Ralphy's Concert Reviews

Pinkpop 2001 Rockfestival at Megaland in Landgraaf

Saturday 02, Sunday 03 and Monday 04 June 2001

featuring

Krezip, Papa Roach, Zita Swoon, K's Choice, Semisonic, 3 Doors Down, Stereophonics, Anouk, Toploader, Manic Street Preachers, The Offspring, Limp Bizkit, Tool and RadioHead.

A medium to good festival, but with too few highlights.

I am a regular visitor of the Pinkpop-festival, the oldest annual rockfestival in Europe (more than 30 years old now). My first visit was in 1986 or 1987, I think. Pinkpop was still a one-day-event than and the venue was Geleen at that time, some of the performing bands that year were The Blow Monkeys, Cock Robin, Claw Boys Claw, The Cult, The Waterboys and The Cure. After that visit I didn't visit the festival for a couple of years. I did watch the growth into a 3-day-spectacle on TV and welcomed the move to Landgraaf, which is only a 10-minute-drive from my home. Than 4 or 5 years ago we (3 friends and I) decided again to get tickets for the Monday, which was and still is the main day of the festival. We enjoyed that day which featured incredible performances of Live and Bush so much, that I have been going to the festival ever since, in fact this year was the second year in a row that I bought tickets for all 3 days, which included campground access, but we did not make use of that. Because of the short distance we just decided to sleep at home every night. Our group consisted of 5 people, my girlfriend Monja, her nephew Bert, her best friend and our former travel companion Astrid (see Ralphy's Pictures Pages), my buddy Maurice (who stepped in for my colleague Janno) and myself, ofcourse.

Saturday 02 June 2001

In the original line-up for the Saturday, the opening day of the festival, were 2 bands we were interested in seeing, the Dutch band Krezip and the Australian punk-rockers The Living End, but the latter band cancelled, so we decided to only go and watch Krezip, who were the headliners and closing band for that day. Other bands that performed that day were local bands Concubine (who won their place on Pinkpop in a local clash of bands) and Dreadlock Pussy (who filled the place of The Living End, they ain't bad, I've seen them perform before, they are a new and upcoming band with a musical style a bit similar to KoRn). Furthermore present that day were Michael Franti & Spearhead, Queens of The Stone Age and Dutch band Within Temptation and although I did not see any them I especially heard rave reviews about the last band. But as stated before our main interest for that day was Krezip. Their show was to start of at 21.30 hours, so we left at home at 20.30 hours and after parking the car we were at the entrance at 9.00 PM. To our dismay we weren't allowed to enter without a wristband. These wristbands were given out at the nearest campground, which still vacancies left, which came down to a 20-minute-walk. Ofcourse we were pissed off, because this meant we would be missing the opening part of Krezip's show, but there was no alternative. Last year the wristbands were mandatory also, but they handed them out at the entrance than, which is the way it should be if you have 3-day-visitors, who don't use the campgrounds. Maybe it had something to do with the higher level of security regulations, inspired by the Roskilde-tragedy in which 9 festival-visitors were crushed to death. Luckily after receiving the wristbands, we could grab a free bus back to the entrance, so we could at least see the second half of the Krezip-performance. This young Dutch band was the discovery of the Pinkpop-festival of the year before. The members are all still teens, who are still studying (music), who have been inspired mainly by Belgian band K's Choice. I both saw them play in 2000 and this year and I felt their performance last year (on the Sunday) was better and fresher. Although they did not have any big hits, when they performed in 2000 (in fact their song "I would stay" became a hit with/due to a video from their Pinkpop-performance). They played most of their best-known songs while we were watching and showed some enthusiasm, but it didn't quite spark like the year before, even my favorites "In her sun" and "Everything and more" didn't blow me out of my shoes. They also played at least 2 new songs and I don't think that a Pinkpop-show is the best place to try out new stuff, which was not very convincing by the way. My girlfriend also felt that their performance that evening was a bit disappointing, but they seemed to be giving it their best shot, so I rate them with a 6.0. The best thing about the evening was when Pinkpop-organizer Jan Smeets announced after the show that the Dutch soccer team had beaten Estonia with 2 - 4, I had been watching the game at home and at the time we departed from there Estonia had just scored the 2 - 1 lead with only 10 minutes left to play, so I was totally convinced that the Dutch team had lost any chance of qualifying for the World Cup in Japan/Korea.

Sunday 03 June 2001

The following day we especially wanted to see Papa Roach and K's Choice perform. The first mentioned was to play at 17.15 hours, while the latter were the closers and headliners of the day at 21.15 hours. Bands and performers we didn't see that day due to lack of interest were Dutch acts Ellen ten Damme, Green Lizard and Brainpower (sounds more like a superhero than a music artist imho), as well as the reggae-rappers from The Outkast and the jazzy music of St. Germain. I later heard that another Dutch band Johan played at the start of this day as a substitute for dance-act Orbital, who cancelled. I didn't know that otherwise I would have liked to watch Johan perform. This day we arrived with plenty time left, so we got a decent, not too close view of the stage to see Papa Roach. Ever since their huge worldwide hit "Last resort" Monja has become a fan of theirs. I downloaded and burned their CD for her (with the help of my friend and colleague Janno). Their show was as to be expected, hard and heavy, rough punk/rap/rock. They played almost every song of their album "Infest" and the singer tried to interact with the audience as much as possible. Especially his comment about how he as a little dude in California had heard about Pinkpop way back when and how he now couldn't really believe he was performing at that same Pinkpop went in quite well with the crowd. A minus point was when he told the people he wanted to see some crowdsurfing for the next song, which they eagerly reacted to. Crowdsurfing was forbidden as of this version of Pinkpop, due to the formerly mentioned tightened security measurements. If caught in the act of crowdsurfing (or making campfires on the festival terrain for that matter) the security people would remove you from the grounds and take away your ticket. All in all I liked their show, although it didn't make a major impact on me, I would rate their performance with a 7.0, but my friend Maurice, who wasn't familiar with them yet, thought it was just noisy and couldn't care less about Papa Roach.

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After that performance we had time for a few drinks, something to eat, looking around in the stands and in the CD-shop (where my girlfriend bought an old Offspring-CD and I bought the CD "Undertow" by Tool), before we relaxed in the grass. The weather wasn't that great, it was around 15 degrees Celsius with a cold wind, but at least we kept it dry for the major part of these 3 days. We even had a little sun on the morning of the third day, but we aren't up to that yet. While we were relaxing on stage the Belgian band Zita Swoon was performing and we listened to them playing in the background. Because we were bored we eventually moved to the front of the stage to catch the end of their gig. I had heard of them before, but did not actually know any music by them and what I heard that day didn't make me a believer in them either. Their frontman was some sort of sissy show-off with eye-hurting orange pants. They tried their best in their funny costumes, the guitar player for instance had a totally white suit with a black cowboy hat, and the singer called him the whitest man in showbusiness. So they did a lot of visual escapades, but they could not for a moment convince me with their music. Although Monja said she kinda liked them I rate their show with a 5.0.

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Next on stage were K's Choice. As some of you might know I am a huge fan of this band (read about it and them in this CD-review and this earlier Concert-review), but lately I had not been really impressed with their musical efforts. Their last CD 'Almost Happy' was a bit disappointing to me, which was also partly because of my great expectations and I had seen them in concert not to long ago and wasn't overly impressed at that time either. The first surprise was the announcement that singer Sarah Bettens would be performing sitting on a barstool. At the German Rock am Ring-festival she had torn a ligament in her knee, so she had a choice between canceling the show or performing sitting down. Thankfully she chose the latter. By the way it was the 2nd year in a row that something like that happened, the singer from German punkband Die Toten Hosen named Campino (or something like that) suffered the same injury on Rock am Ring last year, but he also performed a day later at Pinkpop and was even still jumping around on that one good leg, he hadn't been diagnosed at that time yet, I later heard that they cancelled all their shows after that one on Pinkpop of 2000. Anyway, so the otherwise very jumpy Sarah had to perform fixed steadily on her stool, how would that work out? She herself expressed some worries about that after a few songs, she thought the show might not be energetic enough because of that, but than again she had noticed how the crowd had reacted and she remembered that this is Pinkpop, where there's always enough energy as she stated. And in all honesty I can't say that the performance from K's Choice suffered from it. Center stage Sarah proved once more to me that she has the most beautiful female singing voice in music business today. Immediately during the opening song 'Almost happy' I got goosebumps (because of the beauty of the music, not the cold weather, just to be clear), something that repeated itself later during 'Butterflies instead'. They started of with some of the more heavier songs as opposed to the concert I'd been to earlier or at least they played them with more energy this time around. And in the middle of the show when the audience was already heated up they played the more softer songs just to end with some harder stuff again, except for the second encore, which was just Sarah singing '20.000 seconds' by herself. It's beautiful to end the show with just her singing (on the earlier concert in Sittard she also did it), but it is a bit of an anti-climax to me. Underneath you will find the setlist to the best of my recollection with the highlights of this show (for me) in green. I was a member of the K's Choice-fanclub last year, but I hadn't renewed my membership yet. In fact I had been waiting for this Pinkpop-performance to see if K's Choice could rejuvenate my faith in their music all over ... and they did. After Pinkpop I replied the remembrance letter of the fanclub and once again I'm a proud member. I rate their performance with a 9.0.

Monday 04 June 2001

On this day, the main day of Pinkpop, we had to get up bright and early because I wanted to watch Semisonic perform and they started at 10.30 in the morning. The main objectives this day were threefold, 3 Doors Down, The Offspring and Tool and besides that I wanted to catch as much of the other shows as possible. In the past I used to rush from band to band, but that way you see all a bit, but nothing really good. Therefore I set these 3 main goals. Bands that performed but that I missed entirely this day were Lifehouse (I would 've wanted to see them, 'Hanging by the moment' is a great song), JJ72 (unknown to me), Dutch reggae/rap-act The Postmen (hate them), Swedish band The Hives (caught some of that on TV later, seemed quite good), Tindersticks (saw them on TV too and switched the channel) and Basement Jaxx (I think this is a dance act and I hate dance). We arrived at about 10.00 AM and got nestled right in front of the main stage. It wasn't crowded yet (most campers were probably nurturing their hangovers), so we had a good view when Semisonic entered the podium. I own a copy of Semisonic's CD "Feeling strangely fine" and had heard their new album "All about chemistry" once before Pinkpop. I liked them in the past, but I wasn't a huge fan, although their new album had a refreshing quality to it. This freshness was also noticeable in their performance this morning. Although because of the early hour the crowd was not very enthusiastic yet (singer/guitarist Dan Wilson repeatedly suggested that this crowd needed some hot Java), Semisonic played a tight set and in my humble opinion they rocked. They played a set with songs primarily from their last 2 albums, leading to a good mix of familiar tunes and fresh new material. Dan Wilson was also quite comic in his comments in between songs. For example the new single "Get a grip" (on yourself) was described as the ultimate masturbation song in some magazine accordingly and ofcourse this was exactly as it was intended by him. Instrumentally the Minneapolis trio, whose other members are bassist John Munson and drummer Jacob Slichter, also sounded great with as thé highlight of the show the long instrumental ending of "I wish". Maybe the audience wasn't awake yet, but Semisonic was. For me they were the positive surprise of this festival and I will be following their progress even more carefully now. By the way the guys seemed to like playing Pinkpop, because they played like 10 minutes more than programmed. I rate their performance with a 8.5 . People go out and buy their new CD "All about chemistry", it's the best pop-rock album out there right now.

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