Covid killed The Regrettes and Clairo; a throat infection Sam Fender. They were replaced by Belgian acts The Haunted Youth, Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, and Charles. A huge opportunity for them to expand their audience.
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Rarely has a name been as prophetic as The Regrettes: the Californian punk group is not playing on The Slope today, due to Covid-19. But don’t worry, because they will be replaced by The Haunted Youth. Their manager Tony Vandenbogaerde now calls the group ‘a super sub’: two weeks ago she replaced Holly Humberstone at Best Kept Secret, on Saturday she replaces a group in Clermont-Ferrand.
In addition to The Regrettes, the coronavirus also took down singer-songwriter Clairo. She will also be replaced by Belgians: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul will play in her place in the Klub on Saturday. The singer Charles, stage name of Charlotte Foret, already filled in for Sam Fender this afternoon – the British rocker was not confronted with Covid-19, but with tonsillitis. “Playing here was really one of my life goals,” says Charles. “When Rock Werchter calls, you drop everything and say yes.”
Filling in on the right stage can give a band a nice boost. Holly Humberstone is an up and coming singer-songwriter, The Haunted Youth got a prime time performance on Best Kept Secret. “People from Spotify and 3FM have come to listen, the latter have just announced that the single ‘Broken’ will be in the highest rotation on the station,” says Vandenbogaerde. He inspected the grounds for The Slope this afternoon. ‘It’s going to fill up: there can be 3,500 people on that field, and there are no other performances going on at a quarter past six.’
Arranged in an hour
A replacement is quick switching. Jarri Van der Haegen, manager of Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, arranged their performance at an hour – from Down the Rabbit Hole in the Netherlands, where he is with Sylvie Kreusch, another artist on his roster. ‘At two o’clock today we got a call whether Charlotte and Bolis were free; we had to confirm within half an hour.’
“The performers aren’t the biggest problem: you know if they have a show or not, private appointments can be changed for a concert of that level. But you have to get the crew together. There is a shortage of staff everywhere, many people work for more than one band. I had to find a crew of three, a stylist and an extra person because we work with homemade lamps and an extra pair of hands at a festival comes in handy to set them up. Luckily I didn’t have to make a hundred phone calls for that.’
‘I got a call two days ago,’ says Charles. “I immediately checked whether everyone in my team was free on Friday. Only our bass player was not free. But we were already attuned, because we also play at other festivals during this period.’
‘We were called on Wednesday evening that The Regrettes were canceled,’ says Vandenbogaerde. “I happened to be in their rehearsal room with The Haunted Youth, we were able to quickly confirm they were available. Then it took four hours until Thursday before we received the confirmation. Perhaps the festival had polled several groups, or even more plausibly: perhaps The Regrettes were still waiting for the results of a PCR test. But of course you enjoy such a concert.’
In exchange for a little one?
Would he have sacrificed a smaller concert for it? ‘Oh no, you can’t do that. No serious group does that with its fans. Meskerem Mees got the chance to fill in at a festival, and she had a small café performance that day, which had already been postponed about five times due to corona. She played that cafe gig.’
‘But this will be the summer of the last minute show’, says Van der Haegen. “With all the problems about canceled flights, and covid that really isn’t gone yet, I foresee more canceled performances and not always easy replacements.”
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