Ralphy's Concert Reviews

Pinkpop 2002 Rockfestival at Megaland in Landgraaf

Saturday 18, Sunday 19 and Monday 20 May 2002

featuring

P.O.D., After Forever, Heather Nova, Bush, Live, Racoon, Di-Rect, Alien Ant Farm, Lamb, Dropkick Murphys, Faithless, Daryll-Ann, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Starsailor, Gomez, Macy Gray, Jewel, Kane, Muse, Lenny Kravitz, System Of A Down and Rammstein.

Lots of fun, a hangover, a few small disappointments and no real surprises.

Yes, it was Pinkpop-time again. I visited the oldest annual rockfestival of Europe for the 7th time, the 6th consecutive time (the first visit was in 1986) and the 3rd time in a row for 3 days. Our group consisted of 6 people, my girlfriend Monja, her nephew Bert, her best friend Astrid, my nephew Alex(ander), my friend Maurice and myself. Add to that Ben, who is also from our hometown Bocholtz and in the same tennisclub as Alex, and who went alone, but joined us most of the time.

Saturday 18 May 2002

As we had some troubles last year in getting in on Saturday we decided to go a bit early. The first band we wanted to see were gospel-rockers P.O.D. and they were programmed for 17.45 hours, so we left at home at 16.30 hours. We found a parking space nearby and were ready to get the obligatory wristband, but when we arrived we saw a gigantic line in front of the offices, where you could get these plastic armbracelets that were needed to get in. You see this year 2002 was the first time that the mainstage would already open up on the first 2 festivaldays and the organisation under direction of Pinkpop-icon Jan Smeets made a huge blunder. They didn't anticipate so many visitors coming that did not need to go to the campground (where you could also get the wristbands), so the wristbands at the entrance of the festivalground were all gone and therefore we stood in a non-moving row, waiting for new wristbands to arrive in the pouring rain. Luckily it was (except for a few droplets) the only rain we would see during these 3 days. When we finally had the wristbands we had to stand in line to be bodysearched to get into the grounds, so when we finally passed all the checkpoints and could do the things we came for (listen to music) it was 19.00 hours and besides American nu-metallers P.O.D. we had also missed most of the local Gothic band After Forever. Instead of trying to catch the last bit of that performance, we bought some drinks and went to the mainstage, where Heather Nova was to perform next. Heather had performed at Pinkpop before 2002, but I never did see her at these occasions. I did buy one of her CD's, "Siren", at a former Pinkpopfestival, and liked it OK, so I was know kinda interested how she would do live. She began with a song from "Siren": "Heart and shoulder". Next came "Walk this world", "I'm no angel" and "Maybe an angel", than one of the 2 songs that I haven't been able to identify. On my notebook I wrote the lyrics 'Something I feel', but I couldn't find a Heather Nova-song with these words. The other song I couldn't identify was 'Welcome', at least I thought I heard her announce the song like that, but now it seems I heard wrong. In between these 2 tracks she played "Talk to me", "London Rain (nothing heals me like you do)" [my favourite this day], "Island" and "Like lovers do". I had heard and read several reviews of Heather in concert, so I had high expectations of this performance. Heather's voice is quite distinctive and siren-like, but I and especially my companions found this same voice although beautiful a bit monotonous after awhile and we were glad to move to the other stage, where Bush was about to perform. The last 2 songs I heard Heather do, were "Just been born" and "Sugar", I probably missed her latest single "Virus of the mind" and I had hoped that she would do my favourite song of hers "Widescreen", but no such luck. I rate Heather's performance with a 6.0, it wasn't bad, but didn't thrill me either. I think as a performer she would probably be more in her place in a smaller closed venue than on the wide open mainstage of Pinkpop.

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When Bush entered the stage, they began like a sledgehammer, my friends commented something like "this is different stuff than that girl back there", meaning this was more to their liking. There was immedial focus by the entire crowd, when they opened very powerfully with "Machinehead". After that they never let this momentum go during their show. The first couple of songs were one big high (for the complete setlist, see below) with especially good performances of "The people that we love" and an extended version of "Everything Zen", in which frontman Gavin Rossdale went off stage into the audience while his companions kept playing the instrumental part and than he appeared at different places in the crowd to do his vocals. Knowing that they had captured the full attention with that start, they could follow up with more melodious songs like the ballad "Inflatable" (which at first I mistook for "Letting the cables sleep"), but they kept fascinating the people with their music. What did strike me as odd was the absence of the bald-headed guitarist Nigel Pulsford. During some background checking for this review I read some rumours about him leaving the band, I am an admirer, so I think that would be a shame, but I have to say whoever his replacement was this day, he did a hell of a job. On another note, I don't know how we managed to find the time during this great performance, but somehow we did, I got some remarkable sexual/erotic advice at this time. You see as I am not a big fan of shaving, I had a 2-day-beard and while Monja was complaining a bit about this, Astrid told us that she really liked it when a beard like that would go over her naked back, but this was neither the place nor the time to comply to that. But back to the music, Bush finished their set with first "Glycerine", than a thank you for the audience, Rossdale said something like it's always special performing at Pinkpop (I think it was their 3rd time here), it's different than other festivals and finally a long version of "Little things", which I was sad to be leaving for early, but on the mainstage Live had already started and I also wanted to catch their performance. In retrospective Bush was definitely one of the highlights of this Pinkpop-festival and therefore I rate their show with an 8.5.

When we arrived at the other stage Live had already finished playing their opening song, their collaboration with Tricky, "Simple creed", and were now doing the opening tunes of "All over you". A complete setlist of their set can also be found below. I am writing this a few weeks after the actual event of Pinkpop 2002, because I couldn't get to it earlier, but yesterday I watched the show of Live almost in its entirety again on video, as it was broadcasted on Dutch TV and taped by me. The performance of Live on this day was very diverse, at times they were great, but at other times I wasn't that impressed. "All over you" was good, "The distance" is just not my favourite song, "Selling the drama" was OK and than came their first highlight, the beautiful "They stood up for love" followed by the mesmerizing "Voodoo lady". Frontman Ed Kowalczyk announced the first of these 2 by stating that there was a lot of bad news in the world at this time, but it was time for some good news and he felt this was now the place to feel that good was still present in the world. These 2 highlights were than again followed by 2 downers, at least for me, but from "Lakini's juice" (an extract of the underestimated album "Secret Samadhi") on their show kept rocking big (btw can someone tell me that "Deep enough" is not an openly sexual song?) until the closer of the regular set "White discussion". This last song also got a special announcement, Kowalczyk said that after the events of 11 September last, they had started playing this song again and if you find the lyrics somewhere on the web you will know why. If one song was the absolute highlight of their performance today to me that would be "White discussion". The opener of the encores was another pleasant surprise, "Shit town", a reminder of the early and humble beginnings of Live . I must explain that this band is really huge here in The Netherlands, on a scale that you can compare to Creed, Pearl Jam or even U2 in the USA, and I think they deserve this status, because they are a great rockband with songs that have a deeper meaning and a singer, who absolutely has charisma as was clearly evident on this day. After "Shit town" came "Run to the water", again not one of my favourites, followed by the inevitable "I alone" and once again a departure of the stage. Ed Kowalczyk would return once more, only accompanied by the Liverpudlian keyboardplayer to do the emotional "Overcome", which has become thé song to remember the WTC-drama by in The Netherlands. All in all Live gave a good, although maybe not exceptional performance this day and I would rate it with a 7.0 . Other bands that performed that day were local band Supergroover (who won their place on Pinkpop in a local clash of bands) and Groove Armada, but I didn't know (of) these bands and had no real interest in them either, so we let their performances go bye.

All in all, this first day was musically a good day, although we missed some bands we wanted to see, due to the blunder of the organisation. We were pleased when we drove back to our hometown. As it was still early (11.30 pm) and we all (except for Monja, who was beat and wisely decided to go to bed) went to our local bar for a couple of beers more. This was in retrospect not a wise decision. We took our good mood into the bar and drank a bit too much, so next day was hangover day for all 5 guys, Astrid had been the designated driver and had only drunk coffee, but the rest of us were all feeling a bit queasy, when it was time to go the next day, luckily we decided not to go too early and we met at 13.00 hours to leave for the festival again.

Sunday 20 May 2002

The first band we wanted to see this day was Alien Ant Farm and their performance would start at 4.30 PM, but because we left a bit earlier taking in account the troubles of the day before, we were on time to see another band on the north stage, Dutch punkrockers Di-Rect. Originally I also wanted to see the first band that played on Sunday, another Dutch band Racoon. I knew some of their songs from the radio and liked them, but it was decided by the group that they performed to early for us. From other reviews I learned that Racoon gave a good performance, so therefore I'm sorry I missed them, but feeling the way we guys felt today (hung over) it was a good idea to come later. When we arrived at the stage were Di-Rect was going to do their thing these hangovers were also the reason not to move to far to the front, but to stay at the back and to take some extra downtime. Maurice and me were the only 2 guys to start with beer as a drink anyway, which was a good choice, because it proved to be the best medicine. As I said Di-Rect was known as a punkband, but this is mostly due to their first single "Just the way I do" and the successor to that, the Who-cover "My generation", both songs were played by them today ofcourse. After listening to this band I would categorize their music more as poprock and not as punk. We didn't pay full attention to the show, because this band will be performing also on Bospop 2002 later this year and we (5 of us) also have tickets for that festival, so we can pay more attention to them there. They did not get good reviews for this Pinkpop-show, but it was also stated that their singer did have throat-problems on this day. I thought their show was OK, not spectacular, but also not terrible. The song I most liked was "Confidence" and all things considered I rate them with a 6.0. After Di-Rect we just waited around while still recovering, which would take the major part of the day for some of us. Next up where the before mentioned Alien Ant Farm, who are best known for their Michael Jackson-cover "Smooth criminal", which led me to buy their latest album "ANThology". They started of with a couple of songs of that album "Courage" and "Summer". I couldn't reproduce the entire setlist, but I also recognized "Sticks & Stones", and they ended with the 3 singles of the album "Movies", "Attitude" (the latest release) and ofcourse "Smooth criminal" to finish things up. That closer was the only song that could really force a reaction out of the major part of the crowd during the entire performance of Alien Ant Farm and it wasn't a big surprise that most reviews were not very positive about this band. The most remarkable part was when singer Dryden Mitchell stated that it was great to play at the European rockfestivals and that the Americans just weren't able to set up a decent festival, because if they tried women got raped and riots would arise (he was obviously referring to the latest Woodstock-festival), so it was great to see how cool Europeans were. Btw a few days after this performance the band and crew were in a car-accident in Spain, in which their driver lost his life and the band as well as several crew members got injured. One crew member is still critically injured as far as I know and frontman Dryden Mitchell is also still hospitalised in Europe. The accident led them to cancel the rest of their tour, but they hope to turn this misfortune partly into a good thing by going into the studio earlier in order to make a new album. I wish them and their crew a speedy recovery. The performance of Alien Ant Farm at Pinkpop 2002 I rate with a 6.0. After their performance we went to the field in front of the mainstage and relaxed some more. Bands and performers we didn't see on this day due to lack of interest were the female Belgian singer An Pierlé, Dutch rap-act Def P & The Beatbusters, the English band Super Furry Animals, as well as 2 bands that I had never heard off Zero 7 and E-Life. The latter I heard a bit of and to put it blunt, I thought they sucked big time and some members of our group, who went to see them, confirmed that opinion. All of these bands except for Def P & The Beatbusters played at the so-called 3FM tent, the smallest stage at Pinkpop. While we were still chilling with some beer and food in the grass we could witness the English band Lamb do their thing on the mainstage. Not that we were really paying close attention, but we heard their music and could see them on the big videoscreen in the middle of the grounds. I knew that this band makes some sort of electronic music, which I than always refer to as house, but I was corrected by some homies (Barry & Mario) who came by on their way to see them perform. According to them the music made by Lamb is categorized as drum & bass, well if they say so, I didn't even know there was such a thing as drum & bass, except for the musical instruments ofcourse. Lamb received rave reviews in the media for their performance, but it isn't really my thing. I found the music too low tempo and the scratchy voice of the female singer was mostly annoying to me, but there is no arguing about taste, is there? Don't ask me to name any of their songs, because I couldn't (I just remember some single of them was called "Gabriel", I believe, but I can't remember if they played that one). I'm probably not the best person to judge the quality of their show, but I will anyway, I rate them with a 5.0.

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I didn't see the entire gig of Lamb, because once again we decided to leave early for another stage. The main act for the north stage Dropkick Murphys was due there and while I am also not familiar with any of their music, I had heard good things about this band. The singer of Dutch punkband De Heideroosjes, Marco Roelofs, is a co-presenter for the Pinkpop-festival on Dutch TV and when he was asked last year, which band he wanted to see this year on Pinkpop he had named the Dropkick Murphys. At other times I have heard their music referred to as bagpipe-rock. The Dropkick Murphys is a band of Irish Americans, who play Irish folklike songs in punkrock versions. Although I was totally unfamiliar with their songs (I only recognized the no-nay-never song) I have to say that these guys rocked from beginning to end. Their music was in the long run sometimes a bit similar, which is ofcourse also partly to blame on the fact that I didn't know the songs, but they got the crowd going and the entire group I was with including myself thoroughly enjoyed them blazing on stage. Two other things I noticed during their performance, one was the t-shirt of one of the guitar players, it stated 'I'm not allright' on the front and on the backside was written 'and that's allright'. This also kinda sums up these guys on stage, they totally flip out and draw the audience in with that. The other thing I noticed was that the Dropkick Murphys aren't big fans of computer-manufactured music either, because the singer said that if you wanted to hear real hand-played rock 'n' roll, this was the stage to be today and by that stating that the bands on the mainstage of this day Lamb and Faithless were not really to their liking. I know for Monja the Dropkick Murphys were the highlight of the day, this sort of thing is right up her alley, but basically I have to agree, they were great. Although the singer also mentioned that smaller indoor venues were more suited for them and would do their thing more justice, I again must say that they were in the right place at the right time here and I rate their performance with a 8.0.

The last band on the south stage and the main act of the day was Faithless. As I said before I'm not really a big fan of electronic music, but this band succeeded in making me like their computerized stuff as only the great Jean-Michel Jarre could do before them. Not all people of our group appreciate their stuff and my girlfriend is one of those who could care less and as I could gather from her comments she considered having to watch this concert as some sort of torture, but her taste had already been served by the Dropkick Murphys. I've seen Faithless a couple of times before at festivals, but we did not give them as much attention at these previous occasions as we did now. Alex and me were the ones, who were particularly interested in them today. I have to say that they did not only play the songs with the beats this time, as I remembered from the other occasions. I liked hearing some of their more calmer songs like "Muhammed Ali", but I was also a bit disappointed that they didn't play their latest single "One step too far". Secretly I was (and probably some others too) hoping that they would bring Dido with them to perform. As you probably know she is a sister of Rollo, the man behind Faithless and before she started her successful solo career, she was the female voice of the band, at least on the albums. I don't think she ever toured with them, so basically the hope was doomed from the beginning, but as she was once again the voice on "One step too far", our hopes were up anyway, but no such luck. Although as I said I liked the more serene parts of the show, the highlights of their show were once again the heavy beat songs like the too short version of "Insomnia" and their biggest hit "God is a DJ", of which the original video was partly filmed during a former Pinkpop-performance. But thé highlight of their show this time was "We come one". During that song singer/rapper Maxi Jazz instructed the audience to sing the 'one'-part, and he did not have to use much persuasion to do that. What followed was an impressive collaboration between band, singer and the crowd. Jazz improvised a bit too, I remember a part where he said something like 'tell it too Arafat and Sharon, we come ... ONE'. Some seismographic agency in our province Limburg also registers the movement of the earth during Pinkpop and once again Faithless was the band that led the fans to create the biggest turmoil in that respect. After finishing the job Maxi Jazz also asked the people to go and visit the Amnesty International stand that is always present at Pinkpop-festivals and try to do the best they can in order to create respect for basic human rights with governments, who don't consider those valuable. The performance of Faithless on this day was good, but not great. It lacked some stuff, which I can't exactly put my finger on, to qualify for greatness, but I rate the show with a 7.0. All in all, this second day was a bit tiresome and disappointing, maybe partly because of the way we felt to begin with, but we were all looking forward to the Monday, still the main day of Pinkpop.

Monday 20 May 2002

This day we started musically with Jewel. Her stage appearance was scheduled for 12.45 pm, but we arrived in front of the mainstage at 12.15 and it wasn't too busy on the grounds yet, so we could get accustomed to the sunny day leisurely. Ben joined us after a bit of sms-ing with Alex and together with him and Maurice they went to catch the last part of the performance of Dutch band Daryll-Ann in the adjacent 3FM-tent. The three of them were quite impressed with Daryll-Ann. I didn't know their music, although I had heard good news about them, but Jewel was one of my main objectives for the day and I wanted to keep the good view we had obtained, so I passed on Daryll-Ann. In the meantime I got their album on mp3 and I listened to it once until now, my first impression of them wasn't overwhelming, but live they seem to be quite good according to the guys. I found a setlist of their performance on the net and this is it: "Marchin'", "Serenades", "Cool", "Only love", "Summerdaze", "Pines/grenadine", "Equally sympathy", "Swords & words", "Riverside", "Trip the stairs", "Borderland" and finally "Work". So much for Daryll-Ann , my personal starting point of the day was as stated Jewel. It's the second time I saw her perform on Pinkpop and the first time was a thrill. This time was no worse than the previous, although Jewel was injured and couldn't play the guitar. She had fallen of a horse and broken her collarbone as well as a rib, but I already knew that from other sources. She explained it to those who didn't know after a couple of songs and she herself seemed to take it in good spirit, as she sarcastically told the audience that because of these injuries she wouldn't be able to do her dance routine. Although it's probably terribly wrong of me, I have to state that she looked very sexy. She was wearing a short jeans skirt and I kept using the binoculars that we had brought. Besides having a terrific voice she is also a woman with more than average good looks (except for the gap in between her teeth, yuck, but I'm glad most of you don't know what I look like) and in my humble opinion it never hurts when a good musician is also so-called eye-candy, as long as she is a good musician in the first place and we do know some female singers, who made it more on looks than talent (On that note I remember a couple of people at Pinkpop wearing t-shirts that stated 'Spear Britney' on them :)). Back to the music, the complete setlist can be found below, the group and me we really enjoyed Jewel's performance. The crowd was very enthusiast when she did her jodelroutine in a song that seems to be called "chime bells". I most liked her renditions of "Life uncommon", "Serve the ego" and "Who will save your soul", but there were no real weak points in the set. I was a bit (well more than a bit actually) disappointed that she did not include her biggest hit overall (and her only big hit in Holland) "Foolish games" in the setlist, so we were kinda surprised when she walked off stage after "New wild west" and didn't return. Well even without that song her set was a success and she was at the least the best female performer of Pinkpop 2002. I would love to hear Jewel do some songs which are a bit more rock, she can do it as you could hear in "Love me just leave me alone", which was the number one song of hers for me on this day. I rate her performance with an 8.0 .

After Jewel 's show the guys in the group went to the 3FM-tent to catch a bit of the performance of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, while the girls remained in place before the main stage enjoying the sunshine and Astrid recovering from a bad night with little sleep. What I knew of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was that they're supposed to be America's newest answer to the question 'whatever happened to good old-fashioned rock 'n' roll?'. Well we saw about 25 minutes of their show and the music was kinda similar to bands like the Rolling Stones and in a lesser degree The Black Crowes. I didn't know any of their songs, except for one that was on a sampler of Pinkpop-acts that I got as a bonus, when I bought the latest album of Rush entitled "Vapor trails" the day before at Pinkpop. They did not play that song in the time we were watching. I don't remember its title right now, but I liked that song as well as the few I heard them playing at Pinkpop, although there wasn't much emotion in their show. These 3 guys were very static, almost wooden, on stage and seemed kinda arrogant even. It was an attitude like we're going to play our songs and if you react on them that's your choice, like the audience was a thing they could do without. Well maybe that was just an image thing, the music was OK and although it's probably not fair rating them, because I only saw part of what they did, what I saw I would rate with a 6.0.

We left their show early to go back to the main stage, where it was now time for Kane. This is a Dutch band, which is being compared a lot with bands like Creed and Pearl Jam, mainly because the voice of their singer, Dinand Woesthoff, sounds similar to those of the frontmen of these bands, Scott Stapp and Eddie Vedder. They also get compared to U2 , but that's because they did a U2-cover tour, the so-called flashbacks sponsored by a cigarette brand. I don't agree with any of these comparisons. I used to be very into Kane, when I heard their earliest singles on the radio, but after buying their first CD, which I reviewed here, the hype on my part slowed down a lot. Musically there maybe some minor similarities to the before mentioned bands, but to me Kane lacks depth. They themselves admit to not being an innovative band, but they just wanna do their thing on stage and I have to admit that is where their strength lies. Their live performances made the band huge in Holland (they twice won best Dutch act on the MTV Europe awards), but their popularity is also partly due to Dinand's good looks. These 2 things combined made me compare them to a Dutch rockversion of teeny bands like the Backstreet Boys or 'N Sync, but that's not entirely fair, because in contrast to these boys, the guys in Kane really can play and they prove it time and time again on stage. The concert at Pinkpop was the end of a tour for them. They had been opening shows for the Simple Minds on their German tour, as well as playing the 2 big German festivals, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, which are in the same weekend as Pinkpop. In spite of that there was no trace of tiredness in their show (setlist below), they're always pretty energetic on stage, although Dinand's comments are a bit annoying and irritating at times (lots of come on's and yeah's and stuff like that). I had to take a pit stop during their show, because I had some problem with my bowels over the weekend, but the toilets were placed in such a way, that at least soundwise I didn't miss a beat of their show. The best part was the second half of their set with the songs "Waiting, waiting", "I will keep my head down" and especially a good long version of "Damn those eyes", but thé highlight was the end, their latest single "Rain down on me" (not a chance on this day btw :)). Kane is planning to tour Europe in the near future and they hope to breakthrough internationally and musically they will appeal, but the lyrics are too shallow for my taste, but if boybands can do it, why wouldn't they be able to, although the rock/alternative scene may be more difficult to conquer. I rate their performance at Pinkpop 2002 with a 7.0.

After this we decided to take a break at the back, where we all gathered again. There were some bands playing at the other stages, but we weren't really interested in them. The bands we intentionally missed on this day were Dutch band Beef, English band Sergeant Garcia, Belgian band Arid, Millionaire and Morgan Heritage (both unknown to me), another English band Gomez, who I have also heard good things about, but alas we needed a break for the things to come and we also didn't really care for American funky junkie Macy Gray, the most famous artist we intentionally ignored. The next band we did hear was Muse, another band from England. We didn't specifically went to see them, but the same as with Lamb yesterday, we heard them lying down in the back and could catch most on the big videoscreen. I am not a big fan of their music, it's a bit to pompous for me, they remind me of Radiohead, another band I don't like and that's putting it mildly. Their life performance didn't persuade me to see things about them in another perspective, although Monja kinda liked them and Bert and Maurice even moved up to the front for a while to catch a better glimpse. I personally rate them the same as their predecessor the day before with a 5.0.

After their show and with all troops reunited again we decided to go to the 3FM-tent again to see what Starsailor was up to. We walked in when they were starting to play their latest single "Alcoholic" and listened to them for a couple of songs. They sounded quite good. We didn't stay for the entire set, but I did find the setlist on the net for the fans. This is it "Fever", "Alcoholic", "Poor misguided fool", "Some of us", "Lullaby", "Silence is easy", "Love is here", "Born again", "Way to fall", "Tie up my hands" and "Good souls". The part of them I did hear I rate with a 6.0.

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We left the 3FM-tent early, so we could get good places to see the next performer on the main stage, which would be Lenny Kravitz. We got great places in the shade of the tower (for sound and light technicians) in the centre front of the field. Maybe the places were a bit too good, because we did get a small argument about who should go and get some drinks and especially Maurice told us specifically that he wouldn't go "on command". This statement has been haunting him ever since, because whatever he does we remind him he shouldn't do it "on command". Well back to the music, the opening of Lenny Kravitz was a bit weak in my humble opinion. I had seen him perform once before on the Rock Werchter-festival in Belgium a few years ago. At that time I didn't expect too much of his show (I liked his music, but did not go crazy about it), but he proved me wrong big time. Lenny and his band kicked ass at that festival, and therefore I had high(er) expectations this time around. But whereas he opened back than with heavy rocksongs and some of his bigger hits now he started with some of the slower stuff and it wasn't until his fourth song "Dig in" that things really started to rock. Only temporarily though, because after that he again played some less known songs (look below for the complete setlist) and the hits he played like "Let love rule" did not really get me going this time either. The climax of his show came (too) late, starting with a good rendition of "Stillness of heart" and when he than played "American woman" and "Are you gonna go my way", the audience finally threw all hesitation aside and started partying with Lenny and band (great female drummer btw!). But after that it was already time for the off-stage break, but on huge demand Lenny Kravitz came back (as expected for one of the headliners). He did four more songs. He started out solo on an acoustic guitar trying to play "Believe in me", his current hit (in Holland at least). He said that he didn't play this song live normally, but because we people had made it a hit overhere, he couldn't not play it. It showed that he hadn't done the song for a while, because he made some mistakes on the guitar and had to start over again. The third song of his encores "Fly away" was the one that made the crowd go wild one more time, we had left frontstage at that time to slowly move the north stage, but we still could hear everything and even had a great look over the grounds and the people enjoying the show from the back. The conclusion regarding the performance of Lenny Kravitz at this festival was that it was again OK at times, even good on a few occasions, but never spectacular. The man did what was to be expected from him, but nothing he did today could convince me like the first time I saw him perform. My rate is a 7.0.

The reason we went to the second stage was System Of A Down. They were the final act there, but when we got there it was already so crowded that we couldn't even see the stage, so after a short deliberation we decided to give them a miss and go back to the south and main stage after we had some more drinks and some (junk)food. In this way we ensured ourselves to excellent places for the only band left for the festival, the German powerrockers of Rammstein. At first we had plenty of room, but the more the showtime came nearer, the more crowded it got. It seemed like everyone wanted to see the fireshow of Rammstein. As expected they started with a bang, it was the first time I was going to see this band live. Ofcourse I knew of the reputation they had build with their spectacular performances and I wasn't disappointed. As usual they presented all kinds of fireworks on stage. They started with "Mein Herz brennt" (My heart is on fire) and to illustrate that the singer had flames coming out of his chest. The crowd was going bazurk, especially during the second song "Links 2-3-4". Where we were standing you had to jump with the rest of them otherwise you would be trampled. I tried my best to protect the girls from the madding crowd, but you could only do so much. Astrid decided to move to the back, it was a bit too much for her. Monja as a huge Rammstein-fan decided to stay and luckily it wasn't that crazy around us after "Links 2-3-4", most rowdies had moved past us even more to the front. By the way this song was written by the band to express their political viewpoint, Links means left. They have been accused of right-wing sympathies and when you watch the show you can understand why. It all looks very militaristic and sounds very compelling like they order you around, especially during songs like "Ich will" (I want), when they sing "Ich will dass ihr uns glaubt, ich will dass ihr uns vertraut" (I want you to believe us, I want you to trust us) or during "Bück dich" (Bend over) when they state "Bück dich, ich befehl es dir" (Bend over, I command you to). The band being from the former East-Germany, where sadly enough neo-nazis have a lot of support since the reunification of Germany, hasn't helped that part of their reputation, but apparently the semi-militaristic show is just that, a show, and it does not in any way represent their political views as they point out with "Links 2-3-4", which was one of the highlights of the show. I also liked "Feuer Frei" (Fire at will), where ofcourse the whole firework shebang was used. During "Rein Raus" (In out) there was a whole lot of crowd participation. Rammstein-songs are because of the simple worded lyrics always easy to sing along to. So every time the frontman shouted "Rein", 60,000 people replied with a loud "Raus". Other remarkable songs where "Mutter" (Mother), a protestsong against the scientification of human reproduction like in-vitro-fertilisation, and the before mentioned "Bück dich", during which the muscular singer chained the bony keyboard-player, dragged him to centre stage, made him bend over, and started making movements like he was fucking him doggy-style and at the end of the song he apparently had some small hose in his hand, because he started "cumming" all over the other guy. I also very much liked "Asche zu Asche" (ashes to ashes) and "Du hast" (you have). As optical highlights you had the part where the frontman is set on fire, the guitar smashed into the soundbox, followed by an explosion, the fire that moved along a rope toward the technician's tower in front of the stage and back and all kinds of other firework-extravaganzas. The encore started with the song "Rammstein", which is about the planecrash-disaster at the US military base Ramstein (with one M) during an aviation show. They followed that up with 2 other singles from their latest album, "Sonne" (Sun) and another highlight, the before mentioned "Ich will". It all ended in a bit of an anti-climax, the last song they played was the only English-language song called "Stripped". I didn't even know they also had non-German songs and I thought he was singing "Let me see your string", when he was actually saying "Let me see you stripped". That was a double disappointment, first I recommend them abstaining from English songs, it does not fit with them and secondly it meant that some great songs like "Engel" (Angel) or "Du riechst so gut" (you smell so good) would not get played. Therefore most of the audience was hoping for one more return to the stage, but instead of that Pinkpop-organiser Jan Smeets entered the stage to bid us farewell until next year and complementing us for the (original) Woodstock-like atmosphere that was according to him characteristic for this year's Pinkpop. All in all I still was thrilled about my first Rammstein-show in spite of the ending. The complete setlist is next to the one of Lenny Kravitz below. Their show is visually even more exciting as audiowise, but the music was more than OK too, although I heard some criticism about the vocal-parts from friends, who watched it from the back. In the place where we were standing it sounded allright and therefore I rate their performance with an 8.5.

Conclusions regarding Pinkpop 2002:

Saturday was great in spite of the annoying problem waiting for the armbands, Sunday was as a whole and probably partly due to our hangover-situation a bit disappointing and Monday was the usual top-of-the-bill day. The musical highlights, as you could see from the earlier given rates, were Bush, Jewel and in a lesser degree Dropkick Murphys and Rammstein, who ofcourse where the visual highlight. The entire festival I would rate with a 7.0 on a scale of 0 to 10, but that's only an average feeling, the band rates are ofcourse more accurate.

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