Last Friday, Danish and I left, damn early in the morning I must say, from Aachen Hbf to continue on a eight hour journey, via Switzerland, to Domodossola, Italy where we were picked up by Danish’s friend Agnese and her sister Arianne (Ari). No time was left to have a short rest as Agnese already started on what turned out a three day guided tour; only a quick pitstop was made to pick up her bella amica Marianne (Mari), after which we continued at high speeds meandering across the valleys, a couple of honks here and some flashes of light there, to finally reach Formazza cascada: the Formazza waterfall. At first, the almost-Dutch rain prevented us from having a look from the top, so we decided to go for a nice cappuccino to warm us up again, after which we dared to have a look over the ever-more daunting edge which made the continuous stream of water a lot more impressive than at first sight.

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The first band that day was Fiction Plane, featuring Sting’s son, quite allright, although most of the music reminded us of the Police. That’s why I also feel the day was really kicked of by the second band we saw: The Wombats; a great party alltogether, starting with a brilliant a capella about boys and girls and marciupials. Gavin DeGraw was the follow-up on the main stage, but it’s not really worth mentioning more about him… We continued to the tent where Kate Nash would start of her gig….which was quite terrible…Tally, Mark and I were already joking that she screamed louder than the Cavalera Conspiracy which was playing at the other stage. This had a lot of people immediately turning around, just terrible

Luckily, because we left early, we were able to get some good places in front of the stage for Racoon, the next band, to see what would become the best gig of the day, really good and brought with a flair of humour here and there. The Hives did the complete opposite of the Foo Fighters; talking too much and really these blokes are just the most arrogant bastards around, quite irritating Back to the tent again for Saybia, quite nice, but a lot of the same, and again the bad sound quality…Queens of the Stone Age was also ok, but it felt like one constant flow of music without any recognisable parts. One nice part of the Queens performance was that the security guards, who seemed a little bit overprotective and too active, we scolded by the lead singer common guys this is a fuckin’ Queens of the Stone age concert, we can have some fun without hurting each other! Unfortunately, the best Queens song, their only hit, came at the end of the set.

The next band was actually one of my favourites, the Counting Crows, and the more disappointing it was that also they could not really convince; we already left earlier for Roisin Murphy who was playing at the other stage. Surprisingly, her performance was quite good, I would have wanted to see a little bit more of it, but we needed to move to have a good place at the Rage Against the Machine gig which was next. The crowd just when crazy during that performance, and I think I was the only one really not appreciating it; too much anger, too many politics, and more importantly political statements I couldn’t disagree more with.

Still, Pinkpop has been an awesome experience, the wombats and racoon made up for what the other bands failed to bring. Also, I’m sure I’ll try to get tickets again next year, the atmosphere was just so amazing and friendly. More than 60000 people visiting every day and as far as I know no fights at all, just everyone enjoying the sun, the music, the food & beer, and each other’s company…you only wish that could happen more often in everyday life

Voicst, also Dutch, was playing at the GM Next stage, which is located inside a tent (previously known as the 3fm tent), and therefore the sound was just miserable…not because of the band, but mostly because of the bad acoustics of the tent…Dirk and I already soon decided it was time for an early lunch (+beer to keep up German traditions), mostly because a) it wasn’t really our music, b) you couldn’t see squat inside the tent, and c) we were hungry and thirsty According to Tally and Mark we missed one of the most interesting gigs, with really cool crowd interaction, a shame, but at least we were not hungry anymore, the others were. So again our roads parted and had Dirk and me visiting KT Tunstall and the Eagles of Death Metal, while the others were looking for a bite to eat.

KT Tunstall on the main stage was unfortunately not really convincing. The music that was played was quite good, and I really admire KT as a musician, not so much as performer though… The interaction with the crowd was minimal, and also the music is not really something that evokes a reaction of the crowd. I think the tent would be a lot better place for an artist like her. Mostly, because of the intimate atmosphere of that tent, if only the sound was better….

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