Festival deBeschaving Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht, August 30th, 2008
Saturday was very uneventful as well. Or wait, wasn't there some kind of festival? I left at 11 AM to take the train to Utrecht, met up with Heflin at the station of Den Bosch and we arrived perfectly on time at deBeschaving to see Friska Viljor. Cheerful Swedes with cheerful songs. Lots of Swedish bands were there by the way! We only got to see these guys though.
Anneke and Marieke also arrived during their set and eventually Angelique and Geriejan (sp?) were also there. One big happy family!
Me, disapproving of the typo that is "Mysery Jets".
We all went to deBeproeving (seriously, the person that came up with the names for the stages deserves an award or something...) to see Pete and the Pirates. They're so lovely! I wanted to put them in my pocket and take them home. I'm not scared of Pete and the Pirates, I'm in love with Pete and the Pirates, or something. Oh and the singer introduced one of the songs as "een liedje voor de meisjes". How sweet.
Heflin wanted to see Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly so I joined him for the last twenty minutes or so. Duckworth was rocking out once again, almost as hard as he did during London Calling. He even brought a bassplayer this time, but the laptop stole the show once again.
After that, we saw the last bit of Nneka's show. She was quite good, she has an amazing voice! And it's nice to see something different for a change.
Adam Green's performance could also be described as 'different'. He was completely going nuts on stage, in his white shirt with frills on the sleeves. I liked that he still plays old songs even though he has released about 5 (?) albums now.
Anneke: "Buttcrack blues?"
Small break, Heflin and I saw Gram and The Dodos, but both weren't really exciting enough to write anything special about them. I had a pancake.
Kate Nash was the first act we saw at deBekroning, the biggest stage at the festival. She played Mariella first, which is one of my favourite songs of hers, so I was pleased with that. But we got bored pretty soon after that one, and I wasn't really in the mood for her music. Sorry, Kate.
Mystery Jets were up next, which might have had something to do with not being in the mood for Kate Nash. I joined Anneke and Marieke in the front row and it were good times, once again. They started too late, but appeared to be in good shape. We've seen Henry (and his brother?) around but he didn't play with them, too bad.
William wore some kick-ass guitar/stars & stripes/American election suitable glasses
Kai, our sweaty multi-instrumentalist hero
Video: Flakes
(click the video to visit Youtube and watch the high quality version)
After the show, I asked a (local) roadie for the setlist, but he didn't seem to understand me. After I explained that it was the sheet of paper with the songs on it, he finally got it and gave it to me. Tadaaa:
They didn't play Zootime though. MAJOR BUMMER.
Anneke and Marieke stayed in the front row to wait for The Cribs, Heflin and I left to see Kaizers Orchestra. They were good, I saw them at Pukkelpop 2004 for the first time and they didn't seem to have changed that much ever since. Less loud, maybe. I don't know. They were alright but we didn't stay that long.
Good to know that there's an emergency exit.
After getting some food (bami with spring rolls, yum!) we realised there were already quite a lot of people waiting for The Cribs. I wonder how many of them would've been there if they were just playing with the three of them, but anywayz. They started playing and we had some good places at the back of the tent, behind the front of house box (?). But they were so awesome, opening with Don't You Wanna Be Relevant that I couldn't stay there. After seeing two (or one-and-a-half, to be more precise) passive gigs at Pukkelpop from a far distance I had to experience the Jarman-goodness in the heat of the action. Or something.
Heflin stayed behind (he called me a groupie the entire day, but whatever), I left my bag with him and went forward. Therefore, no pics. When I was at the mosh pit I was practically already there, so I stood behind Marieke, Angelique and Anneke and it was AMAZING. The extra guitar really does them good, Johnny Marr even looks like a Jarman if he wouldn't have the wrinkles, it does makes sense he's in the band now. Great show.
When they finished, Babyshambles already started playing at the big stage, so we went there fast. Yes, they made it, they were on time and the show was just... good! It felt like a "Best of Babyshambles" show at times, since they played almost nothing but singles and album tracks, not the obscure rarities Pete tends to play sometimes.
The great climax of the show was reached when Adam Green, SoKo and Gary Jarman joined the band to play Twist & Shout. Which probably is the wet dream of every festival organisation, haha.
Video:
(once again: click for high quality version)
Adam Green crowdsurfed halfway through the tent after the song and here's a crappy picture of it:
And that was pretty much the end of the festival for us! We saw the last bits of Nobody Beats The Drum, which was really cool but they talked too much between the songs. And we drank.
We ended up waiting for Kubus & BangBang but still hadn't begun at 11 PM (they were supposed to be playing at 10.30) and Heflin and I had to catch the train, so we left. The rest of the group stayed but they didn't get to see much more either, I think.
On the train Heflin and I compared shoe dirt. He won.
Altogether I can say I really enjoyed the festival! At first I wasn't sure about going, it was rather expensive and I had already seen most of the bands. But the weather was great, the music was great as well, a nice atmosphere: Dutch festivals can be good ;)
