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Grampa's 12,5 wedding anniversary festival
July 17th, 1998
Someplace in the middle of nowhere, The Netherlands
This was a very special night for the DPRP team.
Dutch Gigs guru and
CDelight compiler Henri 'Grampa' Bos and his wife
Mattie had their 12,5 wedding
anniversary. To celebrate this, they organized a party for a bunch of friends
and family. As you can imagine, the DPRP team was also invited.
This was also an excellent opportunity for another one of those legendary
DPRP meetings because all but one team member were present, which is very
rare indeed. Splitting atoms is easier than getting the DPRP team in one
room.
We all set out for the venue which was located in a small town near
Culemborg (so small I already forgot the name). We were very suprised by
the venue itself because it proved to be some sort of barn which had been
transformed into a party center, complete with a low stage build with
pallets and wooden plates. Beyond the stage the side of a pick-up van
provided the necessary decorative background.
After presenting some perfume and the Genesis Archives box-set to the
happy couple, we enjoyed our first beers of the night (though drivers Rene and
Martijn and ex-Quidam flutist Ewa preferred some non-alcoholic beverages). After some
smalltalk the first band climbed ... err .... stepped on stage. It was the
legendary L & B Band with some of the people of the original
line-up, like our very own Grampa behind the drumkit and a Mike Holems lookalike on guitar.
A short performance with blues classics like Born Under a Bad Sign,
The Letter, Alright Now, I'm Walking and others followed. Grampa was beating the drums
like Animal of the Muppets.
After a short break with more beer Grampa announced two guys from a band which
has a special place in his heart; Bagheera. Although I must admit that Bagheera
is not really my cup of tea, and I was not that much impressed by them
supporting IQ a couple of years ago, their acoustical performance was pretty
nice. Beyond some own material, the guitarist and singer also played covers
of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and The Strollin' Bones Angie
(in itself a rather dreadful song, if you ask me).
In the meantime, warm and cold snacks were being served, somehing I have never
before experienced at a festival !
The last part of the evening brought the return of the L & B Band
in their new line-up with female lead and backing vocalists. Whereas the
old L & B Band played mainly blues music, this new line-up focussed on
'Women in Rock' with covers of tracks by Skunk Anansi (hope I wrote this
correctly), Alanis Morisset, Republica and Anouk but also tracks like Van
Halen's Jump, Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers and Radar
Love by some band from The Hague,
The performances varied from enjoyable to very good, with some good
lead vocals on some songs.
During the performance, a couple of DPRP team members had to leave to be able to
catch the latest train to the outside world, while the real die-hard stayed
behind (hi Rene and Claudia !).
The last song of the main set was Weak As I Am with Grampa
joyfully headbanging along. The crowd - which by now had decreased a bit
in numbers because it was already past 1.00 AM - was not willing to let the band
go though and Grampa was forced to ask them for some addtional encores,
one of which was Skunk Anansi's Twisted, a personal favourite by
that band of yours truly.
After a couple of extra beers 'for the road' we gave in to the driver's
requests to go home. Some additional fighting over the last pieces of
candy took place in the car, but we will spare you the gruesome details.
All in all, a very enjoyable evening and we would like to thank Henri and
Mattie for their hospitatity and - as far as I'm concerned - the best
festival I've been to this month. ;-)
I wasn't that charmed by next mornings hang-over though ....
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