Lowlands part 2/4: Music on day 2

Finally, some time to blog about Lowlands day 2.

After having a great first day with a shitty closing act, we went for some partying, so we woke up a bit late in the morning. Which is nice, because there is not much interesting stuff to do before the festival day starts again.

I had planned ahead what I wanted to see on Saturday, but in the end the day turned out quite different. This is what I did see:

• Games in Concert
• Moke
• Ojos de Brujo
• The View
• Jimmy Eat World
• Interpol
• Patrick Wolf

Games in concert was more of a relaxing moment than anything else. We just lay in the grass during the show and tried to figure out which songs they were performing and to which games these songs belong. Quite nerdy, but what can you expect. Good show though.

After that we went to see Moke. Moke is a Dutch band that was supposed to be pretty good, having won all kinds of national music awards. We went there, it was okay, but not exceptionally good. Another fun show.

Ojos de Brujo was quite weird. They performed in the Bravo tent, which is quite large. In the back of the tent there is a second set of humongous speakers. No problem there, but they are out of sync with the speakers in the front. We were in the back of the tent so we heard everything double, and out of tune. I got a headache there, so we left early. Too bad, we should have moved to the front of the tent, since it seemed to be a huge party afterwards.

The View was ok. We sat in the grass again. Nothing wrong, nothing special.

Jimmy Eat World was an interlude to spend some time before Interpol started. They played quite okay. We saw only some four or five songs, but to my surprise I knew all those songs. I didn't expect that, so that was a nicer show than anticipated.

Interpol was okay. They were very passive on stage, and could never live up to what I saw from Editors the day before. They played ok, but nothing happend on stage, which makes it quite boring to watch. They did play all their cool songs, so that gave it a bit of a boost.

Patrick Wolf was the closing act for Saturday. I didn't expect much, but just didn't want to go to the Kaiser Chiefs or anything else. To our group's surprise this was one of the best shows of the festival. He had a good time, went completely nuts on stage. Although the band was very passive, he made up for that with his sheer amounts of energy. He played lots of songs that I heard before, and had himself a party. One of the best of the festival, especially of Saturday.

Lowlands part 1/4: Music on day 1

I start with a report on the bands I saw and the music I heared. Personal photos will come later, since I don't have them ready yet.

Friday the actual festival started and it began properly with a couple of things that I really liked to see. The bands of the day:

• Rodrigo y Gabriela
• Heideroosjes
• Editors
• Justice
• Hayseed Dixie
• The Good, the Bad & the Queen
• Devendra Banhart

Rodrigo y Gabriela is a Mexican duo, that plays Spanish guitars very very well. The have no backup band, so the only thing you hear is the guitars. They play mostly covers (as far as I know) and I would describe them as acoustic metal. Not many people in the tent knew what to expect, but I think nobody dares to complain about the show they put on. I heard several Metallica songs, Wish you were here by Pink Floyd, Stairway to Heaven and other famous songs. Really cool!

We walked to the Alpha tent in which the Heideroosjes were playing (a Dutch punk band), because Editors were coming after them. I never expected that they would play in the 20.000 people tent, but they filled it right up and everybody had a blast! Their show was pretty okay, and they played mostly old songs.

I watched Editors from the slopes adjacent to the Alpha tent. I don't think being in the tent adds that much to some shows, so I had a break from standing up and hung around in the grass. The music sounded very well and I could still see most of the stage and close up images on the big screens. Their singer is very good and knew how to sing like on the cd, which can't be said about everyone. Good show.


Justice was on my list of things to walk by and see what's going on there. I was surprised to see that they were playing around 6 o'clock in the evening, because that is usually not a good time for dance acts, but they could have filled the Alpha, and played in the third largest tent. It was a show that was all about the music, and apart from a crucifix, there was nothing to see on stage, expect incredible amounts of speakers. It was one hell of a party and I really had fun there. The top dance act for me.

I only watched a couple of Hayseed Dixie songs. I like bluegrass, but not too long since it tends to sound all the same (to me at least). They played a couple of fun cover songs and it was fun to watch, but not really great. The band had fun playing the festival, and that had similar results on the crowd, so many people were enjoying themselves.

The Good, the Bad & the Queen were one of the bands on my "high expectations" list. Several famous people coming together to produce an album should be great, so the Grolsch tent was pretty filled up. The music is not too fast and hard, so it was not that big a party, but it was a very very good show. One of the best of the festival.



We finished the day Devendra Banhart. He was playing the India tent, which was not even half full because of Basement Jaxx and The Killers playing at the same time. He tried to go all Freak Folk, but it really didn't work. He got a guy from the audience to play his song, but that sucked big time. One of the worst shows I have ever seen on Lowlands. Too bad, won't go to see him again soon.

So, after this the top 3 of Friday would be
1: The Good, the Bad & the Queen
2: Rodrigo y Gabriela
3: Justice

Lowlands!!!

Today is the day, we are leaving for Lowlands. The thing that comes closest to vacation this summer, so I am really looking forward to it.

The weather is not too good, and the probability for rain is 70% tomorrow, but lower the rest of the weekend. Let's hope our luck holds, since we have never had a rainy lowlands.

Last year only Sunday was rainy, but that was not too bad. The only drawback was that there are no dry spots to sit.

But anyway, in an hour, I am leaving town, with my massive backpack, a tent and some sandwiches. Won't be back till Monday. The thing I am going to miss most is Kikker, the cat. He has noticed strange stuff is going on, so he is getting a bit nervous too.

I am looking forward to the first beer in our Party tent, on the camping ground. But that will probably take some 12 hours...

My first Solex tour

Last Saturday my good friend Peter had his 'bachelor party'. He is getting married the 31st of this month, and his last days as an official single had to be celebrated. I didn't really expect stripteases, booze and all kinds of other excesses, since that is not Peter's cup of tea.

We went to Geffen (a small town about 15 kilometers away) to do a Solex tour. A Solex is (for those who don't know) a powered bycicle, with a very small engine mounted on the front wheel.

For fun, we dressed Peter up in the traditional Solex gear, a long leather coat, a leather helmet and wooden shoes. He looked hot! Not because I find him sexy, but a 10 pound leather coat when it is about 25 degrees outside, is just very very hot.

The tour took about 2.5 hours, and went cross country around Geffen. We had bitumen, dirt roads, gravel, the lot. We had a lot of fun and even more in the end. Kees, another one of Peter's friends had the idea that he could make the Solex a bit faster by screwing around with the choke on it. That worked, but not the whole time. The engine was drowned in gasoline, after we stopped a couple of times, so he couldn't get it running again, and had to pedal to the rental company (Solexes are small, Kees is tall).

After he pedalled back to the shop and we rode there, a fair had started in Geffen and a lot of people in "klederdracht" (traditional clothing of at least a 100 years ago) were walking all around. We also had to dive to avoid crashing in to a parade of banner carriers, the so called Schuttersgilde (guild of marksmen).

At the end of the day we met up with the girls, who did Peter's fiancee's party the same afternoon, for a barbeque. We all had a great time.

Talisker for the win!

I hadn't been to the Whisky Koning for almost two weeks, so the detox was well underway when I got a big urge to got there again. Today, I finished work around 4.30, which should be the regular time :-)

I walked over there and I was the only one at the shop, so time for a nice chat was available. I spent an hour talking to the owner, about all kinds of whisky things.

After about five minutes I had my first dram, of the 12 year old Talisker (Friends of the Classic Malts edition). Normally Talisker does not have a 12 year old bottling, so this was a bit special. Not really exotic, because there are about 21,500 bottles out there, but still...

It was a very very good dram and it is looking right at me at the moment.
Tonight I will be studying for my MCSD exam with a bit more pleasure than I expected.

On the Whisky Koning's site I found something else of interest, the Online Nosting and Tasting. This is a competition via his website, in which you can win a bottle of scotch. You pay € 5,- and get a mini bottle of an unnamed whisky sent to your house. You have to fill out a question form with questions about the whisky's origin, age and finish. If you get most answers correct you win. That is it.

I'm going to participate, especially since it costs only 5 euros and you get a 2,50 coupon as well. Good deal.

I found out about the Whisky by the Sea festival in Zeeland. This has, apart from all kinds of whisky pub crawls and a whisky dinner, a whisky tasting, with about 250 different whiskies available for tasting. Leave a not if you want to join me there.

So there are several things I want to do with whisky before the end of the year:

• Go to Zuidam, the only distillery in Brabant.
• Organize a whisky tasting night with the 8 bottles I have for my project
• Organize a second whisky tasting night with all bottles I will have at the end of the year.
• Go to Whisky by the Sea
• Go to Scotland
• Go to the Islay tasting at the Whisky Koning

Lots to do, but all of them are cool to do!

Plaxo

Woohoo! One of my collegues pointed me towards Plaxo. Plaxo is an online addressbook, that integrates with Outlook (Express).

This is just the thing for me. I usually reinstall my computer once every year and I always forget to backup my contacts, calendar and tasks from Outlook. So, now I can add all my contacts to Plaxo, keep them up to date online, and after a Reinstall I only have to reinstall the plugin and off we go.

So, now I added some contacts. It has proper checkboxes so it does not automatically spam all my contacts from Hotmail, Gmail and Outlook. Great!

See the "add me to you plaxo address book" link on the right, just below the Last.fm quilt.

Magic for Sale

I have played Magic the Gathering for years, but it has come to a full stop a couple of months ago. Not that I don't like the game anymore, but there is just no community here in Den Bosch, and I have too many other expensive hobbies to keep this up as well.

So I have spent some time last weekend to go through my card binders and select all cards I have never used, don't like because they suck, or just because I don't think are cool to play with. A huge list came out of that and I just made an Excel file of the rare cards that are in my "to sell" list.

Get the list here.

I have put them on Marktplaats, hope someone likes to part with his money... See the ad here.

I never got my hands on the incredibly expensive cards, but still I have quite a nice collection, which I keep, just in case I start playing again in a couple of years. It happened to me once before. I sold my collection because I didn't have any people around me playing. I regretted that very much a couple of years later, so not everything is for sale (just everything on the list).

The bad thing is that by the time I got to an acceptable level of playing skill, the community started to break apart, so I never won much. Just some packs and promotional cards, but nothing more than the weekly tournament at our local nearly bankrupt game shop...

Who is Agent Graves?

I have been Blogging for about six months now, and many people have asked me "Who is Agent Graves?"

The answer to that, I must admit, is a nerdy one. Agent Graves is a character in one of the coolest comics I read. The comic is called "100 Bullets".

Agent Philip Graves is an old guy who used to run a private army for some free mason like organisation that is said to secretly run the entire USA. His army, the Minutemen, have been disbanded some years ago because they had gotten incontrolable. Of course, Graves doesn't like that very much, and after going underground for a few years he is gathering his soldiers again, to go after the Trust (the organisation).


It is called 100 Bullets, because Graves tends to approach his former soldiers (who have, of course, been hypnotically brainwashed) with a suitcase containing one gun, exactly 100 bullets, and unassailable evidence that the situation they are in (which is shitty in every case, to say the least) is caused by someone. Up to the soldier to do whatever they like with the gun and the bullets.

Now, approximately 70 issues in, he has gathered some soldiers, killed some members of the Trust and made his position known to the remaining enemies he has.

The story can be compared to a tv show like The Pretender. It is not about big shoot-outs, massive killings like in the Godfather and such movies. It does contain them, however. The story revolves around conspiracies and suspense. Every reader knows there is going to be a big finale someday, but that will probably be a few years before we know the end. The story spins and twists a lot, with afiliations that change, or person not being as dead as expected and so on.

All in all, I find it a very good read, and look forward to every bundle of 6 issues that is released here.

Addicted to Blogging?

On another blog I found a link to the "How addicted to blogging are you?"-test. Pretty funny, question that actually make sense, which is unique for these kind of polls.

57%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Of course, I am pretty addicted, especially since I answered "yes" to the question about me going to blog about the blogging addiction test.

Moving around. Part 2

Apart from Floris who is moving, my sister recently bought an apartment in Amsterdam. No problem there, but she still had to sell her house in Den Bosch.
She got back from her summer holiday this Tuesday, and her entire summer was right the minute she got home and got a phone call from the real estate agent, telling her that her house had been sold just that morning.



She lived about 300 meters from our place, so that changes to about 100 kilometers, which makes eating at each others place a bit more difficult.

But anyway, congrats to my sis. Hope everything goes well in the big, evil city...

Pancakes!

Last Sunday my sister-in-law was at our place and my friend Floris came along as well. We planned to eat pancakes, but since it is a hellish job to make pancakes for 5 people (who really like to eat lots of 'em), my girlfriend decided that we would go to the Pannenkoekenbakker in Heusden.

It is one of the best pancake restaurants around, and they have somewhere around 300 different pancakes on the menu. 300 is a bit of an exaggeration, since they tend to print pancakes with bacon and cheese, as well as the cheese and bacon variety...

But still, nothing beats a good pancakes, and since they are reasonably cheap, you can get a meal that really fills you up for not too much. Good things going on there.

After eating we took a 5 minute walk through Heusden, which has a really medieval city center with small streets, a walled harbor and the old city walls still surrounding the town.

Anneke never really went to Heusden, but since we both like to see old stuff, we will most likely head back there sometime this summer, in a weekend.