It is the 21th of June 2020 and the beginning of my favorite season: Summer. Usually this is the start of the Festival Season, but now there is Covid-19 and everyone needs to keep 1.5 meters distance from eachother to contain the virus. This means that festivals are prohibited.

The Wandelgek likes to visit festivals all through the year but specifically the open air festivals in Summer and he is going to miss this.

Sitting in the grass, drinking a beer and eating a burger, looking to the right over a clear blue sun drenched lake where people swim, surf or sup board, looking left at a young family also sitting on the grass, the kids running around and a toddler trying to dance on the music coming from the large stage strait ahead.

The band is on fire, several people are in trance, dancing, jumping, oscillating wildly right in front of the stage.

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’
So hush, little baby, don’t you cry…”

Summertime; Songwriters: Gershwin Ira / Gershwin George / Heyward Du Bose

Summer… and festival!

The Wandelgek prefers Indie, Americana, Britpop, Worldmusic, Folk/Folkrock, Indie Punkrock and Bluesrock and everything familiar.

Here is a list of worthwhile festivals that he visited:

Although he didn’t keep memories of all of them, here’s a series of pics and vids that did survive:

Lowlands

A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise (commonly called Lowlands or Lowlands Festival), is an annual three-day music and performing arts festival, held in the Netherlands. The festival is held 68 kilometres (42 mi) east of Amsterdam in Biddinghuizen, at Spijk en Bremerberg, which is adjacent to Walibi Holland.

Although the main focus is on music – rock, pop, dance, hip hop and alternative – Lowlands also offers indoor and outdoor cinema, (street) theatre, cabaret and stand-up, ballet, literature and comic strips.

In recent years, the festival is attended by around 55,000 visitors, and features over 200 acts on more than ten stages every year which are named according to the NATO phonetic alphabet apart from the Heineken stage (named after the beer brewer Heineken, the main sponsor of the festival since 2015). The majority of stages are inside large tents to protect spectators against inclement weather, with the largest being approximately the size of a regulation football pitch.

My favorite performances were by: Belle and Sebastian, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Wir sind Helden and Johan.

Music Meeting

Fatoumata Diawara & Roberto Fonseca

International Music Meeting Festival is a three-day music festival during Pentecost in Nijmegen. The programming cuts across styles, genres and cultures. From jazz and improvised music to traditional music and unique crossovers.

During the Whitsun weekend, Park Brakkenstein in Nijmegen will be devoted to musical encounters and international collaborations for three days. With more than thirty concerts. But also with interviews, mini-concerts, master classes and workshops.

The Jones Family Singers

Music Meeting gives a stage to artists worldwide, who have rarely or never been seen in the Netherlands.

Mbongwana Star

Vierdaagsefeesten/Zomerfeesten

During the week of the Vierdaagse the accompanying festivities (known as the Vierdaagsefeesten) always draw a large crowd. It is known as one of the biggest festivities in the Netherlands, drawing a crowd of 1 million visitors. It starts on the Saturday before the marches, and ends on the Friday. There is free music during the week, and special events on each day, such as the famous firework display on Monday night. Amongst the festivities is the annual Valkhoffestival that takes place every day during the Vierdaagsefeesten.

Seen great performances of The New Cool Collective, The Golden Earring,

Valkhoffestival/De Affaire

The Valkhoffestival is a free annual music festival in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Amber Arcades

 

The festival takes place in mid-July as part of the Vierdaagsefeesten, the festivities accompanying the International Four Days Marches Nijmegen. It focuses mainly on all varieties of alternative, indie and progressive music. It is organized by the Dutch venues Doornroosje, Merleyn, Extrapool and Pan. The performances are on several locations in the city, mainly in parc Valkhof in the centre of the city next to the Waal. The castle on the location gives an overview over the river.

Dakota

Best seen performances were those from: Plants & Animals, Amber Arcades, Nick Veil, CleanPete, The Common Linnets, Archie Bronson Outfit.

Iguana Death Cult

All them Witches

Holsaby, Clean Pete and Monophonics

Hoogtevrees

A small free of charge festival in the Deventer Worpplantsoen (a beautiful green park just across the river from the Deventer city center). The festival started in 2014 at the Vogeleiland. The festival is like an oasis of tranquility for people who want to escape the much larger Deventer op Stelten Festival. You can visit it for two days or just to break free for a short while from the main festival.

Zomerparkfeest

Zomerparkfeest is a free four-day music festival in the Julianapark in Venlo. It is held annually in August, always in the penultimate week of the school holidays in the south of the Netherlands. It was organized for the first time in 1977.

The emphasis in the programming is on music, but there is also theater, dance, science, cabaret, literature and film.

 

History

The festival was first organized in 1977 as a street party in the Venlose Heutzstraat. Under the name Zomerstraatfeest, a free event with music and theater was organized here on 25 and 26 June 1977. The first edition was a success and was therefore continued a year later. From 1979, the event was moved to the nearby Julianapark. The name was then changed to Zomerparkfeest.

Summer Park Party is one of the largest events in the province in 2016 with more than 90,000 visits over four days. Zomerparkfeest has seven stages and also organizes activities on the premises. The number of performances is above 120. Traditionally, a senior citizen’s afternoon takes place on Friday and there are activities for children on Sunday.

The Zomerparkfeest program consists of a mix of established names and innovation. Acts like Kaizers Orchestra, Infadels and Paolo Nutini made memorable performances in the Julianapark in the past before they broke through internationally. Zomerparkfeest was the first festival in the region to program new dance movements such as minimal and dubstep.

Zomerparkfeest has been appointed a Cultural Plan Institution (CPI) by the Province of Limburg since 2012. The province awards this title to institutions that contribute to the attractiveness of Limburg and that reason for citizens and companies to settle in Dutch Limburg and to spend time there. CPI status also guarantees a fixed subsidy amount for four years.

Summer Park Party has been free of charge from the first edition and still is. The festival is fully organized by volunteers. In 2016, the festival has about 400 volunteers. In addition, Zomerparkfeest makes use of associations for additional tasks during the festival itself. Another 600 volunteers are deployed. In return, they receive a contribution for the association’s fund.

The festival is made possible by sponsors. More than 150 companies sponsor in money or services. In addition, the festival has 1600 “Friends” who pay an amount of 35 euros annually in exchange for a T-shirt and an extra festival evening prior to the actual festival.

Lewsberg

Api Uiz

 

 

Brader Musiki

Johan

The Ex

King Ayisoba

Festival Mundial

Festival Mundial was founded in 1988 by Hans van Vugt and Dick Witte. The festival took place in the Leijpark for more than twenty years. It started as a free support event for development cooperation, the first four years under the name Third World Festival. In recent years, Festival Mundial expanded as a performing arts festival. In 2013 a new location was determined, in the Spoorzone, the creative heart of Tilburg.

After disappointing visitor numbers in 2018 and a stop on subsidies, it was no longer feasible to continue with the festival.

A selection of artists who performed: Youssou N’Dour, Ali Farka Touré, Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba, Anouk, Krezip, Tania Libertad, Aster Aweke, Omou Sangare, King Sunny Adé, Yelloman, Ziggi Recado, Intwine, Värttinä, Calypso Rose, Manu Dibango, Stella Chiweshe, Ismaël Lô, Urban Dance Squad, Gogol Bordello, The African Jazz Pioneers, Dorothy Masuka, Asian Dub Foundation, Crystal Fighters, The Opposites, Vive la Fête, Flogging Molly, La Pegatina, Oi Va Voi, The Youth of Today, Moby, NERD, Babylon Circus, Blaudzun, Hoffmaestro, Triggerfinger (band), Fat Freddy’s Drop, Goldfish, Selah Sue, Che Sudaka, Sabrina Starke, Dropkick Murphys, Paolo Nutini, Circle J, Xavier Rudd and Pierce Brothers .

My favorite performances were by: Babylon Circus, Gogol Bordelo, Zita Swoon, Habib Koite, Kyteman Orchestra and Slagerij van Kampen.

Het Tuinfeest

Every year, the old town center of Deventer is the stage for more than 30 poets. Around Theater Bouwkunde they recite their own work in the intimate setting of medieval monastery gardens. Leading Dutch and Flemish poets read their poems and the audience gets to know newcomers. A musical program provides the light-hearted note. The music is performed by artists that are known for their poetic/literary or at least superb language level of texts. New forms of presentation of poetry can be discovered in the theater of Theater Bouwkunde.

Huub van der Lubbe

Top performances by: Raymond van het Groenewoud, Huub van der Lubbe, Ellen ten Damme, Wende Snijders en CleanPete.

Thijs Boontjes

Down the Rabbithole

Down The Rabbit Hole (DTRH) is a three-day music festival that takes place in the Groene Heuvels leisure area in the village of Ewijk (near Nijmegen) in the Netherlands. It was first organized in 2014 and has since been held annually late June or early July.

La Femme

Like Lowlands it is organized by Mojo Concerts and marketed as a competitor to Best Kept Secret. The first edition was attended by around 10,000 people and nominated for two European Festival Awards. The three main stages – “Hotot”, “Fuzzy Lop”, and “Teddy Widder” – are named after rabbit breeds.

Calexico

 

Fever Ray

David Byrne

• The 2014 edition saw Damon Albarn, The Black Keys, and Foals as headliners.
• The 2015 edition had Damien Rice, Iggy Pop, and The War on Drugs play.
• In 2016 the festival was headlined by PJ Harvey, The National, and Anohni.
• The 2017 edition was headlined by Moderat, Fleet Foxes, and Oscar and the Wolf.
• In 2018 Queens of the Stone Age, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds headlined the festival.
• In 2019 Editors, Underworld and Janelle Monáe played as headliner.

 

Togo All Stars

In 2020 the festival couldn’t take place because of the coronavirus pandemic in the Netherlands.

Wende Snijders

 

Clean Pete

St Vincent

Nils Frahm

Franz Ferdinand

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

My personal favorites with great performances: Franz Ferdinand, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, David Byrne, CleanPete, Vampire Weekend.

I miss the Summer of Love…

Best kept Secret

The Best Kept Secret festival is a three-day music festival held inside the Safaripark Beekse Bergen, within the village of Hilvarenbeek in the south of the Netherlands, since 2013.

Belle & Sebastian

Best Kept Secret is a music festival with a line-up in which big names are alternated with new discoveries from indie, folk, hip-hop, rock, electronics or a mixture of styles. The festival’s centerpiece is a lake at the back of Beekse Bergen safari park. The festival’s founder described his vision as aiming to create “something that we’d like to go to ourselves”.

Best Kept Secret festival has one open air stage (ONE), three tent stages (TWO, FIVE and SEVEN) and two dance floor stages: THREE and FOUR. For the 2017 edition Best Kept Secret added ‘The Casbah’, a dive bar and hang-out, that hosts performances of hardcore bands. For the 2019 edition Best Kept Secret added SEVEN, a smaller tent stage for experimental performers.

Whitney

The festival is organized by Dutch booking agency Friendly Fire.

In June 2013 the first edition was held, and sold-out each day with 15,000 visitors.

The festival has been nominated twice at the European Festival Awards:

• Best Festival Line-Up 2014
• Best Medium-Sized Festival 2014

In 2013 the festival won the ‘Best Festival Award’ at the ‘IJzeren Podiumdieren’ award show at Eurosonic Noorderslag. The ‘IJzeren Podiumdieren’ award show is an initiative by the Vereniging Nederlandse Poppodia- en Festivals (Dutch venues and festivals association).

Circa Waves

Best Kept Secret festival introduced ‘the food line-up’ for their first edition. The festival organization strives for diverse and sustainable food options, including vegetarian meals, soup and juices.

Some (a small selection) of the bands in the line ups from previous years were:

Elbow, Belle and Sebastian, Lykke Li, Angus & Julia Stone,  The 1975, Catfish and the Bottlemen,The Notwist, The Horrors, Arcade Fire, The Boxer Rebellion, Floating Points, George Ezra, Andy Shauf, Chris Cohen, Circa Waves, Cloud Nothings, Sigur Ros, Portishead, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Everything Everything, Black Lips, Local Natives, The Libertines, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Tallest Man On Earth, Chet Faker, Earl Sweatshirt, Of monsters and men, Franz Ferdinand, Pixies, Caribou, Damien Rice, Agnes Obel, Mozes and the Firstborn, War on Drugs, etcetera…

Thuston Moore Group

The Belle and Sebastian performance was one of my favorite concerts ever (together with Radiohead in Live in Westerpark and every Franz Ferdinand concert I attended).

Arcade Fire

De Oversteek

In green and amazing locations near the River Waal in Nijmegen-North.

Bettie Serveert

Get ready to visit twilight mangrove forests, well-hidden River Waal beaches and old high trunk tree groves on the Waaldijk. New locations are the Duivelskolk, the Doornikse Bos, the white church just across the Waal bridge on the N325, the top floor of the Van der Valk Hotel and the Kas van Bert. Old, familiar locations include Fortress Beneden Lent, Historisch Tuinderij Warmoes, Stadsnomaden and Boomgaard Smitjesland.

Rivers

ST Cordell

BoxSpring Festival

A small festival which was a mix between a fair, a market and some stages with music performances. After 2 years the festival did not return.

Live in Westerpark

Started in 2007 in the first week of July concerts in the Westerpark, more precisely in the “Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek”. After a number of try-outs in 2006, Mojo concerts decided to organize a number of concerts on the Westergasterrein in the first weeks of July. This is going well in 2007 and will be expanded considerably in 2008. However, due to the economic crisis, the line-up of the 2009 edition is smaller than in previous years. Anouk’s concert sold out quickly. Nevertheless, Mojo will continue concerts and plans to expand considerably in the coming years.

Note: The Wandelgek visited probably his most favorite concert ever when he was at the Radiohead opening concert of Live at Westerpark!

Rock in Park

Rockin ‘Park was a one-day pop festival that was first held on June 26, 2005 in the Goffertpark in Nijmegen, in honor of the 2000 year anniversary of that city. It is organized by Mojo Concerts. About 35,000 people attended the first edition of the festival. The second edition of Rockin ‘Park took place on June 28, 2008, again in the Goffertpark in Nijmegen. This edition attracted about 30,000 visitors and was partly broadcast live by radio station 3FM. The third edition of Rockin ‘Park took place on June 27, 2010. The main performance this time was the American grunge band Pearl Jam. There were approximately 35,000 visitors here. Edition four took place on June 30, 2012, starring Snow Patrol. This edition faced disappointing ticket sales. Since then there has been no edition, because the organization preferred to organize a multi-day festival. This eventually became Down The Rabbit Hole.

Other bands The Wandelgek saw were: Lenny Kravitz, Pearl Jam, Vampire Weekend, REM, Racoon, Queens of the Stone Age, Interpol,

Motel Mozaique

Motel Mozaïque is a music festival, held annually in Rotterdam, Netherlands in April. Motel Mozaïque focuses on music, art, poetry, dance and crossoverforms. Several locations cooperate during one weekend.

Bazar Curieux is the little sister festival of Motel Mozaïque, held annually in October.

• Motel Mozaïque 2001 Line up: Zita Swoon, Green Velvet, Kung Fu’s Discothèque, Tom Barman, Red Snapper, Kosheen, Cajmere, Tempovision, AVL – Ville (Joep van Lieshout), Fucking Dewaele Brothers, Dub Recordings feat. Funckarma, Cosmo Vitelli & Demon
• Motel Mozaïque 2002 Line up: Belle & Sebastian, Femi Kuti, Todd Terry, Evan Dando, Tom Barman, Four Tet, The Plan, Lo Fidelity Allstart, Orishas, Gotan Project, Relax, Kopna Kopna, Mono, Osulade, Fucking Dewaele Brothers, and others
• Motel Mozaïque 2003 Line up: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, The Faint, Compagnie Pal Frenak, Das Pop, Stephen Malkmus (Pavement) & The Jicks, Something Corporate, Erlend Øye, Face Tomorrow, The Kills, Tom Barman (dEUS), The Trills, Admiral Freebee, Love with Arthur Lee, Postmen, Arno, Cinematic Orchestra (soundtrack Man with the Movie Camera), Oud Hud, DJ Marky with XRS and DRS, and others
• Bazar Curieux 2003 Line up: Peaches, 2ManyDJ’s, Joost van Bellen, NU, Quannum Projects, Dureforsog, Fat Truckers, and others
• Motel Mozaïque 2004 Line up: Scissor Sisters, Mum, Clinic, I Am Kloot, The Shins, Zero 7, Grand National, Under Byen, Youngblood Braas Band, maxon Blewitt, Lasr Horntveth, Stijn, Lambchop, Explosions in the Sky, PONI, Miriam Reeders, Sigurdur Gudmundsson, zZz, Magnus, Apparat Organ Quartet, Joost van Bellen, Richard X, Hooverphonic, Drillem, Animal Collective, Marjorie Fair, Johnny Hoes
• Bazar Curieux 2004 Line up: The Faint, Libertines, and others
• Motel Mozaïque 2005 Line up: Millionaire, Tom Barman and others
• Bazar Curieux 2005 Line up: The Go! Team, and others
• Motel Mozaïque 2006 Line up: Battles, Be Your Own Pet, Black Dice, Wolf Eyes, and others
• Bazar Curieux 2006 Line up: Pink Mountaintops, Liars, Peaches, and others
• Motel Mozaïque 2007 Line up: !!!, The Moi Non Plus, Deerhoof, Tom Barman, Zita Swoon and others
• Motel Mozaique 2008, April 10–13 Line up: Be Your Own Pet, The Black Lips, Rob Scholte, Tim Vanhamel, dEUS, Holy Fuck
• Bazar Curieux 2008, 9th edition, 6-12-08 Line up: TV On The Radio, Roots Manuva, Benga, zZz, Yacht, Abe Vigoda and others.

Favorite performances at this festival: Paavoharju, Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Midlake, Akron Family, Smoke Fairies and Spinvis.

Bevrijdingsfestival

J.J. Sharp Band

The Bevrijdingsfestival (=Liberation Festival) is an event that is held annually on May 5 (Liberation Day) at various locations in the Netherlands.

My Baby

The festivals are organized to remember the liberation of the Netherlands in 1944-45. Together, the festivals form the largest music event in the Netherlands.

Moss

More than 200 artists perform on 40 stages and hundreds of thousands of visitors attend the meetings. Access to the festivals is free of charge. The festivities are organized under the aegis of and partly funded by the National Committee May 4 and 5.

Cool performances: Manu Chao (Zwolle), My Baby and Moss (Wageningen).

Crossing Borders

Crossing Border Festival is an annual festival in The Hague, Netherlands focusing on new pop music acts and literature. It is one of the largest combined music and literature festivals in Europe. The first edition took place in 1993, as a larger follow-on to the Zuiderstrand Festival held in 1991 and 1992.

Great performances by: dEUS, Sixteen Horsepower,

Le Guess Who

Le Guess Who? is a Dutch music festival featuring different music genres: from avant-garde, jazz, hip hop, electronic, experimental, noise rock, indie rock, world music and others. The festival, founded by Bob van Heur and Johan Gijsen, has been hosted in the city of Utrecht since 2007. The festival takes place on various venues such as theaters, club venues, churches, galleries and warehouses across the city. The 14th edition of the festival takes place November 12-15, 2020, in the city of Utrecht (Netherlands).

The brilliant performance where The Wandelgek was present was that of Dr. John & The Nite Trippers.

More is coming, but for now: That’s all Folks!

Irish Pub Festival

Upcoming

Tour de Terras

Upcoming

Bierfestival Havenkwartier

Upcoming