Lowlands Low

(by Brian Ferry and Antony, from the V/A compilation Rogue's Gallery)

After a week I've finally recuperated (a bit) from the Lowlands festival. Is it my age?
I had a wonderful time, saw lots of great concerts and such. And to get it out of the way immediately, I didn't think it was as good as last year, but still excellent. Then again, last year had 2 of my favourite bands (Urban Dance Squad and Spearhead) and a brilliant concert by Iggy And The Stooges. This year didn't have any upfront favourites of mine and I didn't witness a set as amazing as the Stooges one last year. In any case, I've now compared this year's edition with last year's, so I don't have to do it anymore in the rest of my review. Now, let's go!

It was raining quite hard when I left home on Friday morning. I got visions of a very wet festival, but luckily the rain disappeared soon. I arrived at the camping site around noon, found my friends (who got there about 30 minutes before me) and set up my tent. Which is easy, as I have one of those self-building tents. The actual festival hadn't started yet, so we hang around on the camping, drinking and having fun. And then it suddenly started raining. Ooh baby, it was raining, raining. Luckily all of our friends had finished setting up the tents, so no harm done. And that was all the rain we saw at this festival.

The first band we wanted to see was The Editors, so we entered the festival site around 16:30 and headed for the big tent. The Editors were quite good, really a nice 'festival band' (even though their songs are quite dark). I don't know how I did it, but I managed to lose the rest of the group during that first performance. One moment I saw them, I took a sip of my drink and next moment they're gone. Oh well, there's so much to see that I didn't really miss them. I'd probably bump into them later.
After The Editors I had a casual stroll to the other side of the site to catch a concert by Justice. They're one of the hottest dance acts of this moment (and have a hit with the catchy song D.A.N.C.E.) and as the program stated they'd perform live, I was quite interested. Well, they may have performed live, but it was still 2 guys with turntables, sequencers and that kind of machinery. As I didn't feel like watching them for the whole set, I went outside of the big tent, found a nice place to sit in the sun and enjoyed it all from there. Nice music and sun, what a combination!

Next up was Hayseed Dixie. Now this was really a party! I saw them at a small festival a couple of years ago and really liked their act. Basically, they're playing hillbilly (acoustic bass, acoustic guitar, fiddle, no drums) covers of hard rock songs. And their current set also includes I Don't Feel Like Dancing (Scissor Sisters) and Holiday (Green Day). They're acting like rednecks on the stage, but it's all great fun. You should really hear their versions of Ace Of Spades (Motörhead) and Highway To Hell (AC/DC) to believe it. So that brought me into the mood for a great evening.
Which brings me to maybe my highlight of the festival: Basement Jaxx. I saw them live last year (as the support act for Robbie Williams) and had a good time then. Even though I only have their greatest hits album, I had an even better time at Lowlands. They played lots of their hits and they've got stage presence. Basement Jaxx is basically a dance act, but live they're a full band with female vocalists, horns, etc. And they know how to build a party. So together with the rest of the tent I was dancing the soles off my feet. And it felt good! As I said, a highlight.

By now the band part was over for the Friday, so I headed to the tent where some DJs would be playing the best of British music over the year. And look who I found there! It was my group of friends again. So until the early hours we danced to British music between The Beatles and the Kaiser Chiefs. The festival started with a high...

On Saturday I first met up with some other friends who were coming to the festival. By then I'd already checked out C-Mon & Kypski, but wasn't too impressed by their dance/rock hybrid. After laying in the sun a bit with them (I figured that this would probably be my only chance of getting a tan this year) we went to see Admiral Freebie. I'd seen him before as my concert buddy is a fan of his work. His concerts were always nice enough to see again. He would play an 'intimate concert' in one of the small tents, but he still managed to rock and improvise. My friends were also impressed, so you can say that it was another good concert I witnessed.
I then met up with my other friends again (as the others wanted to a different concert than I wanted) and with them I went to see Saybia. Well, they indeed have nice songs and such, but I agree with their Dutch nickname which is Saai-bia (with Saai meaning boring in Dutch). So we left halfway, which gave me the opportunity to check out CSS (or Cansar de Sei Sexy as they're called in full). I hadn't really heard from them before the festival, but read some positive things about them, so I wanted to see them myself. They're a Brazillian girl band (only their drummer is male) playing endearing electropop/rock songs. And it was a pretty good concert too. And the singer! She had a glitter jumpsuit on, whoohee! Yeah, I had a good time. At the end they also threw in some lines of Rihanna's Umbrella, so they're completely correct in my book.
As I wanted to see M.I.A. next, this meant that I'd miss Interpol (and the Kaiser Chiefs). Oh well, you can't have it all. Besides, I'd already seen the Kaiser Chiefs before when they were support act on the Vertigo Tour. I was quite interested in seeing M.I.A. as I had high hopes of her show. She's a very political rapper and coming from Sri Lanka she also incorporates lots of bhangra and dancehall and such in her songs. Alas, apart from an extra vocalist, she only brought a DJ with her. And I'm not really into that 'two turntables and a microphone' thing, so I left early.
I then wanted to see the rest of the set by Patrick Wolf. One of my friends said he's quite good, so I wanted to see it myself. But I wasn't impressed by his set (think eccentric singer/songwriter with band), so I also left early with this concert. I did manage to hear him snippet Rihanna's Umbrella in one of his own songs, so it wasn't all bad.
The tent that had that best of British the day before was playing all kinds of 90s music on Saturday. As the DJs went for the cheese factor, I was bored quickly and left when they started with some Backstreet Boys song. Oh well, they're was still lots of fun to have on the camping, so it still wasn't an early night for me.

By Sunday I was starting to feel the wear of attending such a festival. But I didn't let it get into the way of having a great time. I wanted to start with Patrick Watson as he was being billed as a singer/songwriter with Jeff Buckley and Radiohead influences. Sounds interesting on paper, but not so much live. His set was a bit too sloppy, so I left early. I then went to a concert by Alpha Blondy and that was more like it! Reggae, jah man! Lying in the sun on a small hill, just outside the tent they were playing. Wonderful! So I didn't really see the band, but was enjoying their music immensely. They even played quite a good reggae cover of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Definitely one of the better acts I witnessed.
I met the group of friends again for the concert by The Shins. Don't really know much of their stuff, but they sounded quite OK. Nothing groundbreaking though, just good festival music. We hung around a bit more to see (and mainly hear) the start of the Nine Inch Nails concert, but left soon thereafter. It isn't really my type of music.
Near the end of the festival I witnessed another highlight. Until that afternoon I hadn't heard of the band Goose (they're Belgian, for those wanting to know ), but some of my friends wanted to see them and so I went. Hey, I like a nice surprise now and then. And a nice surprise it was. Goose plays electro/synth/rock/punk (or whatever you call it) and I had a great time dancing to their music. And so had the rest of the tent (apparently, they got a much warmer reception at Lowlands than at a festival in their native country the day before). I really enjoyed it.
By then I had to cross the whole festival site again (in the meanwhile catching Ace Of Spades by Motörhead, so I can say I heard that one live too) to see Arcade Fire. Everybody's talking about them, they're hyped to the moon and I'm kinda indifferent to them. I'm not too impressed by their songs... But everyone says they're amazing live, so I wanted to see it myself before passing them over. And yeah, it's nice to see so many on the stage switching instruments. And yes, it's great to see they even have a church organ with them. But apart from Wake Up (which I mainly enjoy because it was the intro song to the Vertigo Tour) I can't get really excited by them. I again ended up lying on the field where I was lying earlier that day to enjoy Alpha Blondy. But this time I even managed to fall asleep! So I guess Arcade Fire and me are not made for eachother.

Because I fell asleep I did miss the start of LCD Soundsystem in another tent. And when I arrived I realised I made a good choice of concert again. LCD Soundsystem was quite impressive with their dance/rock show. The band was really tight and the songs sounded good. Time for me to check out one of their albums, I guess. I finished the day of concerts with the show by Groove Armada. Yet another dance act (there was quite a lot of dance on this festival, although the majority was still guitar-based rock). And they had also a band with them, a bag 'o hits and the stage presence to turn the tent into a party club. Again a very enjoyable concert, though I thought that Basement Jaxx was better. But that's like choosing between a Great party and a GREAT party. I had a wonderful time, so what more can you ask for?
After the concerts the festival did continue a bit with some more DJ sets. I wasn't really interested in the 90s grunge & alternative music, so I ended up at the outdoor cinema to watch the latest Tarantino flick, Death Proof. I thought it was excellent B-movie pulp to end the festival with, so I headed back to the campsite, had a few more beers and retreated to my tent.

As I said before, it was another great edition of the Lowlands festival. With hindsight I might've made a few different choices with acts I wanted to see, but in general I saw quite a few excellent concerts. This year did me realise that I really want to be there again next year, no matter what bands will be playing.

clt.: U2 - Please (UK Single Edit) (from the UK Please promo)

P.S. Car selection:
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Sting - Fields Of Gold: The Best Of 1984-1994
The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues (Bonus Disc)
V/A - Make Some Noise
Daft Punk - Discovery
Faithless - Irreverence