I posted this at TACC a few days back. Thought I should post it here too. Hah, I'm cheap. (Had to cut out some swear words ¬.¬)

Got back home last monday from Lowlands, a big music festival here in the Netherlands. (The largest alternative pop festival of the Netherlands actually) We had rented a van and had a friend drop us off at the festival camping ground thursday evening [which unfortunately meant traffic jams and long waiting in line at the entrance and drop-off]. We came back this morning by train (which was much less of a hassle than a van. Yay for Dutch public transit). Only at our final station we were hasseling a bit with all our luggage and having to wake up my friend Luke and just when we wanted to go out the traindoors closed and we were locked inside.
We were like "what the heck?" and then the train took off to a shunting yard where it stopped (our last stop was also the trains). We tried bonking on the cabin's door but apparently the machinist had already gotten out before we got to that part of the train.
So we pulled the emergencybrake in the hope that would trigger somekind of alarm. Which it did, but went unnoticed because the machinist cabin was empty. Because of the festival the last 4 days nobody really had any battery left in their cellphones except for one who dialled 112 (Dutch emergencynumber) who reconnected us to the NS (Dutch Railway Company) and then his battery died. Fortunately the machinist then walked by shortly after and noticed us. He escorted us back to the station, through the yards. Apparently these things seemed to happen quite often.

As for the festival, it mostly ROCKED. Well worth the money. There were 54.000 people there, Eleven stages, at least fifty bands, DJs, poets, comedians, writers etc.

Some outtakes:

FRIDAY:

The Awesome: Franz Ferdinand [scotland, indie rock], The Prodigy [england, techno]
Some of the press I read weren't so positive about the prodigy, but I loved it. I've been a fan of them since I was 10 or so, so it was good to finally see them live. They mostly played their most famous songs (firestarter, no good, out of space, voodoo people etc etc).
Franz Ferdinand was solid like his CD which is a big success here in the Netherlands

The Good: Kaiser Chiefs [england, post-punk]
Wasn't familiar with them, but they sounded alright, I missed the first half of their show though.

Missed: Røyksopp [norway, electronica], Funkstörung [germany, techno], Racoon [netherlands, alt pop]
The first two because they performed similtaniously with respectively The Prodigy and Franz Ferdinand. The last because I unfortunately didn't know they were coming. They replace "The Rakes" who couldn't make it for some reason. I really would have loved to see Racoon live

SATURDAY:

The awesome: THE ARCADE FIRE [canada, indie rock]
Bloody amazing. I only listened to the band's CD once or twice in the week before we went. A friend had suggested it to me. I thought it was good, but not exceptional. But their performance sure was. Great act, great songs, sublime. I really suggest everyone who is only the slightest into idie rock to attend one of their shows. They really make something of it. (One of the players actually climbed 8 metres into the air on the girder on which the lamps were attached and continued drumming there!)

The Good: The Pixies [usa, college rock], Maxïmo Park [england, indie rock]
Don't really like Maxïmo Park but their show was fun to watch and I thought they sounded a lot better live.
Not a big fan of the Pixies, but I do like them and I liked their show. I mostly went to hear "where is my mind"

The Disappointment: Audio Bullys [england, house]
THEY BLOODY SUCKED. Their album is a big success in the Netherlands and you can't avoid their songs in the clubs. But the show they put up here was just embarrasing more than anything. Their music is a success because of the vocals and they chose to completely neglect that - both by just not singing them and singing some with so little enthousiasm it just sounded dull. On top of that the singer just appeared arrogant and wasted. We left after 10 minutes or so.

SUNDAY:

The Awesome: THE FOO FIGHTERS [usa, grunge], Incubus [usa, alt metal/post grunge]
I really like incubus and their show was solid, they played a lot of their slower songs which I didn't mind (but quite a lot of people did) but I thought it was a pity they didn't play any of their older more funk-metal songs.
The Foo Fighters were just plain awesome. At some point though more people appeared to be crowdsurfing than actually supporting the surfers. Nobody got hurt though. They played almost all their classics (My Hero!) and songs from all their albums (except their first selftitled one).

The Good: The Editors [england, indie rock], Heather Nova [bermuda, singer/songwriter]
Didn't know the editors and went there because I heard they were similar to Interpol. I liked them and intend to listen to more stuff of them when I get the time.
Heather Nova was good, but I just don't like all here music as much, some songs I like, some I don't.

Some other big names that were there but I didn't watch because I don't like their music:

Gabriel Rios, Bad Religion (which sucked, or so I heard), Marilyn Manson, Korn, Dropkick Murphys, Queens of the Stone Age, T. Raumschmiere, LCD Soundsystem

Anyhow, anyone else went to any cool festivals lately?

Post, Discuss, etc.

I went to Thirteenth Day, Sonata Arctica played, nuff said.

The Foo Fighters rock.

ProgPower USA = Gold

There needs to be another Curiosa.

Robert Smith would be stupid not to do another, it was a large success.

Maximo Park > * (Live, anyway.)

I'm going to a folk music festival tonight... that is, if I don't wise up and realize that 40 bucks is entirely too much to pay. ...I think the drugs are built into the ticket cost?

I believe Spe's as Leeds right now.

i went to finland for ilosaari rock.

Apocalyptica played AND Sonata Arctica, so I win, detty looses.

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  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

the pixies kick ***.