Walk the Line festival day #1 May 11th 2012

In the preview post about the Walk the Line festival, I already told you I had a blast at the festival and after my roller derby trip last weekend, now it’s time to show and tell you more about why I had such a good time in resident city of the Dutch government, The Hague.

Just like last year there were a few free teaser gigs on the Grote Markt, to warm up the audience and to sell a few more festival tickets. I made it early to The Hague, so I managed to see Tellison, Theme Park and Jodie Marie there. Tellison rocked, Theme Park played some Summery tunes to hide that it was still a bit chilly for the time of the year and Jodie was simply cute, with some lovely interaction between her and her guitarist.

After a nice meal with a friend who joined me for the first day of the fest, I made it to the ‘supermarket’ (as one of the venues is called Supermarkt) to sample some rough edged rock, Belgian style: The Hickey Underworld. I saw these guys perform a couple of years back for the first time, so I knew what to expect and they didn’t disappoint…

Beth Jeans Houghon (and the Hooves of Destiny) was my ‘must-see-act’ for the Friday and even if her performance was far from perfect, it definitely was my personal highlight of the first festival day. Sometimes it’s simply not about the perfect performance and this was a prime example of that. All the technical hickups were more than compensated for by Beth’s humor.

A somewhat less expected highlight of the first day was New York’s Oberhofer, named after it’s frontman Brad Oberhofer. If I had to compare his music with another band, the one that comes to mind is Surfer Blood but with a strong dosis of Liars injected to it. Pretty cool and the stage antics of Brad, kicking and stomping his guitar amp to shake up the reverb, also were lots of fun.

My final first day act was something special as well: The Magnetic North. Fronted by Erland Cooper (of Erland and the Carnival) together with Hannah Peel and Simon Tong, they tell the tragic and spine chilling story of an 18th century woman from the Orkney islands (Erland’s birthplace), Betty Corrigal, who committed suicide after having been cast out by her village after becoming pregnant by a visiting sailor. Inspired by that story Erland composed ‘The Orkney Symphony of the Magnetic North‘…