This summer being the none-summer that it is, we were a bit weary about the prospect of having to camp for a few days. It had been cold and raining for weeks. So we went well-equipped, not just with raincoats and wellies but finally also with last-minute pavillion to keep us dry. That came extremely handy in the times when it did rain. But to be honest, the rain was nowhere as bad as we had feared.

Musically Haldern held quite a few well-known attractive bands for us this year and possibly the largest variety of completely unknown or just vaguely known bands we had so far.

Thursday

Thursday night in Haldern being what it is, meant the usual less-than-convenient facts: loads of enthusiastic people already being present and the only music being in the beautiful but small Spiegelzelt – apparently re-named to Spiegeltent this year. So we had to start with a fair amount of queueing to begin with. To make things extra-unpleasant for the first-time Halderners it was raining at the time, but eventually we did manage to get into the tent, seeing the great gig of The Avett Brothers on the screen outside while waiting and making it inside in time for Anna Calvi who played a lovely gig.

Of course we couldn’t leave after just one gig, particularly after waiting in the rain for an hour. So we stayed on despite not knowing the upcoming band, called the Brandt Brauer Frick ensemble. It took ages for the stage to be set up for them. Probably because of all the ‘classical’ instruments – including a cello, a grand piano and a harp – which had to be set up for ten musicians. And then the music sounded like techno (not that I knew what real techno sounds like…). A surprise and a very pleasant one. A very cool gig and band discovery to start things off with!

And that was Thursday night already. More a chill-in phase than a huge amount of music. But with all the traveling and setting up we did before, it was time to enjoy some drinks in our pavillion.

Friday

After a really rainy morning, we went to pick up more people from the station, enjoyed some drinks in town and finally went to the main festival grounds. After being to the huge Hurricane festival two months ago, Haldern’s Reitplatz felt so sanely small and pleasant in comparison.

The first band we saw, Golden Kanine stressed the ever-increasing popularity of string and brass instruments in popular music. They were a pleasant enough start, though the trousers of the saxophonist kept freaking me out.

Next on were The Antlers, who also played a nice and somewhat unexciting gig. They also brought the first red keyboard on stage for this year. Somehow keyboards started being red rather than black two or three years ago.

Heading for the Spiegelzelt once more – somewhat easier now that the main stage was open and attracted the majority of the crowd – we saw the second half of the gig by Wild Beasts which was another pleasant surprise.

But things became even better afterwards. I had heard Socalled’s music before. Pretending to be Hip-hop (which I would not like) but being much cleverer and more fun that that. And the gig was just great. From the music to the magic tricks to the greedy Smurf shirt and the exotic music for pop music stages. Much recommended.

So far so good. Next on was Miss Li with a well performed show and the biggest saxophone on earth in her band – a concoction which just felt like a record company executives wet dream which can sing.

Next on were the wonderful Okkervil River. I keep enjoying their albums a lot. And consequently I enjoyed their gig. However, I kept thinking that they seemed somewhat bored and unengaged. Unlike at Haldern 2008 where I thought they were the best band playing the festival, they just didn’t engage me that much this time around.

The next band were The Wombats whose music I’ve always found enjoyable, perhaps even a bit more than is adequate for my age. Their gig was fun, but they also didn’t seem as engaging and fun as they did at Hurricane two months ago were they were great. Perhaps I should wonder whether bands just seem better the first time around or whether they play greater gigs in the afternoon when it’s still bright outside…

The headliner for the evening went by the Name of Tom Isfort & John Grant, a singer with a complete orchestra. Again this meant what felt like an eternal period to set up the stage and get the mikes right and then the music was rather disappointing. Not a good way to finish of such a great festival day!

But luckily there was still the Spiegelzelt! We managed to get in there half way through the show put on by three artists of the Erased Tapes label. We had missed the first one but managed to see the second half of Nils Frahm and Anne Müllers piano and cello gig which was a great and consoling way to end the evening before heading back to the tent on surprisingly well-lit paths. The campgrounds were lit by what looked like giant gas lights this year. Cool:

Saturday

Saturday morning started off cloudy but there even was short period of sunshine. Which we luckily used to head for a swim in Haldern’s famous lake, meaning we missed out on the first few bands but were there in time for the James Blake gig which I really wanted to see after listening to the album a gazillion times and reading that he does these fantastic gigs. The music was still great, but I failed to see what’s particularly remarkable about the show they put on.

The following band were the rather curious LaBrassBanda, speaking Bavarian accents and playing brass music as the name suggests. Entertaining, but in the slightly creepy way you’d expect from people wearing T-Shirts about ‘butts’.

The next highlight was on its way with Wir Sind Helden. It’s been ages since I last saw them play live and – to be honest – I don’t find their newer albums quite as appealing. But their gig did not disappoint at all. A great performance, plenty of great old songs for grumpy old people like myself, a good spirit and even extra nice stage-decoration with lamps hanging above the band.

Some rain followed, thanks to plastic clothing it didn’t hurt. Queueing for the Spiegelzelt we saw Hauschka on the screen. That seemed like a pretty cool gig as well and included table tennis balls in a piano. A shame we couldn’t see it directly. Instead, we saw Warpaint who were on afterwards. Well worth seeing, it’s good to have strong girl bands.

And the next highlight was following! Namely this decade’s favourite hippie band, Fleet Foxes playing on the main stage. A good way to chill out, one could have almost gone to bed after that.

Just that the day wasn’t quite over yet. Heading for the Spiegelzelt once more, I saw Suuns who played solidly loud music for a change. And I had my yearly Haldern meeting with Jan at that occasion.

The final band on the main stage were Explosions in the Sky. Solid loud music with plenty of guitars, but somehow I found I can’t really match the quality of Mogwai, say and perhaps something either more lively or less noisy would have been more appropriate for the moment. Still, an impressive closing ‘act’ after which we were off to the tent.

Sunday

And that was that, another Haldern was over and we awoke in the morning with rain coming down on our tent, trying to decided whether we need to get out of there quickly or whether it will become drier. We left soon-ish, managing to pack everything up and even fit seven people plus all the equipment into two small cars. To finish off the indulgence we treated ourselves to a big brunch in a café in nearby Hamminkeln. Despite being a somewhat un-festival-like thing, we learned last year that it’s a great way to recover from the weekend and gain strength for the way back home. It’s also local enough for the people working there to sympathise – after all, their kids were at the festival as well.

The trip home was uneventful. However, a bad aftertaste is left by my iPod not waking with me in the morning and having remained dead since. Without the web browser and Angry Birds in my pocket I’m feeling a bit naked.

Trends this year seem to be the clever ‘self-building-in-two-seconds’ tents which Dan introduced us to a few years ago and which were ubiquitous on the campground now, as well as accordions on stage and moustaches/Pornobalken in people’s faces. I am not sure whether the latter two are good trends.

Thursday

Haldern visitors are a great crowd, have interesting musical tastes and are usually pleasant to camp next to. One problem with them is their enthusiasm. We tried to be there fairly early, arriving on Thursday afternoon, and the campground was already well-filled. So well-filled that we had to put our tents up thirty metres or so from our usual location. Ah well, we’re getting old, I guess. Haldern only started doing gigs on Thursday night a few years ago. And apart from The Flaming Lips’ gig in 2008, they never used the main stage but only the small-ish Spiegelzelt on that day. With so many people already being there and enthusiastic to see some bands, that creates the problem that the Spiegelzelt’s capacity is way smaller than the number of people wanting to enter it. Cue a lot of queueing and plenty of frustration for the people who don’t make it into the tent. Particularly when the sound system of the screen they have to show what’s going on inside the Spiegelzelt is so quiet that you can’t really follow the music.

Knowing about this problem, I was eager to get into the tent quickly as I wanted to see Seabear again. We did manage to get into the tent, but soon learned that the schedule I printed from their website the same morning was wrong and Seabear were going to play much later in the evening. A fact that was stated correctly on their printed schedules, so I guess they just fucked up their website. Grand.

Thus, instead of seeing Seabear, we started the festival with Cymbals Eat Guitars. I wasn’t overly impressed by them. The music started off boring, then there were a few interesting moments and, instead of sticking with those, they reverted back to boring before long. But boredom didn’t last long because Beach House came on next and played the nicest gig I saw at the whole festival. Their music is excellent, they played wonderfully, and it seems likely that I secretly want to be a hippie.

And that was as close as we got to the music on Thursday. We needed to leave the Spiegelzelt for food and the queue was far too long to get back in in time for Seabear later in the evening. And seeing them on the screen in front of the Spiegelzelt didn’t make up for that either as you could hardly hear the music there.

Friday

Friday started with our usual camping breakfast which includes plenty of coffee and fried eggs. Then we went to town for lunch in the Doppeladler where the food was fine but the staff seemed a bit overworked (on what I presume is the the only weekend in a year with many people coming) and we had one of their waitresses tell the head-waitress something along the lines of working from 9 in the morning till midnight: my ass! while the head-waitress was taking our order. Ah well…

Back from that excursion, we had a quick glimpse at Detroit Social club and then saw Fyfe Dangerfield (of the Guillemots) play a lovely gig in the Spiegelzelt.

Next we went outside and saw a bit of the mystery band which was marked with a question mark in the schedule. It turned out to be Philipp Poisel who, with his boyish charms seems to be an up-and-coming star of German indie music, but whom I didn’t find particularly interesting (sounded like a Grand Hotel van Cleef band to me). Then came Rox, who seemed very ‘professional’ and whose music style I considered rather out of place for Haldern. She was followed by Delphic whose more electronic sound may not be mainstream for the Haldern audience, but whom I consider different in an interesting and pleasing way.

Next on were Mumford & Sons whose nice songs and quirky instruments made a great gig and were perfectly complemented by Beirut who followed them on stage (and whose middle-east name always seems at odds to me with their Balkan sounds – they really sound like they came from a Emir Kusturica soundtrack – with a bit less joy an extra hint of depression, perhaps).

We concluded the evening by seeing Thus:Owls in the Spiegelzelt. Nice music, but we started being word out at the time. So worn out that, unfortunately, we couldn’t muster the energy to stay on and see Junip at twenty to three.

Saturday

Saturday began and still there was no rain. Even better: the sun was shining and it started being a little warm. Warm enough to enjoy a swim in the lake next to the festival grounds. A good way to ‘chill-into’ the day.

We tried to see Nils Frahm do some piano magic in the afternoon. But thanks to the poor information on the schedule we thought this was happening in town, just to be sent back to a place right next to the campground from there. When we arrived, the tiny sound studio was packed, hot and oxygen-free. All we got out of it was a lengthy walk. A real shame, because I thought the music was nice. We also missed Portugal, The Man because of this.

After that somewhat rocky start, we enjoyed most of the day at the main stage. Starting off with Fanfarlo whose music I found as enjoyable as I found the band members’ moustaches freaky.

Next up were Frightened Rabbit, who deserve praise for their cool band name and played a nice gig. Then Blood Red Shoes played. People seem to adore them for their ability to blast away an audience as a duo with just a guitar and a drumkit. Unfortunately they seemed to have left that magic at home this weekend and appeared rather indifferent to me. They were followed by Efterklang who played a cool gig full of their great songs.

After some pizza and seeing a bit of the Bear in Heaven gig in the Spiegelzelt, Sophie Hunger played on the main stage. I have to admit I don’t care too much for her music, but she did a great job taking the piss of the music ‘journalist’ guy who interviewed her a bit before her gig. Speaking about interviews, Yeasayer who played later at night did a good job mocking him as well.

Music on the main stage closed with one of the festival’s highlights: The National playing a full ninety minute gig. The National keep amazing me, they may look like your typical old men’s ‘rock’ band and their songs have the speed to match that cliché. Yet, there’s that certain intensity and tension in their songs – and their singer’s voice – which make them unique and enjoyable. And which made the gig pass rather quickly, ending the festival for us.

And that was Haldern 2010 for us. See you there next year!

Soon, we had indulged in some steaks, heard our ‘lovely’ neighbours’ music and learned about their inability to listen to complete tracks (which kind of drives me nuts) and went on to see Wintersleep (CAN) in the Spiegelzelt. Their music made a nice start for the festival.

They were followed by The Irrepressibles (UK) whom I really didn’t like. Plenty of people dressed up in white angelical costumes plus a lead singer wearing a cone head doesn’t make me particularly happy. Particularly when the music sounds like all the fancy ‘classical’ instruments the people brought there aren’t needed at all for the music coming out of this. This seemed more decoration than substance to me. Not to forget the clown-like aspects.

This ended the ‘chill-in’ day and at least the instruments in The Irrepressibles set the stage for a lot that was to come: It seems that this time there were relatively few bands who didn’t bring some violins, violas or other classical string instruments. Those seem increasingly popular in pop music. Whether or not that’s a good thing may be an interesting question to discuss.

Saturday

After niceties like a bacon and eggs breakfast and some extra relaxing after that we did some shopping and picked up our remaining friend from the station. Bonus points go to the luggage shuttle operated there which simply drove his luggage the remaining two kilometres to the festival grounds while giving him (and everybody who picked him up as it turned out) a cold beer to enjoy on the way. Situations rarely end up more win-win than this, I suppose, particularly when the sun is shining and it’s rather hot.

The first band we saw was Port O’Brien (USA) whose album I found rather enjoyable. And their gig was great as well. Definitely worth seeing, particularly with that extra bit of energy you often get in live music.

Next up was Final Fantasy (CAN) whose playing we had already enjoyed at Haldern 2006 and since gotten used to its inherent quirkiness of electronic loops meeting a violin. Strangely, the usual announcer for the bands said he couldn’t remember any other single person bands playing on the main stage before (I do - Patrick Wolf did in 2004 and I’m fairly sure the same announcer guy was also doing his duties back then because he always seems to be doing that.)

Still, the music and its performance were nice, odd, enjoyable, quirky. It takes a bit of getting used to and could perhaps do with a bit more force in a place or two but it’s generally a good thing.

But the goodness didn’t stop here and Noah and the Whale (UK) came on next, delivering another superb gig, after which we needed a little rest and food.

Later in the evening on the main stage there was Patrick Watson (CAN) who didn’t just play a great gig with his band

but was also accompanied by a bunch of strings players at times and escaped the stage to wander through the crowds with a badass blinking speaker thingy.

After missing Loney, Dear (SWE) in the Spiegelzelt last year, we could watch them play on the main stage this time around - and they played a great gig as well!

Before heading back to the tent we looked at half of the Athlete (UK) who to me sounded as dated as they are and we also had a look at Gravenhurst (UK) in the Spiegelzelt on our way back who was a bit too slow (and IMO is better with a band), so we cut that short as well and called it a night.

Interlude

In terms of general remarks, I - and similarly my friends - ended up thinking that the festival seemed more relaxed this year than in previous years. Despite being sold out, there were fewer and quicker queues and the festival area didn’t seem as crowded as it was in the previous years - we could easily reach comfortable viewing positions not too far from the stage without needing to be pushy. I’m wondering whether they reduced capacity or whether the relatively quiet style of many of the bands played a role in this.

I also don’t tire of remarking how friendly the festival is. Despite serving hundreds or thousands of people throughout the day, people at the food and drinks stalls are usually friendly to every new punter who arrives. Remarkable, particularly in Germany at a festival where you don’t have many other options. A new addition to the food on site seemed to be a small café with proper espresso and fancy fruit smoothies. The traditional crêpes stall with its particularly charming staff also didn’t disappoint either (spelling problems notwithstanding - heck it’s just a single accent in the word crêpes, yet at most 20% of the stalls in Germany manage to spell it correctly everywhere…).

Saturday

After seeing Steffen off and having a refreshing swim in the local lake, we started the day with Dear Reader (SA). Two things to say here: The short one is that I wasn’t overly impressed by their album, but they were very good live. The long and remarkable one - which also came up in a public interview they gave after their gig - is that they are from South Africa. Which isn’t just my home away from home but which as far as I can tell is rather devoid of ‘indiepop’ music. Pop music in South Africa seems to have stopped in the 1980s - at least that’s the impression I get when turning on the radio there. As a consequence it’s surprising to see an ‘indiepop’ band from Jo’burg and it’s great to see them attract a bit of attention in Europe (and the U.S.).

Actually the interview with Dear Reader I saw afterwards was quite cool. Not only did they go into their background, cover art and the story about being inside an ice bear is a good way to hide as they’re apparently invisible to infrared cameras. And special kudos go to their drummer for presenting the worst German sentences he learned (amazingly accent-free) and for wearing a World/Inferno T-Shirt.

Next, The Maccabees (UK) played a no-nonsense and energetic gig,

followed by Grizzly Bear (US) who came with a full and rather dreamy sound who were then

followed by Bon Iver (US), who carefully stepped things up a little with a hint of hippie sound.

After this there was time for a brief look at Hjaltalín (ISL) in the Spiegelzelt whose music has a time and place which probably isn’t a tent right in the middle of a hot summer afternoon. But I had to return to the main stage anyway - for not to miss The Thermals (US) who remain one of my favourite bands (even though their latest album Now We Can See can’t really match its predecessors). Perhaps they were a bit too ‘professional’ and distant throughout the gig, but still, I enjoyed it a lot…

… and in a way that was the glorious end of the festival. While there were more bands playing, I wasn’t particularly keen on The Soundtrack of Our Lives (SWE) (freaky new album cover, btw) who seem to come from a different decade and who elicited a comment from a friend that German audiences always need a band with a bit of ‘stadium’ pathos. After them, Little Boots (UK) could be seen in the Spiegelzelt and seemed to be completely out of place. The closing ‘act’ were Fettes Brot (DE) who are shockingly popular in this country but whom I considered out of place as well with their well-trained dances and ‘funny’ Sprechgesang. So the very end of the festival was a bit unspectacular.

Bonus links

• Rockpalast broadcasts footage on the weekends 29-31 August, and 5-7 September
• flickr group
• last.fm page

We had great neighbours on the campground and generally the campground was surprisingly quiet and civilised. This may just be a consequence of the audience not being the youngest but even the young attendees seemed reasonably well behaved. Seeing that I tend to hate people by default, I consider it a surprisingly good sign that the people I met both a the festival and on the way there were likeable and interesting to get to know.

It’s also great that they learned from problems they had with rain at the festival in the past and covered the ground up to prevent things like ultra-muddy people or stuck cars from happening. Extra kudos go to the locals who do not seem to be annoyed by thousands of people invading their little village for a weekend but rather seem to think it about their party which many outsiders happen to attend because it’s so great.

More on Haldern Pop 2008: Thursday, Saturday, Friday, All Haldern Pop posts.

Okkervil River

Okkervil River played in the afternoon and they were very good and much more loud and lively than one might expect from their albums. Extra brownie points their drummer who not only did the job with a necktie but was smiling and apparently enjoying himself all the way through. Welcome to Happy Drummer Day!

[More photos, taken with a better camera]

Jamie Lidell

The ‘Fink’ playing in the tent apparently were some English band going by that name rather than the English one, which made us just wait for the next band on the main stage. Perhaps the word ‘act’ would be more appropriate for Jamie Lidell and his costumed music troupe. No sir, I didn’t like it, even though some parts of the music may have been reasonably ‘interesting’.

Alamo Race Track

An early escape from Jamie Lidell gave us plenty of time to be in the - at that stage hardly existing - queue for the Spiegelzelt to see Alamo Race Track. They turned out to be very good and played an excellent set. With a happy-looking drummer, btw.

Iron & Wine

We saw the beginning of Iron & Wine’s gig on the main stage afterwards. I spontaneously rated their sounds as ‘hippie music’ - but on the boring side without the magic and intensity that The Magic Numbers bring to the genre. In the Spiegelzelt late at night this might have been nice. But in the afternoon on the main stage we went for a quick bite instead.

The National

That way we were a bit rested for The National. Their music is tricky. On the one hand it is very intense; but on the other hand it isn’t punchy or fast, so it’s a bit difficult to judge how things work out. People may find it dull. For me things worked well though. They made good use of the live setting to be a bit more energetic than on their albums and gave us a reasonably noisy set without skipping on details like the brass or their crazy violinist (at which speed and overdone arm movements does a violin stop sounding better than violin mode on a keyboard?).

Their singer caused discussions later on. Some people seemed to think he has some sort of psycho problem because of the way he acted and how he liked turning the back to the audience whenever he wasn’t singing. I just thought he tried to be polite to not distract from the band. It’s a thin line between craziness and genius I guess.

Maxïmo Park

The last band on the main stage were Maxïmo Park. I tried liking them but I keep thinking they’re mediocre at best. Their singer is a clown who behaves like an overly excited participant in high school theatre while the rest of the band just stand there disconnectedly. Reading stuff from notebooks isn’t clever, having a superfluous diaeresis in your band (or new economy corporation) name isn’t either. Bonus points for a nice and clean stage design though. When did ‘stage designer’ become a job title?

And that was that. There was too much of a queue to get into the Spiegelzelt again afterwards to see Scott Matthew and too much tiredness to stand things out until he was finished to see Ólafur Arnalds, who might have been interesting to see, afterwards.

More on Haldern Pop 2008: Thursday, Friday, Sum Up. All Haldern Pop posts.

White Lies

Hence the day began musically with White Lies. After seeing the slightly better Foals the night before I had to think about them as a less cheesy version of The Bravery as well.

Jack Peñate

Jack Peñate played nice music as well afterwards. And had a bit of rain to go with it. The incredibly well-prepared audience took that without much fuss and converted themselves into a water-proofed crowd within moments.

And of course a band shouldn’t come on stage without a plastic wrapped metallophone these days. Interesting T-Shirt as well (Young Folks?):

Joan as Policewoman

Joan as Policewoman wore a crazy whig along with a pailletted dress and shiny golden boots. The music was all right with too much posing for my taste. And, yes, an ordinary keyboard does look much better and interesting when it’s hidden behind glittery black fabric.

Cool bassist as well.

We skipped Kula Shaker (I keep thinking they might be good for a cover version of Instant Karma for some reason) for some food and sitting instead.

The Guillemots

We had semi-seen The Guillemots in 2006 already and they played a nice gig. They may have over-stressed the PA or something though. At least it stopped to work towards the end of their set. Amusingly they didn’t seem to notice and just continued playing. I wonder what they thought when people started cheering in the middle of a song when the sound came back.

Next on the main stage was Kate Nash. I had never heard about her before, but she was the only ‘act’ on the line-up known by my colleague. ‘From the radio’. Hence we just skipped that and went to the Spiegelzelt.

Gisbert zu Knyphausen

The silly name Gisbert zu Knyphausen turned out to be a band which sounded a bit like latecomers to the Hamburger Schule.

Lykke Li

I had never heard about Lykke Li before but she was recommended to me several times. And it’s hard to tell how good her music is. In part she nicely fills the niche of the small blonde girlie (don’t let my photos fool you) TV presenter and the negative associations that come with it. And some of her songs started on a low note. But when she stepped out of that and went closer to insanity, things seemed quite brilliant. A Vampire Weekend cover and that encore she played (what exactly was that?) didn’t hurt either. Interesting!

Editors

The Editors ended the day for us. Their music is solid but I keep finding it a bit dull. [Fan-friggin-tastic cover art, though!] It might have been a better choice to remain in the Spiegelzelt to see Loney Dear for whom the queue was too long when we got there…

After that we went back to the camp ground. My feet were aching at the time. Without doubt a consequence of running around in rubber boots for the better part of the day. The boots did a great job in making the occasional rain-fall a non-problem, though.

More on Haldern Pop 2008: Thursday, Saturday, Sum Up. All Haldern Pop posts.

For some reason the festival had an extra day this year and started on Thursday already. Not the most convenient thing - but what can you do? There was also a fair share of bad weather announced which made me pack the rubber boots along with all sorts of other junk to take on the camp site where we stayed in our traditional favourite spot and managed to put up the tent before any rain happened.

The rain would come later but - unlike in other years it was reasonably moderate in both its intensity and duration. Which - along with everybody being well equipped with boots and raincoats as well as the critical parts of the festival grounds having been covered with plastic tiles - meant that luckily the bad weather wasn’t all that critical and didn’t affect things too much.

Finn and Norman Palm

Starting things off in the pretty Spiegelzelt were finn (who apparently stepped in for Noah and the Whale on short notice). We just saw the very end of their gig, so I can’t really say much. Afterwards Norman Palm played. Not too exciting, but doing well for a guy with his guitar.

We skipped a few lessons then and went back to the tent to get to know the neighbours as well as eat a little. As usual that dragged on a little but we made it in time to see the two remaining gigs on the main stage.

Foals

Foals reminded me of the Bravery in their sound. The same kind of poppy blandness and perhaps a bit less cheesy. All right to watch but not exactly my cup of tea.

The Flaming Lips

To top off the first night, what may be considered the festival’s highlight happened. Certainly The Flaming Lips playing there would have been reason enough to visit in its own. Particularly for those of us who loved their music for ages and hadn’t seen one of their not particularly frequent gigs before. I was really looking forward to that.

Even before they started playing the band left an impression. They seemed to bring along their own staff for the equipment which did their work in bright orange street construction workers’ overalls and in addition to that the band members actually took part in setting up and checking the equipment brought up on stage. The band also seemed to be responsible for bringing along giant disco mirror balls to decorate the stage, a screen to put behind it and a bunch of people dressed as Teletubbies to decorate the sides of the stage in silliness.

The gig started with what seems to be the typical move of Wayne Coyne being in a huge transparent rubber ball and rolling on top of the audience a little as a warm-up. Additional confetti and balloons were added later (as well as over and over again throughout the gig) which made the whole thing look fantastic and photogenic.

However, my impression was that the sound wasn’t very good with the vocals being too quiet and a lot of the magic in the songs which is familiar from the albums not making it across to us from the stage. While that improved a little through their gig, I kept having the impression that the band never quite ‘connected’ with the audience. - Which in the end left us with a nice performance but not one restoring a sense of childlike wonder or being quite as life changing as people usually say Flaming Lips gigs are.

And that was that. The festival’s first day passed in what seemed no time at all.

More on Haldern Pop 2008: Friday, Saturday, Sum Up. All Haldern Pop posts.

• Early in spring this year’s Haldern festival didn’t look like the most promising one, band-wise. A number of decent bands were listed, as were the great Shout Out Louds, but that was about it. Slowly, however, the line-up improved and once we had Malajube and Architecture in Helsinki on the list, it was clear that having bought the tickets wasn’t a bad idea. Particularly with my friends from England and Holland coming along. Add to all this that apart from the bit of mud at the beginning and slightly chilly nights the weather was excellent – sunny but not outrageously hot – and we had a good weekend.
• One thing I found remarkable this year was how many bands expressed that they were happy playing there and that they enjoyed the festival, the lake and the atmosphere during their stay. Perhaps that also causes better playing…
• While I had the impression that the sound or mixing was rather poor for a few bands (and good for others), there were generally interesting things to hear. String instruments seem to be quite popular in pop music these days. And a number of odd instruments, from exotic percussion devices to a cheese grater to a saw appeared as well.
• It’s quite funny to look at the countries in the festival’s line up this year. The UK gave us by far the greatest number of bands on stage, with Sweden following as a distant second (and if my counting isn’t wrong, then Germany and then Australia/Belgium/USA/Irland)
• It was fun to look at the shirts people were wearing again. While I often find it difficult to recognise the faces of people, I seem to have much fewer difficulties to remember what a shirt looks like.

From my point of view, Saturday was the winning day of this year’s Haldern festival. With Malajube, Architecture in Helsinki and the Shout Out Louds playing among many others, things could just end being well. But before the music started we went to the surprisingly clean lake behind the festival area and had a refreshing swim there. With the excellent weather this was quite a popular option. Unfortunately I managed to get a cut in the bottom of my foot in the course of this which I didn’t even realise before we had returned to the campground. For my easily wrecked nerves it looked like a rather deep cut, but luckily it didn’t really hurt, so before seeing bands, we had a quick stop with the friendly medical people on the site who disinfected the wound properly.

We managed to miss the (to me unknown) Friska Viljor who might have been well worth seeing judging from the CD I heard on my trip back home.

Voxtrot (USA)

Voxtrot were our opening band for the day. Young, very enthusiastic and with plenty of jumping around. Fun.

Johnossi (Sweden)

While their song Man Must Dance is quite addictive for some reason, I find the rest of Johnossi’s music all right but not particularly exciting. Or rather, as exciting as you’d expect their kind of singing to a guitar with percussion music to be. Good for leaning back while listening from a distance and waiting for the upcoming greatnesses.

Malajube (Canada)

Next came Malajube. Canada sent their second best and I was keen to see them. Not that many other people were, so we could comfortably stand right in front of the stage. And the band played a great gig which I enjoyed a lot.

Architecture in Helsinki (Australia)

I loved Architecture in Helsinki’s odd music ever since first hearing it and was really happy to learn they’ll play at Haldern. Wonderful weirdos, what else can I say? Their songs were great of course and, if anything, there weren’t enough of them. Seeing them play was fun as well with all the different instruments and their singer/keyboarder having a monster on her shirt.

Shout Out Louds (Sweden)

The Shout Out Louds have nicely fit in my taste for Swedish music for a while and I enjoyed seeing them as support band for The Magic Number a while back. Ironically both bands were at this festival as well and both played great gigs. The was also an eager crowd to watch the Shout Out Louds, who seem to be have become quite popular by now and who are on the Haldern Pop label in Germany. I liked all of that.

After this we had some more fries and Currywurst before heading for the Spiegelzelt. The closing gig was by Jan Delay whom I already happily skipped at last year’s Monsters of Spex. We saw the end of The Drones’ gig there first which didn’t impress me much.

Ghosts (England)

Then we saw Ghosts play rather poppy music. A bit too poppy for my taste and with a singer a bit too eager to mention their myspace page perhaps. But live their music was OK evening listening and not as cheesy as they sound when properly recorded and mixed.

Duke Special (Ireland)

The final gig we saw was that of Duke Special. Who were a perfect way to end the festival in the Spiegelzelt with a somewhat theatrical band playing a piano and a number of wind instruments in addition to circusesque drums and an electric guitar. The singing fit into the theatrical frame. And while I’m not sure I’ll like the music all clean and shiny on CD, it definitely was at the right place and the right time when we heard and saw it.

[No photo here as this one was just so bad that all the other photos of my screen-less broken camera look comparatively good.]

← Friday :Previously • Next: Sum up →

After breakfast, a stroll around, some cake in town as well as some shopping, we managed to miss seeing Brakes because (unsurprisingly) all of that ended up taking longer than expected and we joined the music for Gabriel Rios - not my type of music - and German band Polarkreis 18 who were all right but didn’t excite me too much either.

The View (Scotland)

We saw The View who excited some of our party. They were fun but still failed to excite me too much. The fact that their sound / mixing didn’t seem to be quite right and made things mostly noise probably didn’t help either. I kept thinking that they’d really love to be like the Libertines. But that they just don’t have the genes for that. I’ll just stop here before I get the snide remarks about polo shirts out. … And Same Jeans just sounds like a Cornershop rip-off, doesn’t it?

Jamie T (England)

I wasn’t too convinced my Jamie T when first hearing his music but thought there might be hope after listening to it again. I may have been overly optimistic there. At least I wasn’t at all thrilled to see him play live. Which was a good opportunity to have a crêpe with nutella (the guy who ordered his before I did had one with cheese and nutella which sounds just gross but he insisted it’s much better as the cheese doesn’t have discernible taste of its own and it amplifies the nutella taste).

And talking about take-away food, I have to add that we got quite used to the Bratwurst, Currywurst and chips made by one of the stalls. All of which were actually quite nice. The chips (as I had to remind myself I should say when talking to English people) were nice, thin and cripsy (which perhaps makes calling them ‘chips’ wrong as authentic English chips seem to be fat and soggy, but I digress…)

The Magic Numbers (England)

The Magic Numbers keep fascinating me. Their music is a nice, friendly and hippiesque thing, which I usually consider to be a bit too nice. The band look like a bunch of overweight hippies. Yet, once they’re on stage, they are doing a great show and give their music just that extra edge which may be missing on the CD. Very enjoyable indeed.

Spiritualized Acoustic Mainlines (England)

Take a Spiritualized singer, throw in a string quartet, a piano and a three person gospel choir and you get Spiritualized Acoustic Mainlines. While I’m not the biggest Spiritualized fan, I thought this combination could just create that certain magic (say, like, The Divine Comedy with orchestra in 2004) which makes music you only consider average sound great in the circumstances. But this just didn’t happen and in a way all the excitement and anticipation The Magic Numbers created was killed by a somewhat boring, and I think not well-mixed, gig.

Electric Soft Parade (England)

Our next stop was the Spiegelzelt which once more had quite a good queue but persistent joining of that queue actually brought us into the tent just as Electric Soft Parade started playing a gig which was a rather nice surprise for me. I quite like that. Just as I liked all band members standing next to one another on stage, allowing you to see all of them without the view being blocked.

Under Byen (Denmark)

The evening ended with Under Byen who join many different sounds. From singing to guitar to a cello to a saw (the first time I saw that on stage and the sound is rather cool). Unfortunately they didn’t shine light on their singer and their songs invariably seemed to be a bit too long for my taste. That, or lack a little a bit of extra drive and direction. Which made them a bit tiring after two in the morning.

← Thursday :Previously • Next: Saturday →