Lowlands

I arrived back in the NL last Thursday and uneventful but long and hot flight. with one day to rest and making up with my cat before we headed north to the Lowlands Festival. This is one of the better summer festivals in Holland, with 3 days of a massive line-up with acts for almost everyone’s taste. I must admit I was not really in a "I have to see as many bands as possible" mood and the jet-lag was making me pretty tired. I regret not seeing a few of the bands that played, but did see a few that inspired me to stay and watch the whole thing.

On Friday I wanted to see Juliette and the Licks, but I had just gotten to the press tent and did not want to walk to the other end of the festival just then. So in fact the first band I wanted to see was The Doves who had cancelled, and the band that replaced them I don’t recall what they were called, next was the Kaiser Chiefs who were a typical Brit-rock band from the UK, good fun and nice to see even though the singer had hurt his ankle he still gave a pretty good performance. Up next was The Bravery who were another Brit-pop band. Franz Ferdinand was the last one we saw on Friday, in fact they were quite fun and enthusiastic to watch for a wee band from Glasgow. After which I decided to skip both The Prodigy and Royksopp as much as I wanted to see them I could barely keep my eyes open and we still needed to drive over an hour to get home.

Saturday was a find day at the lowlands festival, warm and sunny and just the right temperature to make people want to drink more beer. The festival seemed to have picked up a notch from the day before, more people in strange outfits, some great tee-shirts and a few entertaining things along the way between the stages. One thing that really caught my eye was the Silent Disco, people were really into it, and great fun to watch. We got there just as Apocalyptica was beginning so I missed them again, but I was quite excited because Death from above 1979 was playing on one of the smaller tents, this band I have only just gotten into on the prompting from my younger brother. They were great fun to watch not only because they are Canadian but because they only have two guys playing in the band, which is quite fun and full of great energy. After which my most anticipated band was Arcade Fire, another Canadian band making waves all over the place right now. I stayed to the end to watch them, they were FANTASTIC, right up to the drummer climbing to the top of the speakers with his drum, I am sure the security loved it; I am know the crowd did. Sadly Vive la Fete was playing at the same time and I made the decision to skip them. After was a bit of a wait for me, I skipped the Pixies and was waiting for Marilyn Manson, as usual a huge show with loads of lights and effects and larger than life Marilyn with all the stage fun to go with it. Then it was time to head back for a nights sleep

Sunday was a slow start, but arriving in time for Morcheeba narrowly missing Korn. Morcheeba was not what I expected because there was a new girl singing, apparently the singer no longer wants to tour so they have brought in another woman to sing on tour. She did a pretty good band, but it was not quite the same. Then I wanted to see The Dresden Dolls, who also had cancelled so we went instead to see Sons and Daughters who were ok, needing some energy on stage, but I can imagine they were quite nervous to be playing. All the photographers headed over to Queens of the Stone Age, but we decided to go and find some food and ended up in front of a tent with perhaps the most energetic band at the festival, even more so than Arcade Fire. Cheb Balowski (sorry the link was all I could find) was givin’ it all and the over stuffed tent was taking it all with enthusiasm. The music sounded like it had Polka, North African, French and Gypsy music all squished in, I could not tell how many people were on stage but there were a lot, I cannot recommend enough GO AND SEE THIS BAND if you like music that you can’t help but dance, jump and cheer along to. After they ended we decided sitting in the Sun and drinking a Witbeer was a great option while we waited for Heather Nova. Which was also worth the wait, and who drew an astonishingly large crowd. She was photogenic, sweet and played really well and I was happy that I caught a chance to see her play live. After that I had no desire to see anything else and call it a nice and early night as we both had to work the next morning.

A few things that were quite funny by the festival, the large screens near all the stages, which showed some silly filmed things like “Pimp my Tent” & “Low Land People” shot from a camera on a stick walking through the crowds. There was also a cooking show of what nice dinners people on the camping place were cooking, filming people brushing their teeth and washing their faces in the communal washrooms. I loved the portable Dance floor and DJ’s that was driving around in one of those little 3 wheeled vehicles. I would say it was a job really well done, even Mr. Jan Smeets seemed to be having a great time when we saw him backstage, and he should know running Pink Pop all these years.