After a first day marked for good and evil for Birdy and Underworld respectively, it was the turn to face the big day of the festival, who in its second day had performances by Lily Allen, Crystal Fighters or Kensington as main claims.
Accustomed yet to Spanish meals schedule and under the excuse of having seen him repeatedly in recent months, was unable for us to attend Jett Rebel concert, the young Dutch promise who sweeps in The Netherlands with their mix of pop, rock and soul, and whose live is usually noticeable by the movement of his leader and impressive voice of the accompanying chorus. So, the first concert of the day for us was Niels Geusebroek, famous for being the voice of one of the most notorious dance tracks in recent years as “Year Of Summer” and who enjoys a legion of fans in the Netherlands. Beyond the cheesy hit “Take your time girl” and a watered down version of “Magic” by Coldplay, the concert was too linear and lacking in charisma, sounding too monotonous because notes of guitars that seemed to repeat forever .. Following the stars of the local music, it was the turn on the big stage for the veteran De Dijk, that despite more than 30 years on stage they have on their backs, showed us that their pop rock style in Dutch language have a large number of followers and even we as neophytes were surprised by an energy that would be like for many of the current stars.
In a u-turn we were in the middle of the show that trio Shermanology offered, based on very similar dance beats to the Chase & Status proposed last night and managed to catch the public both by the sympathy of its members as well as by freshness of bases and perfect synchronisation of the voices. This oasis in a scenario by which would later groups based on bass sounds and the insistent rhyme as as flag like Mightyfools or Local hiphop band De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, is an example of how to do things in a good way, while triggering a little hope to the constant invasion of easy electronics sounds request by the masses that has occurred in recent years in festivals across Europe. Back to the big stage, the Belgian Milow and his band consisting of two guitars became a calm and intimate concert dozed too an audience eager to more powerful rhythms, as would subsequently shown to involve 100% in the show of Kensington. The Utrecht guys offered an entire lesson of rock and showed that in terms of musical quality, they are one step above the other big national band, Chef Special, especially for its variety of styles that makes them close at times to the sound of Editors or Bloc Party through a sharp distortion on the guitars and the succession of surround sound coming out of the synthesiser. After their powerful live, is even more incomprehensible as their success has come through a song like “Streets“, which brings them the most repetitive radio style with a similar style to the worst Bon Jovi..
Back to the small stage we stumble upon the pleasant surprise of Parov Stelar Band, which under an impressive stage with the band located at different heights, showed us how you can successfully merge genres like soul, funk, jazz and even rockabilly, but the presence of Crystal Fighters in the other scenario made swift running towards it and having to be away from a concert that had us hooked. Fortunately for us, and as usual with London band, the concert was a cyclone sustained on songs like “Love is all I got,” “I Love London” or “Plague“, which certainly sounded like a charm and made people dance during the nearly 45-minute concert. The charisma and magnetism of Sebastian Pringle is essential to understand their show, it would be equally inconceivable without the richness sound that Gilbert Vierich or Graham Dickson create or female voices from Eleanor Fletcher and Clarissa Land, showing that the concept of coral band falls far short of the greatness of the British group. The festival was about to come to an end, and in charge of concluding was neither more nor less than Lily Allen, junior idol masses in the UK whose fame is divided 50% between its musical quality and their addiction to controversy and parties .. In a stage dominated by a few giant baby bottles, the young British started the show with the track who title her latest album, Sheezus, with a sound that can be catalogued as “50% level” and an unhealthy obsession for wanting to dance as Beyonce or Shakira, obtaining quite unfortunate result .. The concert would be a dead end from which only their hit songs “Smile” and “Fuck You“, as well as the group of dancers who accompanied her, were saved. The dancers put all their efforts to keep afloat a show that was leaking from all sides and showing that not so young British artist is still hundred years away from being considered one of those stars who can carry on her shoulders the weight of a line up in a festival.
Regardless the failure of the great artist of the lineup, we can only congratulate the organisation of the festival for a balanced lineup that has allowed us to discover some of the best local bands at the time we enjoy international bands like Crystal Fighters or Birdy, while we worth waiting forward to the next year’s edition, which has been confirmed for 15th and 16th of June 2015 and who has also announced a change of location to the nearby hamlet of Geestmerambacht.
