Okay, so I promised you I wouldn’t write for quite a while, but I just can’t stop writing, expressing myself, so once again, here I am. I’ve decided to make this quite a musical post. Not so much because of all the musical events from the past days, and tonight, but because I both feel great and a little worried. A little worried because I managed to sleep to long, again, so I skipped college. Not an important one, but I should really stop sleeping so long, for some reason I’m far too tired to get up at 6.30 on monday, tuesday is fine with me, but mondays… Besides oversleeping, I’ll also need to get some stuff done before I can both go to work this afternoon, and attend a concert by Sarah Bettens 1 at Paradiso. (might be worth to check out those links ppl ;-))
K, last Friday, the moment I left, I went to Amsterdam to enjoy a Kate Nash concert. Too bad it had been moved from thursday to friday, and from the small stage to the bigger one, thus making available a lot more tickets. Unfortunately, ever since she appearead at Lowlands, earlier this year, she’s been hyped, a lot. So was I glad I was able to buy two tickets, yes I needed to pay a little extra, but at least I got them about two months ago. Now, with the concert moved to a bigger stage, a lot of average teenage groupies were buying the extra tickets. I don’t mind people enjoying the music, but what I do mind is antisocial behaviour. I’m not referring to the people who arrived extremely early, I usaully arrive an hour before the area opens, which is on time tog et up front. But not that friday,. Well, I was there on time, but there were already quite a lot of groupies sitting, blocking the doors, waiting. They had been there for an hour. Wait…, what? Yes, an hour. So you can go to the main stage an hour before the performance will begin, (1) I usually arrive an hour before (2), but these guys arrived an hour before me (3)?!? I’m sorry, but takes away some of the fun of ateending a performance. Waiting for three hours or more is something you do when there’s a real big artist performing in a stadium…
No, I’m talking about people who, after they can enter, run to the stage, sit down in such a way there’s no room for people to stand in front of the stage, people standing so wide they take up three places becaue ‘the others will arrive a little later’ and such. But worst of all, not for me though, because I was in the front row, worse were a few people continuously holding a camera high above them to record the performance. Taking pics=ok, but taping it all and blocking the view of people behind you? Naaaah.
The performance itself was good, before Nash a Dutch artist, Gram, performed, but she was kind of booed away, even though she wasn’t bad, not bad at all, but the kids were probably expecting Nash to immediatly start performing, without any support act. When Nash finally did appear and start playing, it was amazing. Not recording studio refined like the album, but more accoustic, far more real, more like Nash should, in my opinion, sound. She played the songs a little uptempo, but that didn’t matter to anyone, it probably even made for a better ambience. All the time I was with a girl I just met, who took her mother to the performance, they were both great people. She was as annoyed as I was by all the kids having ‘new’ tickets, blocking the front, not knowing the lines, just standing there. Anyway, things could have been better, but unfortunately I was forced to return the extra ticket, beause I wasn’t going to escort anyone that night….
The performance ended a little after ten o’clock, ruining my plans to rush to Utrecht to attend the remainder of the first even of Le Guess Who 2007 at tivoli oudegracht. My original plan was to speed to Utrecht, enjoy one or two performances, and then go back home. But because it was half past ten when I arrived at the station going to Utrecht would mean I’d only have about 30mins to attend a performance, because the last train home would leave at half past twelve. I could of course party all night long, but saturday would also be a busy day, day two of Le Guess Who and work later that day. So, unfortunately I missed Young Galaxy, Hot hot heat, Duchess says, Thunderheist and MSTRKRFT...
The second day of the Canadian music festival started quite relaxed with Julie Doiron. She was continuously tuning her guitar, which she really couldn’t as she told the audience :p After each song she started discussing what song she would play next, real nice, that way she created somesort of improvised-mood, like she was playing in your living room at home. Next up was Lightning Dust on the main stage. They sounded a lot more like ‘pro’s’ then Julie doiron, but when forced to choose ebtween those two, I’d rather choose Julie Doiron. Don’t know why, but maybe because the face a the female vocalists… yes, I didn’t like the look on her face, don’t know why… After Lightning Dust it was time for the big surprise of the evening, Montag was up next. A one man band who played on the small stage, but did great things. This guy from Quebec managed to impress the audience, grab their attention and keep it, ll the way! So I bought his EP afterwards, man was this guy great! The big surprise of this festival. Finally Caribou was up at the main stage, with two (2) drummers! They sounded extremely impressive, those twod rums did add a lot to the performance. Unfortunately I had to leave for work at half past nine so I couldn’t attend the last two bands, Black Mountain and Miracle Fortress…
When I headed back to Gouda I decided not to go home first, but go straight to So What. I arrived a little early, half an hour or so, but that left me with some time to find out who was going to work with me that eve, since nobody was scheduled to. Well, there was someone, but she had been in an accident two days before. Her replacement didn’t feel like working, and two others were unavailable as well, I had done my thing, informed everyone involved about my feelings, and the problem was soon solved by a third party. Robert, always there when you need him, wasn’t scheduled to work that night, but was prepared to spend his offtime with me, in the kitchen, to prepare food for a bunch of hungry, and drunk, partypeople. That didn’t mean we couldn’t have a good time 
Because we did have a great time, joking, laughing, telling stories, making fun of ourselves, eachother, others! Even doing the dishes and leaning up afterwards was no problem at all. We both had a great time.
After cleaning up it was half past three, or maybe four o’clock, so we could enjoy ourselves some more, drink a little, not a little actually, drink a lot Somehow I managed to stay at So What untill only me, and some of the other volunteers were left, about 20/30 people, instead of the 200+ visitors we’ve had that night. Anyway, I left at six or so, maybe a few minutes before or after. Sunday was, well, sunday, I’ll finish this post for now, or it’ll become too big 
