Down on the Underside: The return to Holland

Noorderslag / Eurosonic 2009
14/15/16 January, Groningen, Holland

After the Xmas blow-out, and the world sleepily moves towards a cold and dark Winter, the relatively small and low key City of Groningen bursts to life with music industry movers, wild-eyed music obsessed teenagers, and the cream of Europe’s musical talent. Similar to The Great Escape, with its roaming, spoilt-for-choice ethos, over 200 bands played across the city amongst the historical, the raucous and the down right bizarre (ever eaten a Febo - draw twinky? Don’t.).

For three days we cavorted and jaunted across the tiny city, hungry for music and fresh experience. In typical Dutch fashion, the whole thing seemed relaxed and open. The queue’s – in comparison to recent disasters at The Camden Crawl - were better than expected, although there was absolutely no way we were getting anywhere near Vera for Fight Like Apes. The drinks prices were reasonable too, but the festival USP was an electrifying atmosphere. Sure, their dances are wonky, they eat chips with Mayonnaise and everyone rides a bike, but at night the cobwebs are shaken off as you fluctuate between the Spacious hall of Grand Theatre, to the dimly lit bar of Huis De Beurs through sprawling and buzzing streets. Hell, we even saw Rolo Tomassi play an unscheduled TV session in a fake wooden pub in the middle of the city’s main square.

Clash picked two favourite venues in amongst the thirty strong list, one being Vera, the historical home of the city’s connection with live music. Once home to a rising and unknown Nirvana and a cheap 5-gilder U2 gig, the venue itself played host to Lowline offering their heavy, ballsy, Northern twang to a packed room of eager and fresh meat and Baddies showed us what the hype was about. Other acts at the Mecca included Fight Like Apes, Firefox and uber-cool, all-girl electro pop trio Le Corps Mince De Francoise, who showed us how to remain sassy even in the face of a confused and rather warped out crowd.

Clash’s other favourite venue was the Simplon Youth Hostel, located a fair way out from the main city, and host to some stunning acts. A youth hostel/arts centre, it’s two floors played host to Vice and Warp records, devilishly treating us after a long schlap to core alternative music, including Hudson Mohawk, Tim Exile, Beardyman and Esser, although Clash gleefully looked forward to a strong line up on the second night. Elsewhere, In assorted venue’s, we were treated to Hellsongs dark and unashamed death-folk and Dinosaur Pile Up’s post rock.

The low-point (and it kills to say this) had to be the third and final day, Eurosonic, a showcase of Dutch artists, housed under the space-age Oosterpoort centre at the top of town. With droves of cramped revellers, paranoid security and enough Orange semiotics, Grolsch advertising and festival logo’s to choke upon, I felt the feeling of mellow freedom and spontaneity melt away as we were mashed-up in amongst the lunatic fans. Luckily though, The Death Letters, and new epitaph signing zZz created an energetic break from a lot of other twee Dutch folk artists, such as the dreadfully dreary Wouter Hamel and the nausea inducing Masses. In fact, we were possibly the only British journalists in the building and after battling through Dutch speaking pop music, we ended the weekend with something that we knew required no talking whatsoever; we got our ‘cloggstep’ on to bass-baiting 2562 for smooth, techno inspired sub bass, followed with a tearing Caspa and Rusko style set from DJ Gomes as a nice little nightcap. That’s if you consider a sledgehammer round your cranium a nightcap to be fair.

Dutch music itself may be slightly damp and a bit squalid, and there may have been bemused foreigners and language barriers hanging off every chord and band, but fortunately, the festival remains one of Europe’s best, friendliest and - most importantly – cheapest. It offers great value for money and a scene away from the clutches of the global US market. And they definitely know how to put on a good party too!! In fact i got completely fucking twated. Here is what i remember:

Hits:

Buraka Som Sistema: No matter where Portugal’s’ Buraka go, they start the party fire with a bottle of Kerosene, a box of matches and a sinister grin.

Rolo Tomassi: Fresh, young and certainly not naïve, the shredding guitars and singers insane growling scared the wits out of us.

2562: a refreshing alternative to the day when Holland’s pop music comes together in what traditionally focuses upon jazz, blues and twee indie.

The Rakes: Playing a few new songs and all their favourites didn’t matter to the curious crowd, who after a flat start warmed to The Rakes’ twitchy post-punk indie.

Dinosaur Pile Up: A triumphant show from brave English post rockers. Every tune sounded like it had been plucked from a broad spectrum of tastes. Exuberant stage presence.

Shits

Firefox – Low-end grunge blues sounded strong, solid and rounded. Unfortunately, the crowd were just passing and the set fell flat after three songs and the band looked like wounded guppies for nthe next half hour.

Fight Like Apes – Hugely hyped Irish band. Clearly, the hype had spread far and wide, as it was the only band of the weekend that we were turned away from. Not worth a toss anyhow.

Filthy Dukes – Unfortunately, our geeky electro rock brothers played a full on, high-octane set that no one was around to witness. During the last two songs the venue started to fill – but is was too late after seeing them play ‘Messages’ and ‘The Rhythm’ to a virtually empty crowd.

John and Jehn – thistly crap that bored me – and everyone else – to tears. Bland, flat and not pop memorable, but pop annoying.