In Demand @ Eurosonic 2006

Fact 1 – Musical Talent from the rest of Europe is highly underrated in the UK. There is many a great band from Holland, Germany, France Belgium et al that simply go unnoticed on our little island.

Fact 2 – Last weekend Gigwise took a taxi, a plane and a train to Northern Holland and found out the first fact is most definitely true.

You see while half of Britain seems to be going into Arctic Monkeys fever overload and the other half are left wondering why, there lies across the English channel an untouched mine of riches. The centre of this musical Eden is Eurosonic, which is now in its 20th year. Formerly known as Noorderslag (meaning ‘Northern Battle’), the event is the euro equivalent of SXSW featuring over 200 bands from across the continent in every genre from Indie to Punk and Metal to Hip Hop plus a load of music industry bods pretending to talk about very important subjects while enjoying lots of free alcohol and food.

Spanning three days Eurosonic is held in the University town of Groningen, population approximately 120,000 and with more live venues than you can shake a stick at and some ridiculously cheap beer too! Basically heaven! No venue is more than a ten minute walk from each other, so if you stumble and fall in the gutter you’re pretty much certain to land somewhere near a gig. The likes of Editors, The Kooks, Mystery Jets and Clor made the journey too heading a strong contingent of UK acts but the main focus this year was German music.

Gigwise decided that we’d love a bit of that, so we packed our bags before travelling the 300 miles, and boy was it worth it!

Programme in one hand and pink champagne in the other we ventured out into the unknown on the first night, choosing predominantly to see bands with ridiculously bizarre names, and found ourselves in a church faced by a hundred strong choir in 14th century monk-like robes accompanied by a band of bagpipe wielding giants. This we find out was the German medieval rock foundation Corvus Corax and what they spewed forth can only be described middle ages punk, it has to be seen to be believed. Moving on to Groningen’s first and best live venue Vera we increase the ridiculous name count as Gigwise catches the most diverse and brilliant set of the night from Belgians Bacon Caravan Creek, who shift from ethereal electronica to full on pounding stoner rock – we leave shaking our heads in disbelief, at the name and at the quality of music we’ve just witnessed.

Just around the corner at Mutua Fides, bizarrely named band number 3, Spleen United of Denmark, sound check in front of the audience which is never a good thing but then their set which blends experimental synthesizer movements with some pristine pop hooks more than makes up for it. At this point we settle for something a little closer to home and return to Vera to check out our favourite pop-rock purveyors from Ireland The Chalets. The venue, packed to the rafters, is not disappointed as Pee Pee Pony, Chris, Enda and Dilbot bring us 45 minutes of guitar melodies and electro beeps with seamless ease.

We’re not finished yet however and rush to the Muziekschool to catch the end of the first Brakes set since singer Eamon Hamilton announced he was leaving British Sea Power, and a triumphant performance it is too, each song kept to a basic minimum and an encore lasting all of five seconds. The end of the night is spent with Clor, a band Gigwise knows well, who as always impress and by the time they reach an encore have the predominantly Dutch audience in the palm of their hands. Gigwise finally returns home at 6am after spending a few hours musing over the night's performances with a drink in hand.