Lowlands It was a grey start to Lowlands Friday. That doesn’t matter, it’s about the music and all the other beautiful things in life that can be enjoyed at Lowlands. And there was plenty of that. Like a tear-jerking performance by Friday’s hero, Teddy Swims.
The atmosphere
Your reporter was forced to take it easy on Friday. A corona infection two weeks ago and a subsequent modest infection elsewhere meant that the fever was racing through my body until Wednesday evening and I already saw Lowlands pass me by. For the first time since 1995. Of course that’s not going to happen, so it was a matter of dosing well on Friday to at least catch a few acts and get a taste of the atmosphere.
The latter, that is always good. Lowlands is the festival of surprises, whether musical, cabaret, literary or otherwise, and therefore attracts people who like to be surprised and are open to everything. The showers are of secondary importance. Really, when it rains I always get various text messages and emails from people who are worried about what it is like at Lowlands, but they always come from people who have never been to Lowlands. Weather is of secondary importance, and as long as it does not rain continuously, there is little to worry about.
Teddy Swims
The music, then. Big Thief was announced as the indie sensation of the moment. And that’s true: beautiful, sometimes quiet music, beautiful songs, not music to dance to, but music to listen to. Nothing wrong with that, dancing is possible with plenty of other acts.
But Teddy Swims… He combines everything in one. Emotional expressiveness, a hell of a voice. The kind of voice that, when you’re standing outside and ask someone who doesn’t know him who they think is singing, you get the answer ‘A big, dark man, that can’t be anything else’, and then you go and look: a fat, stocky white guy, completely covered in tattoos, right up to his face. A cheerful appearance, but songs that really hit home… that’s not normal. Soul music with a capital S, with a rock band as accompaniment. Really: go see it, go hear it.
Look, the Lowlander wants to party. So acts like Justice draw a full tent and Prins S and de Geit are also packed. Sometimes it is noticeable that when a decent guitar band is playing in the Heineken, like The Lathums, the tent is poorly filled. Then you can say as an old fart ‘People don’t like guitar bands anymore’, but at Wünderhorse half an hour later it is completely full again. And that is a band that can follow in the footsteps of Nothing But Thieves.
It’s the variety and they’re snapshots. But when the partying and the emotional power of music come together in the figure of Teddy Swims, in the crowd that was packed in Bravo, and when you hear a whole field singing Lose Control, then you know what it’s all about. Those moments of beauty. Period.
