8/18/2011

Haldern Pop Festival 2011


Unlike last year’s Haldern Pop Festival, there were only a handful of bands on the line-up that I was familiar with this year. However, because I had bought the tickets way in advance and I enjoyed the festival’s atmosphere of the previous year I decided to not sell my ticket and enjoy a festival by almost exclusively discovering new bands – I was not disappointed in the end.

Thursday:
One thing I definitely do not get about the Haldern Pop Festival is that there is only one stage open on the first day. This stage is a tent with a limited capacity of about 700 people. However, almost all the festivalgoers are already at the festival site on Thursday. So after waiting in line for more than 3 hours, accompanied by occasional rain and being called narrow-minded by the people who kept cutting in line my mood was far from an all-time high. But that all changed after I got into the tent just in time for the Avett Brothers. Completely new to me, I was amazed by their energy on stage, the way they got the crowd going and especially the vocal harmonies of the two brothers Seth and Scott. Nevertheless I felt that vocal harmonies seem to be missing something, if there are just two voices, but that might just be me. After the Avett Brothers’ show, Anna Calvi was up. Although I enjoyed her electric-guitar-only intro, I couldn’t get into her music as a whole. The last concert of the night saw a completely filled stage, that is, with the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble, a classical orchestra (although much smaller, maybe 12 people or so) that reinterprets techno music with classical instruments. Although fun to watch and hear, it became a bit repetitive (who would have thought?) and so I got back to the campsite.

Friday:
Definitely the most packed day in terms of bands I wanted to see, starting off with the beautiful music of the Antlers who easily made it on my list of acts whose music I should check out more thoroughly when I get back. Up next was Selah Sue which reminded me a lot of last year’s booking of Rox – female singer, decent airplay on the radio, entertainer, professional backing band and musically different from most bands at Haldern Pop. This recipe seems to work though, as the people around me and myself really enjoyed her mixture of soul, reggae and singer-songwriter and so did she, apparently. Afterward I hurried back to the tent to be on time for the show of Socalled. Calling himself “Klez-Funk Hip Hop Maestro” one could tell this was going to be something out of the ordinary, but to such an extent I had not dared to imagine. The way he incorporated Klezmer instrumentation and style into hip-hop beats seemed to make a lot of sense and especially when he told his band to “open [their] books on page 9” and they sang what appeared to be a Jewish prayer, I was amazed how fun the weirdness of this man was. Although they were not supposed to play an encore, it was impossible to ignore the clamant crowd. So they got back on stage to play a cover of Fred Wesley’s House Party and ended the party with a bang.

After drying up in the fresh air I went back inside the tent to watch the show of Dry The River. This was a band I had mixed feelings about. On the one hand they sang beautiful vocal harmonies (one thing I care most about in music or at least something that immediately gets my attention) although the lead singer occasionally was a little too screechy for my taste. On the other hand the rocky music that accompanied the vocal harmonies didn’t seem very fitting and disrupted the beauty of the vocals. Perhaps it will grow on me in the future. I will definitely give them the chance to do so. Up next was Alexi Murdoch, whose minimal guitar picking and soothing voice practically put me to sleep and I mean this in the best possible way. If his records prove to be anything like his set at Haldern Pop he will join the likes of Sigur Rós and Sufjan Stevens to put me to sleep. Bringing the day to a worthy end another man with just his guitar entered the stage: James Vincent McMorrow. Being frequently recommended to me, I had high expectations that he was able to deliver. With his fragile falsetto he reminded me a lot of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and just like his colleague from Wisconsin, James Vincent took the breath away of an entire audience. Unfortunately, the Wombats played the mainstage simultaneously so that, especially during the quiet parts, they really disturbed the beauty of James’ music. This was especially unfortunate when he played a song unplugged and it was barely audible due to the wombats’ noise. James retorted, “Let’s be really quiet in protest”. Just like Socalled he brought the show to an end with a fantastic cover: Wicked Game by Chris Isaak.


Saturday:
Three bands that made me decide to go to Haldern Pop played on this day. The first of those three to play was Destroyer, whose last album “Kaputt” I really enjoyed and couldn’t wait to see live. The atmosphere of the album was delivered very well, but, as someone on twitter said, it was a bunch of great musicians with the stage presence of studio musicians. This was a bit of a letdown but the music was nevertheless fantastic. Band, or rather artist number two was up right after Destroyer: James Blake. Although I already saw James Blake in Cologne earlier this year I had to do so again, if only to hear some other songs. However, he played the same set of songs, just less. Additionally the same set of hipsters who came along to hear “limit to your love” and jabber during the rest of the show were present as well. But even James’ voice could not match the previous performance of him - all in all a bit of a disappointment. After seeing bits and pieces of bands here and there, I settled again for Hauschka in the tent. Hauschka is a musician from the close city of Düsseldorf that manipulates the sound of his piano by putting various objects into it to create instrumental music that might as well be used for movies, definitely something worth hearing. Back at the Mainstage I was able to see the final few songs of the Low Anthem, another band with great vocal harmonies and a singer that is completely absorbed in his music. After a lengthy break, the moment that a lot of people and myself had been waiting for finally arrived: the Fleet Foxes concert. With a mix of all their material and a focus on their latest album “Helplessness Blues” the fleet foxes were able to put the audience in awe. It was moments like the ending part of Mykonos or Sim Sala Bim, the sheer perfection of the singing that really set them apart from other bands and completely enthralled me. A minor letdown was that the leadsinger Robin Pecknold appeared to feel obliged to thank the audience, rather than really enjoying it as much as the rest of us did. Nevertheless this was a musical demonstration of bliss.

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