Best Kept Secret Festival – Beekse Bergen Park, The Netherlands – Day 2, 20th June 2015
After a hectic first day at Best Kept Secret Festival in Hilvarenbeek Katja Ogrin takes us through day 2 of the event:
After much needed sleep I wake up on day 2 feeling much more refreshed. I have no idea if there were any parties happening around my tent during the night, I slept through it all like a log. This is a permanent camping site so there are decent toilet/shower facilities in place and thank god for no portaloos. This is the sort of camping I can get on board with quite easily.
The first band on the following day is God Damn, a duo from The Midlands. I’ve seen them plenty of times before and they seem to get better and better each time. It’s hard to believe there’s only two of them playing as the sound they generate on just guitar, vocals and drums is huge and it’s no wonder they were recently chosen to support the mighty Foo Fighters on one of their UK stadium dates.
They start playing in an almost empty tent but that doesn’t seem to phase them and as per usual they throw themselves completely into their performance as the audience slowly gathers behind the crash barrier. Each of their songs is a combination of energy, concentration and passion and I honestly think it should have been them and not Royal Blood to play a set on the main stage. Because they are better full stop.
Next on my list is John Coffey, a Dutch punk rock/hardcore band. My reasons for wanting to see them have very little to do with music. First of all they are named after a character from the film The Green Mile which is one of my favourite films ever and secondly, there was a viral video that came out only few days before showing their frontmant standing on shoulders of the crowd at a gig whilst catching a glass flying through the air and drinking the remaining liquid from it before continuing to sing.
They clearly had plenty of fans at the festival, the tent was full of people wanting to see them and John Coffey certainly know how to pump up the crowd. Moshpits kept growing and filling up with passionate fans whilst the band played a selection of songs from their new record ‘The Great News’ they released earlier this year.
After John Coffey it was time to head over to the main stage for a slightly more sedate affair in form of British neo-psychedelic four-piece Temples. I really enjoyed the euphoric guitar riffs and keyboard of Adam Smith, while Thomas Edward, James Walmsley and Samuel Lloyd Toms’ bass and drumming held structure of the glossy performance. It was a perfect fit for the chilled sunny mid afternoon by the lake.
I skipped Balthazar who played the main stage next and waited for Of Monsters and Men. Some describe them as an Icelandic version of Mumford and Sons. This, as far as I’m concerned, is somewhat unfair, because it’s actually possible to distinguish one Of Monsters and Men song from another. Although I will grudgingly admit that there is something about this band that resembles liveliness, the calculated but effective elicitation to clap your hands, sway your arms and dance, that has propelled Mumford into the stratosphere. Live, they manage to really rock out and then rein it in for the soft lullabies and handle each as if they had been doing this for decades.
They manage to keep the harmonies and warmth of the songs whilst still bringing them alive on the stage. And the crowd is eating out of their hands. They finish the set with their biggest hit Little Talks.
Next is off to see the rap wunderkind A$AP Rocky headlining stage two. 15 minutes before he’s due on stage the tent is already packed and I end up chatting to two fans at the front who claim the only reason they bought festival tickets is to see this guy and do their best to convince me ASAP will change the face of rap forever. Their enthusiasm is infectious and even I get excited about what I’m about to see despite my general disinterest in rap. So, ASAP finally shows up on the stage along with three other rappers frantically pacing about and shouting stuff. I have no idea what’s going on, it’s a good thing I know what the guy looks like or I would have no idea who’s who on the stage. I guess the fact that he was the only one going up on the podium in front of the video screen was somewhat of a give away that he was more important than the other three. I also have no idea when one song finishes and the next one starts until the burly security guy (not the usual festival security but someone from ASAP’s camp) tells us all to the leave the pit so I’m guessing that was three songs I heard up until then. Before I leave the pit I spot the two guys I was chatting to before and they are screaming their heads off along with the rest of the crowd so I guess ASAP is doing well.
Back to the main stage for another Brit package called The Vaccines. On mid-sized venue UK tour in May and continuing later in the year but also playing most of the major festivals this summer it seems that Melvin Benn, the managing director of Festival Republic, was right back in 2012 when he heralded The Vaccines as future headliners of Reading & Leeds. Not too shabby considering the group have only been around for five years now. There is one thing that can be said for The Vaccines, they bring the party with their raucous, uproarious indie rock and a seemingly endless store of energy at hand and they get the crowd nicely warmed up for the headliner Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.
Before going on tour with High Flying Birds, Noel promised that the fans would get what they wanted which is a good number of old Oasis hits. But first we have to get through some of the stuff from the band’s self-titled first album and also the new album, Chasing Yesterday which was released earlier this year. I try to like the new material and it’s not that I dislike it, I just can’t get very excited about it. It’s all perfectly pleasant to listen to but unlike old Oasis hits such as Champagne Supernova, Don’t Look Back in Anger and Masterplan, it is just not very memorable.
Words and photographs: Katja Ogrin