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The Editors have come a long way since I saw them years ago for the first time. From an unknown band they grew into a festival headliner with a performance that neared perfection. This was the case last time I saw them on Lowlands. From there on they had the choice of continuing down this road and go mainstream with their third album. Instead they chose a harder but more interesting road: throw out most of the guitar sound and replace it with 80s electronics. This worked out very well on their last album ‘In This Light And On This Evening‘. But would it work in a live setting together with their old songs?

Joe Lovano is one of the greatest tenor saxophone players right now. So when he was gonna play the Bimhuis I didn’t hesitate to get tickets and check him out with one of my best buddies. And he didn’t let us down.

Wolfmother conquered the world a few years ago with their 2005 debut album. Blowing the roof off every venue they played with their 70s inspired heavy rocking songs. But then two of the three band members left leaving Andrew Stockdale all by himself. But then he found new friends to play with and they recorded a new album. With all these changes are they still able to rock everyone’s socks off?

12.5 years of the Dutch band Johan: four albums filled with beautiful songs and many great concerts. Then all of a sudden they announced the end of the band. Singer Jacco de Greeuw decided it was time for a change before things started to get lame. Their support tour for their latest album ‘4‘ turned into a farewell tour and this concert into my last Johan gig.

Oh yeah! My neighbours are awake again at 8.30. This time no fried eggs but bad jokes and stupid conversation. So we were early at the festival site to have breakfast and buys some CD’s. And on to to the first gig to wake us up.

So day one wasn’t a bad start at all but I was hoping for more. Thanks to some neighbours who woke me up early ’cause they wanted fried eggs at 8.30 in the morning I didn’t feel quite the best. But nothing a good cup of coffee can’t fix!

Yes! My favourite festival was about to start and it got off to a great start. Instead of continuing this year’s festival trend of traffic jams we got to the festival’s camping site in no time and were sipping a cold beer well before the first band started. This promised to be some weekend!

It seems to be the year of supergroups. After Chickenfoot here is Them Crooked Vultures with members of some of my favourite bands: Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin). I’m not sure if fourth member Alain Johannes is an official band member but he’s playing with them live. Maybe not as famous but he played with many big artists and can be considered a top guitarist. So when they announced a suprise gig in Amsterdam I didn’t hesitate and joined the huge queue straight after work.

The history of Alice in Chains is a known story. Leaving a rich discography they quit (although never officially) years ago after they weren’t able to recover from the regretful death of Layne Staley. Now they’re back with a new album “Black Gives Way to Blue“(due September 29) and a fresh tour including “new” singer William DuVall.

George Clinton is one of those artists that you just have to see once in your life. And better late than never so I finally got to see him in Eindhoven.