Lowlands, as if it was never different

What does the Lowlander feel like? For weeks there was anticipation with playlists and app groups. When the tents are set up on the grounds of the Walibi Holland event site in Biddinghuizen on Thursday evening, there is already a silent disco. And then, finally Friday: Lowlands Festival 2022. As if it was never different. From the striking, high Lowlands chimneys, you can fan out over the colorfully decorated site with eleven festival locations. Join the dance tornado that assembles the inimitable Prince S. and the Goat, brilliantly bone-dry and exciting. Or slide into the bulging concert tent with the quickly ascended rock duo Wet Leg. Their noncha-cool ‘Chaise Longue’ is of a jumping release.

It soon becomes clear: very little is needed to make this edition of Lowlands a success. Everywhere you can see how receptive visitors are to an escape from reality. Yes, all prices, of access to drinks, are now higher. But that is for later concern. Because now it is mainly a splash in a cheerful warm bath of exuberant, hugging people in animal prints, fluorescent bikinis, Hawaiian dresses, multicolored blouses and body glitter. There will be selfies on large air mattresses and in hammocks. There are inflatable figures on sticks. And hey, there are the dancing fagots again, a trend from many years ago.

Also read this interview with Lowlands director Eric van Eerdenburg: ‘This is the most expensive Lowlands ever’

For some it is an intense reunion with the festival. For others a first acquaintance. Due to the corona years, the last festival was in 2019. Lowlands had to pay again and again. All scenarios have come up for the festival in recent years: from test streets to vaccination obligations for visitors and adapted programs with only bookings from the Benelux. But Lowlands never went ahead, except for an online version. It was quiet in the polder for three years.

Now arms go up again with haunted indie pop and the eyes are closed with engrossing music. From FKJ, what a rich jazzy music palette, you would have hoped it wasn’t already noon. Twenty-year-old Kamal is a modest sensation who has climbed into lockdown. With only a guitarist who also turned on the beats, he sang like a Justin Bieber in his younger days.

Delicious extremes

These are the wonderful extremes at Lowlands. The understated rootsy and gospel-touching pop soul of Michael Kiwanuka is a hit. The punk madness of Joe & The Shitboys is at odds with it, but also quickly wins souls with its chaotic anti-sound. And then the party to the Balkanlest ska and reggae beat by Dubioza Kolektiv has only just begun.

Lowlands is going full steam ahead again, although it is not entirely without hitches. Some American artists canceled because they thought it was too risky to take the crossing because of corona. Then there is a chance that the tour will come to a standstill.

This offers opportunities to Dutch acts such as Klangstof – dreamy sound world with expansive vistas – that can immediately step onto a larger stage. But Lowlands will give homegrown artists plenty of room this year, with a lot of names on the biggest stage. On Friday afternoon, it was immediately the turn of the commercial hip-hop canon Frenna that made the Alpha tent long for the island of Ibiza with images of a sunset. The approach was tropical with spectacular fireworks, and songs such as ‘My Bébé’ matching the heat in and around the tent. But his rain dance ‘Rain’, his hit with Bløf’s famous line – “It’s raining harder than I can take” – unfortunately had a very predictive effect.

Also read this interview with Aurora: As a Norwegian forest nymph, singer Aurora also wants to ‘beat the hatred’ at Lowlands

We had missed everything, but not this. During the concert of Jungle and the Norwegian forest nymph Aurora, the rain poured down on Lowlands. So run between the tents. The terrain is a mud puddle in no time. Oh, see your visitors thinking. That will be something later with the comeback of hip-hop duo, The Opposites, also on the main stage. And then the long night of dancing, led by DJ/producer Floating Points, is yet to come.

In addition to all the music, Lowlands once again has a fair share of theatrical madness, which combines culture with charities and gives all the space at first sight to wacky flashes of thought. Because who wants to build a hut at a music festival? What is that sixty meters long and almost thirty centimeters thick rope by the Belgian artist Ief Spincemaille lying over the site? And what a hit, the ‘Push Tent’. Lowlanders walk along with a theater tent that rolls over the site, plays inside it, on a minuscule stage, the Dutch-British twin ATKD.

It is the kind of rarities that give Lowlands color. Also ‘fun’ by the way, the farmer’s campaign next to the camping shop. Lowlands, in the middle of the polder, surrounded by regions with support for the farmers’ protests, has ‘always had a very good relationship with the farmers’. But there is no room for protest on this festival site. You could have your picture taken with two tractors.