In the Netherlands concerts are usually held inside, but every once in a while -when the weather is good- you can find those magical open air places with just the perfect music for the location. On the first of June -when the weather was exceptionally well- the good folks of Roots on the Road and Coco Maria held a concert outside. With a setting sun, great music and a beautiful location the scene for a super concert was set!
It’s been over a month since the last concert. A vacation and not many interesting concerts kept me away from the venues. However I saw that Mister and Mississippi was going to play at Vera in Groningen and as it’s been even longer since I last was at Vera, this was a great opportunity to ‘get back in the game’. Since I saw them three times in 2013, they’ve been of my radar, so this was a good time to see what they’ve been up to.
Continue reading Mister And Mississippi and G.A.U.S.S. in Vera
While I was enjoying the Vanessa Peters concert in the Groninger Museum on Friday evening, the Vanslag venue in Borger had Oh Susanna on stage. Oh well, you can’t be everywhere all the time and I was in luck as last Saturday it was international Record Store Day and Oh Susanna would play a set in my local record store, so I got to see them after all!
Checking out the Vera agenda my eyes caught the announcement of Wallis Bird, with the added catchy videoclip to the song Hardly Hardly I was hooked.
Last week I visited Emmen for a concert. The last time I did that (actually the only time) was back in 2005 for Dilana Smith. So it’s about time I went back there.
It seems only days ago I was in Vanslag… oh wait, it was. But there’s still more lovely concerts there and this evening saw the return of Amy Speace whom I saw earlier this year together with Cara Luft and B.J. Baartmans.
Continue reading Amy Speace, Cara Luft & B.J. Baartmans in Vanslag
Roots on the Road had a terrific double bill in the Vanslag venue last Friday when they had Steve Folk and Kreg Viesselman over, two fantastic folk/singer-songwriters.
Toby Beard played at Vanslag last year and I hated having missed that. Even more when I heard the loads of positive reviews of the gig. So hearing she was to return to Vanslag was terrific news!
With the New Year’s receptions behind us, the New Year’s resolutions forgotten and everyone back at work it’s also high time to get back to seeing concerts and starting in the Vanslag stage with Amy Speace and Jens Lysdal was just the way to go.
Reading up on the acts that Vera / Lepel Concerts had planned for this evening, I didn’t have much doubt on whether to go or not. So I headed back to Groningen once again.
Last Saturday, halfway through editing my Welcome to the Village photos I needed a break from the computer and so I… went an saw another concert. Well, that’s not really how it was. I was hugely impressed by Town of Saints at Welcome to the Village and seeing they were performing at Roodehaan Live in Warfhuizen was a perfect opportunity to go and see them again! And as an added bonus there was Dina Popma.
On the Friday, may 17, the second night of the ‘four days of music’ in Vanslag Antje Duvekot took to the Borger stage.
On May 5th we celebrate freedom in the Netherlands, it was the day the Second World War ended for the Netherlands in 1945. There are festivals all over the country with a bunch of mayor bands and a lot of local bands. This year was my first visit to the festival in Groningen.
Last Saturday was the Saturday of September: the day the Take Root festival in the Oosterpoort venue in Groningen had it’s 15th edition. A bunch of names I was quite keen on seeing, a few names that I already knew and one name that would blow them all away (but more on that later).
I saw Gabby a while ago in De Oosterpoort. A lovely gig for a rather small selected crowd, but a very energetic and good humoured girl that easily won over the audience. So I was thrilled to see she’d be back in Groningen and on the main stage of Noorderzon no less. I was very curious to see how that would work.