‘This song is about dying in a sweltering hot tent’, it sounds at the Best Kept Secret festival

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For minutes, the audience does absolutely nothing. They stand transfixed, while May Kershaw plays the piano ballad ‘Turbines/Pigs’. “Don’t waste your pearls on me, I’m only a pig,” sings Kershaw of the British band Black Country, New Road, while after about five minutes her heavenly piano playing is increasingly supported by the rest of the band and they eventually ignite together like an awakening geyser in a grand crescendo.

This, you think, is nothing for a sweltering summer festival where many people feel like dancing with a beer in their hand? But when the climax of the song has died down and the band has softly laid down the notes in a drawn-out outro, the audience explodes. Yelling, whistling, it is a discharge. Even without the departed singer Isaac Wood, and without a single song from their successful record Ants From Up Here (2022), this band proves to be as enigmatic as it is irresistible.

Black Country, New Road
Joko’s photo

Black Country, New Road was one of the many bands at Best Kept Secret that managed to hit the masses with unpredictable pop music, in a very strong program that challenged and surprised. Like the Pitou, floating between classical and pop, who used to often hide behind her guitar, she now stood as a confident, expressive singer with a wonderfully controlled voice.

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Mexican Silvana Estrada made an impression on Friday, with her beautiful, minimalist chamber pop/jazz/folk songs taking on a bit more depth thanks to the trio she played with. The disarming Julia Jacklin let the lazy Sunday afternoon drift away on beautiful folk songs. And the show by the Belgian duo Charlotte Adigéry and Boris Pupul also lingered for a long time: the rousing nightclub beats lifted you up from the first second, and the intense lyrics that Adigéry sang so cheerfully put you back on the ground: “Go back to the country where you belong – I look like them, but not to them”.

Drink and lubricate

Less barbs had The 1975, that band saw the sun set on Friday. Or did singer Matty Healy mainly see himself in the mirror he brought along on stage? It’s not easy for the Briton. His break with Taylor Swift has earned him a fanatical army of enemies. But on Best Kept Secret, Healy mainly has herself against her.

In his doctor’s coat with cigarette and wine, he collapses under the weight of his own ego. Too bad, because the band behind him plays wonderfully lush at times: the nostalgic pop with sax and strong backing singers is perfect for that sunset and then we just take Healy into the bargain – even though Adigéry and Pupul are on stage at that moment a tent away to play a bouncing DJ set for those who like to embrace the sweat.

Public during the Best Kept Secret festival
Photo Ben Houdijk

Yes, that heat was also one of the headliners this year, in a terrain so dry that every gust of wind turned into a dust storm. It was drinking water and greasing up after each show, and fire guards patrolled the grounds to keep an eye out for sparks from smokers who didn’t use the black ashtrays available at the festival. The best kept secrets were the places where you felt the wind the most. Just on the edge of the festival tents, or with your feet (or more) in the water, and out of the sun. And otherwise it was the cooled bubble baths hidden in the woods (the sauna that was there also attracted less people). Fortunately, drinking water was freely available everywhere, as was sunscreen.

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The Irish van Lankum were also warm. Not everything they said was easy to understand, but the „we’re melting, fook me!” and “this is a song about dying in a big fucking tent because it’s too fucking hot” were clear. Their dark folk can be magical (like at Eurosonic in 2020) and was beautiful at times, but they couldn’t completely silence the chattering and waving audience with caps and fans.

Sloshing armpits

Only guitarist Franti Maresová seemed unstoppable. While both the audience and her band Personal Trainer – who confirmed their status as one of the nicest Dutch bands of the moment – had melted into unrecognizable heaps of sloshing armpits and red heads, not a drop seemed to form for her. Another well-kept secret.

It was nice to see how the audience went along with it, hot or not. Whether it was the stylized, loudly sung-along rock of Interpol, the organized chaos of Young Fathers, the strolling rock of Kurt Vile, the three different shows of De Staat, Sylvie Kreusch’s magic doll, or the spectacular, overwhelmingly beautiful audiovisual show of the Chemical Brothers, who really didn’t need their hits – it all worked amazingly well.

Even the hardest band of the festival, the Utrecht metal band Terzij de Horde, had a full house. The metal tent was vibrating under the rock hard riffs of the band, who are really not for everyone with their fast blast beats and roaring vocals. On paper that is, because here it was full of audiences that you don’t see much at metal shows, with floral shirts and polos, and they stayed there too.

Gold band
Photo Ben Houdijk

And that while they could have joined the party with Goldband’s Hagenezen. But those who did make it back to the main stage in time, just heard their shrewd “why is coke so fucking expensive?” sing – maybe read the crime reports in the newspapers, gentlemen.

Broken shield

Singer Caroline Polachek, who had to cancel a number of concerts due to bronchitis, was not yet 100 percent in Hilvarenbeek. It was clear that she struggled with her normally impressive, far-reaching voice: she did not sing as unapproachably flawlessly as earlier this year in Paradiso, but that broke through her shield. In ‘Ocean of Tears’ her voice seemed to fade away for a moment, but it was precisely the very high, most difficult parts that succeeded magnificently. Also ‘Sunset’ and ‘Fly To You’ came out beautifully. And when she finally falls to her knees during ‘I Believe’ and sings “I don’t know but I believe, we’ll get another day together”, the impossible swipe succeeds afterwards. It is understandable that she stopped fifteen minutes earlier, and that she therefore ended with ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’ was also appropriate. A very special artist, with a very special show, partly thanks to that broken shield.

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