticism and I agree with it.”
That first year was an experience, an experiment, he admits, “but the bands were really happy. So we continued.”
Motivation killer
In 2010 and 2011, Sinner’s Day featured Heaven 17, The Fall, The Bunnymen, The Damned, Mark Almond, The Cult and Visage among others. Waghemans picks out The Psychedelic Furs and Patti Smith as highlights of those years.
At the other end of the spectrum were Nina Hagen (“terrible – my opinion”) and Diamanda Galas (“an amazing artist but she’s quite difficult. The audience didn’t like her. I think if you talk to her about Sinner’s Day, she will explode.”)
That’s not why Sinner’s Day took a break after 2011. “It was getting more like a job than just something that I loved to do,” says Waghemans. “Expectations got higher, the risk got higher. That was never in my plan.”
The Ethias Arena changed ownership and the deal was different, he says. “There were more complicated contractual arrangements and the financial issues – percentages to the venue, to the bands, to this, to that – just kills my motivation. My ambition was just to do music.”
It was getting more like a job than just something that I loved to do
Though Waghemans had lost his mojo, others were interested in taking Sinner’s Day over, but the baton was not finally passed until this year. Waghemans has advised on the programming of the line-up, but Star Group, an events management company, is handling the day-to-day running.
“The audience is still the people with those records in their living rooms, dedicated people,” says Waghemans. Most are from Belgium, but lots are from Holland, France, Germany, the UK and Italy. People even fly over from the US and Brazil.
“Another thing I’m even more happy with is the new generation,” says Waghemans. “Kids of 18, 19, 20 who come; though I have to be honest, it’s a small percentage.”
His fantasy 2017 line-up? “From leftfield, The Residents and Jim Thirlwell, and more mainstream The B-52s. I would also really love to add the newer generation, like Hurts or The Editors.”
Waghemans traces Sinner’s Day back to watching The Sex Pistols on TV with his grandmother when he was a kid. “She was shocked,” he recalls. “I fell for the attitude. It’s still part of my character, my vision.”
20 November, Ethias Arena, Hasselt
Photo: PiL (from left) Lu Edmonds, John Lydon, Scott Firth, Bruce Smith
© PiL Official
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