The Hague rock band Di-Rect is the winner of the Popprijs 2021. This was announced on Saturday evening during the digital edition of music festival Noorderslag from the Oosterpoort in Groningen. By awarding the prestigious prize for Dutch pop music – a sum of money and an image of Theo Mackaay – the jury rewarded a band “which has already reinvented itself several times and which has also displayed enormous perseverance in 2021.”
Last year, the initiators Kunstenbond/Ntb and Buma Cultuur made a statement by not awarding the Popprijs. Attention was drawn to ‘the dire situation in which the cultural sector currently finds itself’. This year, extra attention was paid to how artists dealt with corona. “We live in a time and world where the utmost is demanded of everyone’s creativity.”
It was striking that Di-Rect was one of the first to stream its own live shows in a creative way, thereby building a unique (fan) community. The 2020 single ‘Soldier On’ became one of the anthems of the corona pandemic. “A symbol of hope and light in an uncertain time,” said the jury.
Robbery in rehearsal room
Di-Rect was robbed with the prize in his rehearsal room in The Hague. “Where is that beer shower?” shouted guitarist Spike, who did feel like “to destroy that hall in Groningen”. Di-Rect consists of singer Marcel Veenendaal as a flamboyant hippie between the no-nonsense rockers — singer and guitarist Frans ‘Spike’ van Zoest, bassist Bas van Wageningen, drummer Jamie Westland and guitarist Paul Jan Bakker — who already played the first Di -Wrote a song. The group celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year with two sold-out shows in the Rotterdam Ahoy.
The sound of Di-Rect has become richer with the addition of strings and winds. The jury underlines the rock-solid live reputation of the rockers who continue to “build, grow, work hard and take nothing for granted. This band continues to accelerate in a vulnerable way with a heart full of fire.”