Summer sounds: Six lesser-known music festivals in Belgium

We Can Dance

We Can Dance is about kicking off your flip flops and getting down to uplifting electronic beats on the beach with 20,000 other beautiful people. With award-winning chefs and cocktails by Belgian mixologists, this year’s line-up includes techno, deep house and urban sounds from Âme, Motor City Drum Ensemble, DJ Harvey and Bedouin.
Zeebrugge beach, 12-13 August

Reggae Geel

Since 1978, Jamaica’s finest reggae, rocksteady and ska talent and around 30,000 laid-back multicultural jammers have been coming together in Geel, a small Flemish city famous for the care it offers those with mental disorders in the homes of local families. With five stages in a glade shaded by tall trees, this year’s line-up includes headliners Jah Cure, Duane Stephenson and British reggae veterans Steel Pulse.
Geel, 4-5 August

Gouvy Jazz Blues

If the thought of jazz, blues and craft beer down on a farm in the middle of the Belgian Ardennes makes you salivate, then head to Gouvy. The rustic setting of the Madelonne farm offers an eclectic mix of jazz and blues, and its own legendary Madelonne beer is brewed on site. It’s a small, up-close-and-personal festival, so expect to mingle with the locals.
Gouvy, 4-6 August

Brosella Folk and Jazz

Still going strong after 40 years, Brosella exudes a mellow summer vibe in a fairy-tale setting, surrounded by trees in the open-air amphitheatre beneath the Atomium. Belgian musicians invite international artists to collaborate, and with Toots Thielemans as the festival’s artistic godfather, don’t expect any commercially hip dilettantes. Last year saw the likes of the Carla Bley Big Band and Johnny Griffin take to the stage. The kids’ festival here is just as popular.
Brussels, 8-9 July

Ars in Cathedrali

This unique organ festival brings the magnificent Gothic cathedral of Brussels’ patron saints Michael and Gudula to life every Tuesday evening in July and August with rousing works from Bach to Baroque. Bask in the sound of the 4,300 pipes of the largest of the three organs, built by the German organ builder Gerhard Grenzing, while marvelling at the cathedral’s Brabantine and French Gothic features.
Brussels, 4 July-29 August

Sfinks

Just outside Antwerp in a meadow surrounded by willows, this free world music festival pulls crowds of 100,000 to celebrate diverse cultures and revel in rhythms from as far apart as West Africa, the Caribbean and South America. Over the years it has welcomed the likes of Youssou N’Dour, Mory Kanté and Bunny Wailer. There’s entertainment for kids and healthy world food is on the menu – it’s about the only festival in Brussels not to have a chip van.
Boechout, 27-30 July

This article first appeared in The Bulletin Summer 2017. Browse the magazine here, pick up a copy in newsagents or subscribe today...