All of the things that go to make heaven and earth

Yes you have made it to day five of this “something new I’ve been listening to a day” theme week! And today’s topic is: The New Pornographers. I came across this band when I was first discovering the wonderful world of indie (which is in itself an impossible word to define, but worth discussing in a future post perhaps). I don’t remember exactly how I found out about them, but I do know the song that immediately had me hooked was Mass Romantic, the title track from their first album. It was all snap crackle and pop, like nothing else I was listening to at the time! I found it completely addictive, with Neko Case’s vocals as the cherry on the cake.

For those not in the know about this band, which every teenager should have in their collection just to piss off their parents for having found a harmless way to sneak pornography into their room, do a quick scan of their wikipedia here. In short they’re an ‘indie supergroup’ from Vancouver, although they hate that title. It sticks to them because many of the (many) members have an interesting track record with other bands or solo, besides their contributions to the Pornographers. Some actually don’t usually tour with the band, such as Case, but just contribute to the records.

Watch another great song from Mass Romantic: Letter From An Occupant, also featuring Neko Case and some of the best whohohoooo’s ever in a song

Well, Mass Romantic was three albums and seven years ago. The New Pornographers have just released their fourth: Challengers [August 2007]. I like their previous two albums (Electric Version and Twin Cinema) a lot, but neither of them gave me quite the same buzz as Mass Romantic. As I pressed play last week, I was hoping to be blown away in a fury of power pop with this one too. But you can probably feel it coming… I wasn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, Challengers is definitely crammed full of more exquisite indiepop perfection. After the first few listens a few tracks stand out to me. All Of The Things That Go To Make Heaven and Earth (hmmm a tad pretentious for a song title?) is probably the closest thing to my Mass Romantic nostalgia. The piano being attacked with a vengeance and the characteristic joint vocals: all is well. Mutiny, I Promise You is another great up tempo song, but that’s about it. Opener My Rights, Versus Yours keeps teasing you, letting on there might be a frenetic high coming, but it just ambles on. I realise the slower, more ballad like songs on the album are really top quality too, but that’s just not what I turn to the Pornographers for. I listen to more than my fair share of self conscious singer songwriter types to satisfy that need.

My Rights, Versus Yours on David Letterman

(You can also download this song from the band’s website)

So on the whole, the down tempo songs seem to have taken over from the fizzy head bopping fast ones, and I for one am sad to see them go… BUT, if you’ve never heard The New Pornographers, please don’t let this somewhat disillusioned post discourage you. They’re great! They’re amazing! Pick up Mass Romantic or any of their albums and let me know what you think.

If it’s your cup of tea you’re in luck: they’re coming this way soon (end of November) to perform at Crossing Border!

Edit: I just found this blog post on The Glorious Hum that does a great job of putting into words a lot of the doubts I have about this album too (thanks!). And also a quote from an interview with Carl Newman which explains a lot about the departure from the ‘snap crackle and pop’ sound.

Standing in the way of control

Well, I had a lengthy debate with myself about this one: to post or not to post. A brief summary of the debate goes as follows:

• Don’t do it! You can’t possibly get away with posting this one under ‘new albums’, it’s not even new-ish by any reasonable standard for god’s sake. You’ll ruin your budding reputation as Person Who Knows Cool New Music!
• Sure it came out in 2005 originally, but it only officially hit European shelves two months ago. That’s definitely new-ish!
• Yes but seriously, there has been such a ridiculous amount of media frenzy about The Gossip over the last year that only people living under rocks won’t have heard of them yet at this stage…
• Hold on there! Some of my best friends live under rocks! Very nice cosy rocks, almost pebble like. And what if there are still some people who don’t know about The Gossip, let’s say they’ve been in Vladivostok for a year cut off from all modern communication, surely it would be a shame if they never heard this band?
• Ok, you need to seriously think about your target audience. Vladivostok? Although I think even the local Vladivostok newsagent will probably have sold some copies of Beth Ditto’s nude NME cover issue. But I guess you have a point, for the sake of music. Plus you’ve had three days of this softie pop for gushing girls, it’s time you posted some RAWK. Get a move on then.

Well there you have it, The Gossip made the blog. I’m not going to do what has already been done months ago and ten times better by others, so you can check out some decent reviews of The Gossip’s album Standing In The Way Of Control here:

• What Pitchfork had to say
• What Rolling Stone had to say
• What Drowned In Sound had to say

And I’ll just leave you with The Song everybody needs to have on their iPods: Standing In The Way Of Control. That get-off-your-arse beat, Beth’s killer voice, it’s just perfect. You get the video version first (already excellent), but please don’t skip the best experience of all: Beth Ditto in all her animalistic live glory in the second clip!

Watch the video clip:

And then watch The Gossip rock out at Glastonbury this year:

(If this really is the first time you’ve heard anything about The Gossip and the lead singer has left you slightly in shock: just google Beth Ditto and click on one of the hundreds of blogs and message board discussions about the phenomenon that is Beth’s Bodacious Body and figure out if you’re a lover or a hater. By the way, how was Vladivostok?)

What’s a girl to do?

Next up in this blog theme week: Bat For Lashes‘ album Fur and Gold [July 2007]. You would have had to listen to a lot of late night radio to catch a Bat For Lashes song as there’s hardly any airplay over here, oddly enough the way I came across this find was much more mundane: good old MTV! Yes indeed. In between the hours and hours of brain numbing drivel about American high school kids turning sixteen/ getting drunk/ being made into a dancer/ telling their parents they’re gay/ getting plastic surgery to look like Christina Aguilera/ getting their car turned into something similar to what my Barbie used to drive/ dressing up and attempting to sing like Christina Aguilera, there is one last saving grace that occasionally restores my faith in this dying channel: the Brand New chart.

It was there I saw this exotic looking girl with a sparkly sweater riding a small bicycle in the dark, joined by several fairy tale creatures (is that Frank, the rabbit from Donnie Darko I see?), politely pleading for advice: “When you’ve loved so long, that the thrill is gone, and your kisses at night are replaced with tears (…) What’s a girl to do?”.

What’s A Girl To Do:

(Did you start singing “be my baby” at the start too?)

I was immediately intrigued. Who is this girl? As it turns out her name is Natasha Khan, a 27 year old songwriter from Brighton. I thought perhaps it would be one of those one-off songs that catch you by surprise, but after listening to the album a couple of times I really like it. It’s full of songs with sparse, other worldly arrangements, handclaps and whooooo-backing vocals that often create a creepy atmosphere, as if they were made especially as a soundtrack for walking around a dark forest with who-knows-what lurking behind the trees. The lyrics are entirely in keeping with this atmosphere, with tales of talking animals, wizards and bats.

Natasha’s airy, slightly sad voice sometimes reminds you of Björk (the way she sings “creatures of mercy” in Trophy immediately brings of one of Björk’s unintelligible yelps in Venus As A Boy to my mind), then turns more towards Tori Amos (“Tahiti we don’t got no name, Tahiti we don’t got no home”), but definitely has enough character of its own to stay interesting. I particularly like the spoken bits, but I could imagine that’s not to everyone’s taste.

Prescilla :

There are weaker songs on the album too, such as I Saw A Light and Seal Jubilee, but in my opinion it doesn’t dampen the surprising and magical experience of this refreshing record.
Here are a few more of the standout tracks on the album, see if she can cast her spell on you too:
*  Horse And I   
*  Tahiti 
*  The Wizard

She was born on a brightened pier to a gypsy mother and a bucket of tears

I first became aware of Jenny Lewis through the backing vocals she did for The Postal Service (for instance on the great track The District Sleeps Alone Tonight). Soon after I got to see her in action when Rilo Kiley was the opening act for a Bright Eyes concert I attended in Utrecht’s Tivoli in 2005. I was there with friends RW & MB and we were immediately charmed off our socks by catchy (if somewhat melodramatic) songs like Portions for Foxes and Does He Love You from their 2004 album More Adventurous. Last year Lewis released her critically acclaimed solo debut ‘Rabbit Fur Coat’, featuring The Watson Twins.

But apparently Lewis has plenty of creative energy to go around as Rilo Kiley have now put out their fourth album Under The Blacklight [August 2007]. I Sadly just missed their show supporting their new album in Paradiso on the 24^th due to severe lack of funds…
I loved their albums The Execution of All Things and More Adventurous, and therefore was a bit puzzled when I first played this one. What’s with all the poppy beats and smooth background vocals? Is it secretly a concept album, a time warp to the Dreams-era of Fleetwood Mac? Once I got past the fact that it’s simply very different from their previous releases, I got to like it. Sure it’s very polished and almost eerily radio friendly, but the album has a very consistent sound and Lewis’ vocals are still great. The only downfall of all this newfound consistency is that there aren’t really any firecracker songs that shoot out from among the so-so ones.

Watch the video for the opening track Silver Lining:

I do have some some songs that get played more often though. Opener Silver Lining still has that laid back country guitar twang, Lewis’ voice easily switching from the lower to the higher registers and her trademark bittersweet lyrics: “I never felt so wicked as when I willed our love to die”. The next song is my personal favourite: Close Call. It’s Lewis in her storytelling mode, like some of the best songs with The Watson Twins (for instance the title track, Rabbit Fur Coat). Add to this some great Kate Bush-esque vocals: it’s a winner. Also the extremely poppy Breakin’ Up, The Moneymaker and Under The Blacklight are noteworthy.

Watch the video for The Moneymaker:

However… Why the Spanish lyrics in Dejalo? Why the extremely repetitive and toot achingly sweet lyrics “give a little love to get a little love” in the closing song? And I like the sound of Smoke Detector, but am I seriously listening to a song about cigarette smoke in a club? And if so, am I missing its tongue in cheek appeal? I hope so.

In short, it’s a bit of a conundrum this one. My worst nightmare is that a track like Breakin’ Up is going to be played on those coma-inducing-radiostations, back to back with Jewel and Dido, and stay at home mom’s the world over will swing their backsides to it while hoovering the room. It’s just so dangerously poppy. On the other hand who needs a replica of their previous work and that tune Close Call is damn good…

You can listen to 30 second snippets through Studio Brussel’s website by clicking here. What do you make of it?

I know a long forgotten song but everybody still sings along

Lowlands has got my hunger for new music revved up to the maximum again! Thankfully, there’s lots of great new music out. Or sometimes it’s not so new (damn those tragically late European release dates sometimes!), but at least new-ish to me and maybe to you too. So I thought it might be nice to do a blogtheme this week: one new(ish) album I’m listening to in the spotlight every day (or so).

I’ll kick off with The Thrills‘ new album, Teenager [July 2007]. If you loved their previous albums So Much For The City [2003] and Let’s Bottle Bohemia [2004], you can simply walk straight to the check out with this one. The most Californian sounding five-piece ever to come out of Ireland have stuck to their winning recipe of sunshine indierock. It’s not innovative or even particularly exciting, but I’m just a sucker for their upbeat jingle jangle guitar sound, the odd banjo or harmonica thrown in and Conor Deasy’s husky and always slightly tired lyric delivery.

If you were hoping The Thrills were going to progress to a different sound, you will be disappointed. But come on, who can be disappointed with more of a good thing when it leads to the likes of Long Forgotten Song? (no video yet, just audio:)

I’ve been listening to this record all weekend, wishing I was already driving along a sun drenched Californian highway, windows wide open, with Nothing Changes Round Here, the first single, blasting from the stereo (just seven weeks and counting until the real deal!).

Other favourite songs include This Year (“this year could be our year!”), I Came All This Way (love the expression “backseat fumblings”) and There’s Joy To Be Found (with some nice Beach Boys harmonies).

On a more critical note, none of the songs grabbed me right from the start in the way some of their past gems did (in particular Big Sur, Don’t Steal Our Sun and Santa Cruz). And although the lyrics often take you back to long teenage summers, bumming about with no particular purpose, they don’t really scratch the surface of what could have been a memorable album capturing those years we spend the rest of our lives nostalgically looking back on.

Day three, pt 2: Sunday, August 19th

Finally some more friends made their way to the terrain and we met up for The Shins in the Grolsch tent. Despite the fact The Shins never really had a big hit in Holland, the tent was pretty much full. I’m guessing maybe their prominently featured songs on the superb Garden State soundtrack had something to do with that. However, I got some surprised looks when I started singing along, there weren’t a lot of fans around in the back. Sadly, The Shins’ often understated songs without a clear repeat-after-me-chorus all but drowned out by the time they reached the back of the tent, making the show a bit of a let down for me. Again, this music seems much better suited to a more intimate setting, but beggars can’t be choosers. On the up side: New Slang was still amazing! “And if you took to me like a gull takes to the wind…”

I couldn’t find any decent footage of the concert itself, but here’s an ‘exclusive backstage cabin session’ of Australia they did during the festival voor 3voor12:

After The Shins I started to get a bit restless… Only a few hours until Arcade Fire! Luckily I managed to infect London-friend MT with the bug and he didn’t need much convincing that we should take serious measures to get to the front of the -undoubtedly huge- Arcade Fire crowd. This meant already manoeuvring our way into the separate front section of the Alpha before the previous concert. Thankfully that was hardly a chore (like, say for instance a full Motörhead concert would be for me…), seen as Sonic Youth were up first.

I was feeling slightly like a hypocrite taking up space in the front of that show, as I’m hardly a hardcore Sonic Youth fan. But then again, I only spotted about two of them around me (not a single bit of youtube footage to be found of the show either). And as it turns out I really enjoyed their show! Particularly the full on noise sessions. There was something nostalgic about it. As if I was listening to the parents of all the bands I used to listen to in my musical coming of age years: Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, The Breeders, Radiohead…
I’m not entirely sure, but I think I heard Kim Gordon give the pretty passive audience a smack in the face when the band came back on for the encore after a few minutes of cheering, when she simply said: “you woke up”.

The second Sonic Youth left the stage, the battle was on: a frantic scramble to the front row by all the people who were obviously doing the same as us: waiting for Arcade Fire. It took no more than twenty seconds in total before the crowd turned into one solid mass of immovable bodies, but we made it! We managed to secure a spot about four rows from the front, firmly wedged in between other diehards. The tent was absolutely packed.

In the following 45 minutes before the concert began, I learnt a few things:

1. Three festival days with reasonably warm weather, attending concerts in warm tents, makes everybody pretty darn smelly…
2. Nothing gets Dutch people more territorial than claiming a spot in a line, it gets ugly. One tiny girl was separated from her boyfriend who made it to the first row, and it took some serious persuading from surrounding visitors to convince one guy to let the girl get in front of him to be reunited with her boyfriend.
3. Arcade Fire fans are generally a really pleasant bunch. Once we were all settled into our square three inches of space, the guy in front of me was constantly making sure I could see past him and even ducked when I took pictures.
4. It is possible to have completely lost all sensation in your lower extremities, yet remain upstanding.

The band took to the stage in a massive wave of applause. They were already all smiles, looking like they were excited to play their socks off (well, except Win Butler of course, who had his trademark world-war-III-is-upon-us face, but still manages to be ever so charismatic). The stage had the neon bible image in the background and of course ‘The Organ’, all automatically conjuring up the sensation of coming to a sermon in a church way down South in the US. There were also several small round screens displaying the different band members playing their instruments. In the front of the stage there were four red neon pillars, with which Win proceeded to have several arguments throughout the concert, throwing the one in front of him to the ground. Twice.

(My best shot:)

Keep the Car Running was a good choice for opener, immediately followed by that other great car-song: No Cars Go. In no particular order I think these were all the other songs played : Intervention (goosebumps!), Haiti, Wake Up (the entire Grolsch doing the AAhhhhh OOhhhhh’s), Ocean Of Noise, Black Mirror, Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) (one of my favourites!), Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) and crowd pleasing closer Rebellion (Lies).

I’m having trouble being objective about this one, I just loved it. all I can say is I was temporarily lifted to some warp time zone were all I was experiencing was that concert right then. The hour flew past and I was sincerely surprised it was over: surely there would be an encore?? But no, the sermon was finished and the bible closed…
Although Arcade Fire weren’t the official festival closing act (Tool had that honour in Alpha), anybody who was there knew that this was the real crowning glory of Lowlands 2007.

A clip of Wake Up, not great quality, but the best I could find…

I couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish my festivalweekend!! What a treat. I left the Alpha feeling (and looking) like I had taken 5 happy pills. We headed over to Groove Armada to dance the night out, as did about 90% of the 55.000 festivalgoers judging by the fact that there was about the same amount of people outside as inside the Bravo shaking their groovething.

Oh well. Only 359 sleeps until Lowlands 2008!

Day three, pt 1: Sunday, August 19th

I woke up already giddy with excitement: today I finally get to see Arcade Fire!!! I had planned to see them at their show in Vredenburg earlier this year, but that got cancelled because Win Butler was ill…

My friends were all in total relax mode taking their time waking up, still recovering from the night before. But my festivalclock was ticking: places to go and gigs to see! So I headed to the terrain by myself for one of the day’s openers I was really looking forward to: Patrick Watson. Luckily for me they put him in the smaller and more atmospheric India tent. Moreover, because it was only 12:45 I could walk straight through, all the way to the front, where I was surprised to see Patrick already on stage, doing some soundchecking. I’ll admit it, my first thought was: he’s hot. He sat there fidgetting with the keyboards, downing a beer with a cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth (my kind of guy haha), joking with the people in the front rows (“God its’ early isn’t it?” followed by his hilarious geriatric hillbilly chuckle).

The band were obviously in good spirits, giving it their all despite the early hour and not put off by quite a few technical difficulties. Drummer Robbie Kuster uses pretty much anything for percussion (his keys, his limbs) and guitarist Simon Angell went all out with an electric toothbrush and deflating balloon. Patrick’s voice was every bit as haunting (and Jeff Buckley-reminiscent) as on the album, but all the more interesting live: a bit rougher around the edges. The way he contorts his face when he sings was very amusing too.
They ended the set with an a capella rendition of Man Under The Sea (apparently every show during this tour), with all four bandmembers standing at the front of the stage, doing the percussion by jumping up & stomping their feet. The crowd loved it and were easily seduced into repeating “just me, the fish and the sea” on a loop. I enjoyed this concert immensely and hope to check out their show in Paradiso in September.

As this is my blog I am now going to shamelessly show my own poor quality snippet of footage from the finale and post a link to a better quality version below:

Click here for the decent quality tv-recording of the same song!. You can just about spot me at 1:30, I’m holding up a camera behind the tall blond guy with glasses in the front!

Next up: New Young Pony Club. I was expecting painfully hip ‘new rave’, but found there songs were much more conventional than I would have thought, and in parts quite boring. Add to this a way too early time slot, a decidedly placid crowd in a barely half-filled Bravo tent: not a great setup.  Although some songs were enjoyable and lead singer Tahita Bulmer made the most of it, I had more fun looking at all of the new rave girls in the audience: all leggings, brightly coloured tops with either glitter or those childlike prints of exclamation marks, clouds and ice creams. As good friend and fashionista MB commented: “Very daring. I wonder what they’ll think of their pictures of this weekend in 6 years time.” Sadly I didn’t hear them play my favourite track: Hiding On The Staircase.

Making the most of the glorious sunshine, we decided to enjoy Loney, Dear outside, lying on the grass. I was very glad we didn’t bother working our way to the front as we were distinctly underwhelmed with this act. I love a song or two of the pretty & quiet variety (Like the wonderful The Meter Marks OK), but they managed to fill an entire set with na na na’s and la la la’s, making for a sickly sweet ordeal.

Next post: The Shins, Sonic Youth and Arcade Fire!

Day two: Saturday, August 18th

The line-up for Saturday contained the least amount of highlights in my must-see checklist. Turbonegro just scares me, Saybia is scary too, but in a whingy whiny please-kill-me-before-I-write-another-suicide-inducing-song way. After Forever seems to be performing at every single festival and village fate I’ve ever been to, but luckily I’ve managed to avoid them so far. And Chris Cornell, seriously, what’s going on there? I had the misfortune of seeing an Audioslave gig at Rock Werchter in 2005, when the only noteworthy moments were their old Soundgarden and RATM hits. Now all of a sudden Cornell is trying the subtle sensitive approach and it’s just so gosh darn mediocre it hurts (see what Rolling Stone had to say about it here).

However, I definitely enjoyed Cansei de Ser Sexy! Arguably lead singer Lovefoxxx’ voice is not particularly memorable or consistent, but she makes up for it with buckets of charm and by bouncing around the stage as if there were an invisible pogostick attached to her rear end. and of course, who could forget that glitter catsuit? Their songs won’t make a dent in music history, their best-before-date is probably up by the end of 2007, but right now I find them irresistible. They had me singing “lick lick lick my art tit, suck suck suck my arthole!” the rest of the weekend.

Let’s Make Love And Listen Death From Above:

Gabriel Rios is another staple food on the festival diet and hard to avoid, but his shows are always a safe bet if you want some easy going latin inspired sunshine rock. It was probably the only show during the entire  festival I got all my friends to go and see and we had a ball dancing around the only half-filled Alpha tent. Watch Gabriel Rios play Tu No Me Quieres in the 3FM studio after his Lowlands gig by clicking here.

At the end of the day I had a serious dilemma: head over to Patrick Wolf or M.I.A. on my own or join my friends for the Kaiser Chiefs? I chose the latter, we watched the show from outside while lying on the grass. It was perfect! We got to sing “Oh my god I can’t believe it, I’ve never been this far away from home” without getting our bones crushed by the predominantly English crowd in the absolutely packed Alpha. Sadly though, I later heard Patrick Wolf’s show was amazing! So just to torture myself I’ll put up a video of his performance:

A clip of Teignmouth @ Lowlands (poor quality but the best I could find)

We ended our day in the Grolsch tent with the 90’s Now party, which was great fun! Just a handful of the songs we nostalgically shook our booty to: Leila K – Open Sesame / Backstreet Boys – Everybody / Shaggy – Mr. Boombastic / 2Unlimited – Get Ready For This / Scatman John – Scatman (which is my worst song in the entire world!!!) / Gala – Freed From Desire

Day one: Friday, August 17th

We arrived at the festival terrain on Thursday evening, all excited and anxious to set up camp. Our enthusiasm was flushed down the drain when we had to wait for hours for the 5^th camp ground to open when the first 4 were already full up in no time. However, after having staged a small war against the security people at the gates, they finally let us in and we managed to get a very decent plot for our little camp. All was well!

The next day it was finally time for some serious music consumption! Here are my three highlights of day one.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela
What a show to start with! Picture this: on stage two people, seated on stools, with Spanish guitars, in front of them: a massive tent that houses an audience of 10.000 people. It seems like a recipe for disaster, but they pulled it off. At first the tent was about half full, but soon enough it filled up and they captivated the audience with their incredible brand of rockflamenco. The most striking thing has got to be the speed and skill with which they play (particularly Gabriela), which was cleverly shown by projecting their hands on a big screen. And who knew you could use a guitar in so many different ways? They get such a range of percussive sounds out of their guitars that you never miss a drum kit on stage. They manage to keep the crowd interested with little guitar battles and by playing the occasional flamencofied version of well known songs, which prevents you from thinking “hmm I miss some lyrics” after 15 minutes of jingle jangle guitar work. When they played Wish You Were Here, the young couple beside me looked puzzled when everybody started to sing the words on Rodrigo’s cue. The girl said “it must be a generation gap, look how old all the people are that are singing along”, and indeed I suddenly felt very old! A great way to kick off the festival!

Watch them play a bit of ‘Foc’ at Lowlands:

Damien Rice

I wonder if Rodrigo Y Gabriela and Damien Rice had a chance to have some beers backstage as they toured together for a while, I was hoping they might join him on stage but alas… Well as I said before I was a bit worried about the huge Alpha tent and even though I got near the stage where people were very much into the show, I definitely did feel like he had some trouble ‘gripping’ the massive crowd at first. However, he wisely chose a set that contained less of the small intimate songs and more of the ones that end in an all out distorted shouting frenzy like I Remember and Rootless Tree, or simply the ones that are louder to start with, such as Woman Like A Man and Me, My Yoke, And I. My personal favourite was Coconut Skins, which I hadn’t heard live yet. Halfway through that song he broke a string and decided to solve it by retuning his guitar. He had to tune it twice and forgot the words for a moment too. This was actually the first time he cracked a smile and had some interaction with the audience, which improved the atmosphere of the somewhat routine-like gig up until that moment.
Listen to his show through 3voor12 by clicking here.

Watch Damien Rice play a ten minute extended version of I Remember at Lowlands:

The Killers

Basically The Killers deliver what you want from them: a tight set with the best of British rock covered in Vegas glitter. And all my wishes were granted, from the antler-adorned synthesizer to the glitzy outfit to the setlist. he tent was absolutely packed an expectations were high. To be honest I have no idea if Brandon Flowers’ dramatic voice was in shape or if the band was at its best, because I was just too busy having a good time. There wasn’t a single body in the front of the tent (and quite probably a lot further back too) that wasn’t jumping up an down and shouting along. They had to obey the audience’s raucous demand for an encore and they did in style. Brandon came back on asking the audience “If we fell would you catch us?” which was answered with loud cheers. He then introduced Bones by saying “We all got problems. We all got hearts. And we’ve all got bones!!!”  Closing song Mr. Brightside had the tent raving. Sure, they’re a well oiled machine and I saw pretty much the identical concert on tv when BBC was broadcasting Glastonbury in June. But why complain when it’s so goddamn good?

Watch When You Were Young at Lowlands:

 After the Killers show both friend MB and myself were absolutely shattered, having to lie down on the grass to get some oxygen into our systems. What better way to end a first festival day than exhausted with a satisfied grin on your face?

More Lowlands reporting coming soon!

The afterglow

As I sit behind my computer writing this I am all rosy cheeked and smelling like daisies after a half hour roasting post-festival shower, and munching on a big bowl of salad in a feeble attempt to make up for all the alcohol and grease consumed in the past 72 hours. But most of all I’m enjoying the happy afterglow of an absolutely amazing festival weekend!

Lowlands is such a visually stunning and well organised festival. Add to this your best friends, loads of incredible music, great festival weather (hardly any rain!), a good spot on the camp ground and 55.000 happy people around you and all of a sudden it’s clear why the ride home to dreary and grey The Hague today was such a downer: post festival depression…

The only negative thing I can think of was the ridiculous wait for the 5^th camp ground to open on Thursday night, resulting in masses of people having to construct their tents in pitch dark. Other than that: three cheers for a fantastic festival!

With laundry to do and sleep to catch up on I’ll just do a quick impression of the weekend now and write a day-by-day piece later.

Best overall Lowlands performance (seen by me)
Arcade Fire!! Perhaps a bit predictable as I have been looking forward to it for so long, but true none the less. The band were having a great time, it was Régine’s birthday and she just lit up the stage, Win was mesmerising in his gloomy-yet-loveable kind of way and the setlist wasn’t very surprising but definitely satisfying.

Favourite glad-I-happened-to-pass-by-act
Sonic Youth. Never really took the time to ‘discover’ them before, but loved their set! We also stumbled into the end of Alamo Racetrack’s silent session and were very pleasantly surprised.

Sad I missed…
Devendra Banhart, Basement Jaxx, Interpol, Editors, Air Traffic, Patrick Wolf, The Rifles, UNKLE…

Disappointing
Loney, Dear: how many na-na-na’s can an audience endure?

Most euphoric Lowlands 2007 moment
Frenzied jumping and singing our little hearts out during The Killers’ “When You Were Young” with friends MB and MT. He doesn’t look a thing like jesus!!

Best crowd response
Rodrigo Y Gabriela: their unbelievably skilled guitar acrobatics managed to fill and rock the massive Grolsch tent despite the absence of singalong lyrics.

Most fun had whilst dancing with friends
Gabriel Rios: Cincomanos!

Weirdest gig ending
Groove Armada: the encore that never came, making for a wet blanket of a closing act in the Bravo tent.

Funniest on stage moment
Patrick Watson’s guitarist Simon Angell getting experimental with an electric toothbrush and a deflating balloon to coax some interesting sounds out of his guitar.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for the day by day report. I also promise to embellish with lots of links to sites with audio and footage of Lowlands performances to ensure maximum afterglow effect! If you can’t wait that long, definitely check out 3voor12’s Lowlands audio & video page and also their webTV channels with lots of Lowlands broadcasting going on (you’ll just have to ignore the horrendously bad presenter twosome…).