A simple intervention can sometimes have a big effect. When singer Kaito of the trio Avalanche Kaito jumped from the low stage on Saturday afternoon to face the audience, the audience immediately marched forward. An impassioned performance by musicians from Brussels and Burkina Fasso ensued, in which the smoothly singing and moving Kaito had to squeeze between the hectic rhythms and guitar chords of his accomplices.
Although big names such as Meau, Dool and De Staat played there, the unexpected musical acquaintance is the trademark of the ‘activist’ festival Welcome To The Village, in Friesland. This year, the festival celebrated its tenth anniversary with a one-off edition in the center of Leeuwarden (last year the permit for the festival in the De Groene Ster recreation area failed). Now the stages were not next to a lake, but in the De Harmonie theater and the Neushoorn pop hall, with a ‘festival village’ in between for consumption and recreation. And for awareness, because WTTV dedicates itself to the three D’s of transverse, diverse and sustainable. For example, the festival organizes collaborations between tech companies and students to find solutions for the circular economy. First they had a return system for cups.
Meau about her megahit ‘You did that’: ‘You get fucked up in your head’
One of the themes this year was ‘female fronted activism’, which was unequivocally integrated into the performances. The queer trio Holy Trinity from Amsterdam presented an extravagant mix of dance, hip hop and playback. Their challenging and moving ‘Yoniverse’ was about the search for a safe environment. A little later, the British Grove conquered the room with splashing dancehall, in which the nonbinary rapper jumped around at the same time and operated the laptop himself. Dancing and thinking went together in songs about nightlife and racial oppression.
Hit singer Meau (‘You did that’) was accompanied by five musicians. Meau doesn’t have a debut album yet, but enough varied songs for a shiny performance with sometimes a dance-like undertone, as in ‘If only you are with me’.
For example, with 3,500 visitors on this busy Saturday, the festival waved from bizarre hard rock through the Dutch Helleruin to light pop music by the Australian Alex Cameron and to a long queue for Dool’s performance. Raven van Dorst’s band made the sunlight forget with moody harmony vocals and hoarse riffs.
At Welcome To The Village there is room for all musical styles and insights. Even foodstuffs can be the subject of an activist song, Holy Trinity showed. With their fists raised, the three expressed their disgust: ‘Fuck gluten’.