Perfect Camping Trip With Happy Camper

Making an album with eleven guest vocalists is one thing, but playing it live with all those musicians is an even bigger challenge. Job Roggeveen, master mind behind Happy Camper, managed to make such an album although it took him a few years to complete his project. It resulted in an album with beautiful tracks. But what he thought was close to impossible happened anyway: he gathered the busy vocalists on stage to play all those nice songs live.

Happy Camper at De Kleine Komedie Amsterdam, April 5 2010 (Ronald Says 9 out of 10)

Case Mayfield is the one that has to warm up the crowd. The theater is full of friends, fellow musicians and Happy Camper fans. But Case is doing a great job with his modest appearance and nice intimate songs. Then it's time for the happy campers to take the stage. Roggeveen sits down behind his organ and the camping trip takes off. At the back of the stage an illustration of a camping site is hanging. The backing band are most of his El Pino & The Volunteers colleagues. One by one the vocalists take their turn in singing their songs from the album. After each song they announce the next singer.




What follows is one big happy musical trip through Happy Camper land. Leine, Tim Knol, Janne Schra, Ricky Koole, Blaudzun all await their turn in the spot light. The mood is hight and everyone is enjoying it a lot. Even technical problems for El Pino & The Volunteers frontman David Pino in the shape of a refusing "little blue box" that fails to amplify his guitar can't change that. Of course Roggeveen's own animated yeti Manfred is making his appearance as well. The illustration comes to life and the friendly yeti starts in a funny but at the same time sad animation while Roggeveen backs him up on the organ. At the end of the show all performers gather once more for the big finale.



It's an impressive achievement by Roggeveen to compose these great songs and to perform them live with all musicians. It also shows how many talented musicians we have in this small country. To see so many of them in one show is almost too good to be true and a real treat to the eyes and ears of any music lover.

The pictures of this live performance originally appeared in this review on mousique.wordpress.com.

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Local Hero Daniël Lohues Inspiring Musician

Since this blog is supposed to be an international blog I'm always asking myself if the stuff I write about is interesting to international readers. However sometimes it's just too good to keep to myself even when it's really a local artist. And Daniël Lohues even sings in a local dialect "Drents" of a region in the Eastern part of the Netherlands. But his passion for music is international.

Daniël Lohues in de Kleine Komedie Amsterdam, March 28 2010 (Ronald Says 8 out of 10)
The stage of the theater has a simple buf effective decor that resembles a cosey living room. Around four guitars are on the stage together with a piano and an air organ on each side. Lohues is touring for the fourth time with his "Allennig" (Dutch dialect for "On my own") project. It's the last of four albums each one representing a season. This last one is Autumn.

Lohues has a nice and warm voice and his songs are intimate little poems with a funny twist. That's typical for him. It never goes too deep or gets too serious. There's always a light touch. They are a mix of blues, rock and folk. In between he's telling short funny stories and he's very good at it. Many stories are about music and it shows what a passionate musician he is and a true music lover.

He keeps the audience's attention until the very last second of the two hour set. Lohues leaves us with a couple of encores and modestly receives the well deserved standing ovation.



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Cooler Than Cool

Jules Deelder with New Cool Collective in de Kleine Komedie,
Amsterdam on 28 April 2009 (Ronald Says 5 out of 5)

I've written a couple of times before about New Cool Collective and their swinging music. This time I could check them out in a theater. Like I mentioned before it's weird to watch a band play while everyone's sitting down. But this time Dutch writer Jules Deelder joined them on stage.

And this combination works really well. Deelder is a big jazz fan and regularly playing records in jazz clubs. He's also an amateur drum player so a snare drum was available on stage as well for him to join in on the fun. Of course he's no match for the great musicians of the band but that wasn't the idea. The band played many songs of their latest album and Deelder read some stories and poems.

Of course he did this in his typical manner which is in a smart suit (like the band), funky sun glasses and Rotterdam accent. The Rohypnol cough sirop story is just hilarious! All band members get to play their solos as expected and especially Anton Goudsmit treated us with some fireworks. So again it was a great night. But next time I would like to see them back in a club where I can enjoy them in front of the stage, zipping beers and shaking my booty!
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Thx Johan for 12,5 years of great music

Johan in de Kleine Komedie Amsterdam, 27 February 2009 (Ronald says 5 out of 5)

Johan is a Dutch band and has been around for 12,5 years so it was time for a celebration. And therefore they started on a theater tour playing songs from their three albums. That's not a lot for 12,5 years but all three are little gems.

Singer Jacco de Greeuw has a beautiful unique voice and the vocal harmonies with guitar player Maarten Kooijman are sublime. They play their songs chronologically and this only confirms how strong they are. All the songs still sound fresh and not out dated and not one feels out of place. It feels a bit weird to be listening to a band in a theater without holding a nice beer and not being able to dance a bit. On the other hand it's really cool to be able to really listen to their music, watch the band members closely and really enjoy one of the best, unique and most interesting bands of the Netherlands. Looking forward to their new album "4" that will be released in May.
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