Hardcore ’92… This could be considered as the first Ieperfest… The years before around half of September there had already been a few fests named Leed (the Vort’n Vis’ alternative to the city of Ieper’s mainstream Leet festival). The latter had a more punky/crusty feel to it. The Ieperfest tended to offer more straight-egde bands… It gradually moved towards a weekend around half of August. And eventually turned into a huge event (not unlike a lot of the commercial summer-festivals) outside of the Vort’n Vis premises.
Unfortunately (and that already was from the beginning), it turned out to be a market-place for big/commercial labels and distributions (local and others). I’ve never been able to see what the value of that was and I kept reacting against it…
Brob
This was my first time at the V.V. … I came alone by train and it was my first experience of a straight-edge fest ever. Also my first encounter with the DIY hardcore scene and I’m glad it looked like this (no pose, no looks, no bullshit), because I think it really gave a direction to the way I perceive punk-hardcore.
Christophe Mora (Stonehenge recs)
Chris Mora’s impression of the V.V. courtyard (with Bruno VdV’s distro and U.J. on the extreme left…)
The first weekend of September there was the double-day fesitival. It was supposed to be a promo-weekend for vegetarianism (there was 1! stall by GAIA, Global Action in the Interest of Animals) but it was more a promo-weekend for Warehouse recs (Edward’s pre Good Life label) and ‘Nations On Fire’ There was a music (record/CD/zine) -fair on Sunday but also on Saturday there was already a market goin’ on! Awful! I refused to set up my stall between Bernd (Lost & Found) Granz‘s table with bootlegs and other crappy collectioners’ items, and other money-greedy ‘distributors’. Sunday they were there too so I decided to show an alternative with really DIY stuff and fanzines (no-one else was selling any!). Saturday I talked and talked (hardly saw any of the bands – I already saw most of the SxE-bands here 2-5 times; ‘Abolition’ were great, and nice people!) to old friends, new friends and people from everywhere: UK, Germany, Holland, Canada, Portugal, etc. [Peter Hoeren (Crucual Response recs & Michael Müller, Armin Hofmann (X-Mist recs), Moses Arndt (Zap), Big (‘Man Lifting Banner”), David Dutriaux (‘Scraps’ & ‘N.O.F.’) & Belle, Dennis Niesing (‘Crisis Of Society’), Wil Van Straalen (WRF recs)]
Jaak, the drummer for ‘Nations On Fire’ (Vegan Society and GAIA militant) announced that this was a last show with the band for him. Apparently the ‘Positive / Powerful / Political’ slogan had become to empty for him and selling/collecting records (of some of the others in the band) was not fulfilling enough…
Quite some people didn’t want to come because they thought it was too militantly SxE. I thought it was too consumerist. Pity they didn’t show up, we could’ve offered some ‘counterbalance’…
Brob, personal communications Sep/Oct ‘92
Jase Step One (UK) – Spencer Ching F. Ma(c)k (Can) – Ted Wong (Can) – Rob Franssen (Nl) [courtesy of Jase Fox]
More on the complete bill:
excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:
“Long time ago I saw so much uniformity”; Stef Smits, sociologist
Armin Hofmann
Bernd Granz
tour-promoter (‘Nations On Fire’ e.g.)
“Long time ago I slept so much!” ; Anneke Schuurman, Puffy zine
Corey von Villiez
Patrick Kolb ???
Vort'n Vis in the 90s 
Nothing but good memories. Even the silly arguments with Moses and Armin can’t spoil this. Now it seems even crazier to drive 4 hours every other weekend. There was a unique energy at this place and the local scene was so lame at the time…
One of the most bizarre events I’ve ever been to…and the very last HC-festival for me to go to! My words written in the guestbook were purely ironic: of course I perfectly understood that these people were ‘radical’ and narrowminded at the same time…
It was a great weekend! I got to meet a lot of people who I am still friends with, I came home with a bag full of zines (not records!) and saw a ton of bands that had never been to the UK.
Was it overly commercial? I can’t remember…
What I do remember is an extremely young scene, loads of kids in their early-mid teens who got an insight into a world beyond ‘established’ entertainment. Of course for many it was a phase, just as it will have been for followers of any (sub)culture. And the young kids, with sports-wear and short hair confused the fuck out of the older punks, just like they did in the UK when the edge/US hardcore kids started going to the 1 in 12 – it rocked the punk ‘establishment’. Nowadays those that remain (from ‘both’ scenes) have known each other for years and have built a great alternative culture. The rest – whether the old brigade anarchos or the edge kids who did it ’cause their friends did – have all rejoined the mainstream.
Sure there was no doubt a lot of misplaced idealism there in ’92 as well as some distros that saw the opportunity to make a quick buck/ franc, but it brought a lot of people together and definitely was a starting point for many elements of the Euro DIY punk/HC-scene
It was great to meet all those people. Music, fun and ideals. The first day ‘Strong Event’ played, the second day ‘InnerXCircle’. I slept in my father’s car somewhere in a street and had a discussion with Mike [Krajewski, singer of ‘Inner Cirle’] about playing in a band with members that are not straight edge… :-)
The dawn of the European hardcore scene.
I’m living in the area of Münster (Germany).
I read the Holger’s comment and I remember that I met him someday in the 90s. I just had some recolections and wanted to say hey!
My friend Robin and me (Back in ’92 we were listening to a lot of hardcore music and visited some good concerts.) were aubout 16 or 17 years young and hitchhiked to the festival, slept in Brussels in the flat of 2 guys (a dentist and an actor). They showed us the city, gave us to eat and the next day they brought us to a spot where we could hike on to Ieper. We had a gun to be safe on the road and were feeling like young rebels.
The festival was exiting but I can’t remeber that much. I still have the ‘Ironside’ tape…gossebumps.
Greets to you all!
As far as I know…the Canadians there were myself (Spencer Mak), Ted Wong, Adam Carr and Melanie Gauthier of Arm’s Reach fanzine, also Arm’s recs that put on one of the earlier ‘Chokehold’ EPs. Ted and I ran Grinding Edge recs (‘Chokehold’ split-EP with ‘Crisis Of Faith’) and did radio-shows, TOHC Hotline, distro, etc. This was my first European trip from Toronto, Canada.
The focus of the trip was attending Ieperfest but Ted and I also made a trek to visit pen-pals in England (Mark Harrison, Nick Royles, ‘Ironside’ crew, etc.) and we had the chance to see Bradford and the 1 in 12 Club (met Rich Militia! ha!). We also took the train to visit Andreas Grüter of Vengeance ‘zine and he took us around and we also caught ‘Man Lifting Banner’ (in Venlo I think) and ‘Pennywise’ in Koln (?).
Last stop, and boy my mind is fuzzy at 50 years old right now, is “Ieperfest” and what a sight to see. Lots of friendly HC kids from Europe and all over and all the stalls selling merch as well as the veggie food. I do remember staying overnight (in the attic of V.V. I think?) and coughing all night due to my cold…kept everyone awake. At this event, I managed to meet Simon Kelly, Jase Fox, Rob Franssen and ‘Feeding The Fire’ peeps, etc. Still FB-friends with all those that I met to this day. My how time flies everyone!
There you have it! Wow, that’s all I can remember… I also think some of the pics on here are mine, as I do remember sending lots of duplicates over-seas after arriving back in Toronto, Canada. Hey, it’s cool that they remain online for others to capture the spirit. Long live hardcore and hardcore for life!
…And if anyone wants to get in touch, I’ld love to hear from you If anyone will remember, I was the Asian guy with the Arms Reach fanzine hoody at Vort’n Vis 1992 … I can be reached: my FB-name is Ching F. Mack