“Let’s all go to live here!” Not a bad plan of SEF.
Vlieland is of course beautiful and many visitors will have opened Funda in addition to the festival app and rain radar (you never know), but it is also the pink glasses of this festival. Here you cycle between concerts along forest, dunes and sea, take a dip in the waves in an empty hour and it is always better than you expect. Into the Great Wide Open is the unofficial final piece of the summer season, where artists come to put a point or exclamation mark in settings that resemble paintings by Monet, so for such a cheerful, sweet and optimistic audience, of really all generations.
Spa
Perfect for artists who have had a tough tour or busy festival season. ‘Vliebiza’, spa town of bands. Such as Yousef ‘Sef’ Gnaoui, who has perhaps his most important summer on his forty -one, thanks to Succeplaat Dear monsters And his mega show at Lowlands. Vlieland is his honorary round, with a concert that is energetic and yet relaxed. It seems to him at all no effort to let the half -field shirts take off or to let them sing along with its smart lyrics about life and death, identity, climate or nationality.
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Also read: The review of ‘Lieve Monsters’ by Sef
Halfway through, SEF gives away a piece of his set to activist Jerry Afriyie, who gave an inspiring, moving speech about the end of his Netherlands movement gets better. “After fifteen years, Zwarte Piet fell even harder than the cabinet. Lief Nederland, protect our successes and continues the fight,” he told loud cheers and fists in the air. The struggle of the Netherlands is better fought, he says, and that is a special awareness for those who still know how difficult the conversation was about that painful symbol on every birthday, fifteen years ago, and how much violence came to it. Afriyie’s story is not a sign that fighting is no longer necessary, but a signal that is unmissable that it makes sense to express you.
Sef on the sports field in Vlieland, the epicenter of Into the Great Wide Open.
Photo: Simon Lenskens
It fits with the theme of the festival this year: resistance. Into the Great Wide Open (ITGWO) wanted to make extra room for connecting “voices that resist scapegoal policy and the autocratic wind that arises” and organized small and large signs of resistance. With The Mary Wallopers, who were kicked from an English festival last week because they showed a Palestinian flag, but were warmed up here. And speakers here and there underlined those important topics. And very nice: how children organized a protest march together with Amnesty to speak out against the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, against environmental pollution and for more candy and ‘alto music at hip festivals’.
At many performances, Palestinian flags were fluttering in the audience.
Photo: Simon Lenskens
So a combative edition, in which even the announced rain showers kept reasonably kept – a pity for the sale of ponchos of 79 euros. Also an edition where the search was for musical exciting acts that you never saw before. Few Americans, some British, a bit of an excess of postpunk, and otherwise a lot of Dutch and Belgian work. Here too, rising prices and therefore also gages are some holes in programming when it comes to large crowd pullers. Even though those at the fast -selling festival are not really necessary, a visitor wants to do value for his ticket and overnight costs and boat ticket. The combination of festival and diving into the sea is priceless, but you also notice that the festival world beeps and squeaks.
S10
And yet it was worth seeing S10 here, even though you saw her eleven times. She is an ITGWo veteran who showed how she grew from her timid concert in De Bolder in 2019, to a confident rocker. With Froukje, she also gave a taste of what we can expect from those two later this year in the Ziggo Dome (keywords: jumping, head banging, popping).
S10 is a veteran at Into the Great Wide Open, but was worth it again.
Photo: Simon Lenskens
And so the festival is also looking forward to the fall. The Rotterdam Roufaida showed that the work of her upcoming debut album is worth hearing and seeing in the fall: slightly stronger and more danceable than her, in, in the fall, folky EP. “I would like to dance with you. Maybe I dare to do that next festival season,” she said. Good chance that she will have to climb larger stages.
The open space a stage of Into the Great Wide Open in the middle of the forest.
Photo: Simon Lenskens
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Also read: This interview with Roufaida
That also applies to the Chloe Slater that broke through on Tiktok, who on Friday made two shows that ‘on Tiktok broken through’ is not necessarily a dirty term where you should immediately think of algorithms and predictable doll, because Slater makes Indierock in an infectious combi of sweet melody, convincing voice and good riffs.
Left: performance by Roufaida. Right: one half of rap duo Deki Alem.
Photo: Simon Lenskens
Such a calling card also gave the Brussels band really!, Who now turned the Trippy Jazz from the past in the dark of forest’s rink at the ice rink into a driving, slightly flammable rave with bass lines that you could lean against. And you are crazy if you don’t immediately try to get tickets for one of the fall shows of Deki Alem. This rap duo of a single twin from Gotenburg gave one of the best, most energetic shows of the weekend. Hip hop, stairs and drum ‘n’ bass popped out of their vocal confetti cannon. “Sorry, we don’t really have slow songs to get you at rest,” was their excuse. Then you know what time it is. And also important: you immediately forget your criticism of the program this year.
You have to live up to pretension
There was also a real disappointment: Everything is recorded. It was buzzing around the band of Richard Russell, the record boss of XL Recordings that released acts such as Adele, Radiohead and The Prodigy. It would be special. But it became an enigmatic concert. You did not know exactly who was on stage, what they played and what came out of the computer, why the songs seemed to drown in cut samples, and why the singer set something on fire between each song. At times beautiful, really, but you had to put too much effort into it. Pretence is not so bad if you realize it.
The expected rain was not too bad. As always on Vlieland, music was even better than expected.
Photo: Simon Lenskens
And then you come to Droom this, a six -member group from Enschede who closed the Saturday evening in the Bolder and got deep with their poetic doll. Yes, very pretentious, but also very moving and compelling. The band around front person Sam de Laat – somewhere between Joy Division and Frank Boeijen – you simply believe. “Before we came here, we felt our misfits, but here in this room full of people who don’t laugh at our expressions, it feels like a confirmation of our right to exist,” said De Laat. Then they played ‘silence the rest’ for everyone who feels threatened in their right to exist. Whether they are transpersons, women who want to cycle home safely or Gazanen in the evening. That arrived. And then, for the last song: “We’re going to pay close attention to each other and nobody is injured here, but we are going to do it moshen! ” A cheerful, sweet and optimistic moshpit with the warmth of a hug.
The audience ran over dunes and through forests from performance to performance.
Image Simon Lenskens