A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise

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The entrance to the Lowlands festival ground in 2007.
The entrance to the Lowlands festival ground in 2007.

A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise, also known as simply Lowlands, is a music festival, held annually in the Netherlands in August. Lowlands is, together with Pinkpop, one of the biggest and most popular music festivals in the country, with about 60,000 visitors, over 200 acts and more than ten stages every year which are named according to the NATO phonetic alphabet, apart from the Grolsch stage, named after the beer brewer Grolsch, who has been the main sponsor of the festival for the last few years. The majority of stages are inside huge tents - insurance against the Dutch climate - with the main stage's tent, Alpha, being approximately the size of a premiership football team's pitch.

The festival is held in Biddinghuizen, very close to the Walibi World amusement park.

Besides music (alternative music, pop, rock, dance, hip hop), there is also an indoor and an outdoor cinema, stand-up comedy, street theatre and theatre.

Contents

[edit] Origins

Lowlands began as one of the very first Dutch pop festivals - A Flight to Lowlands Paradise that was organised in November 1967 by the Utrecht based artist and painter Bunk Bessel. This festival took place in the Margriethal of Jaarbeurs Utrecht. The entry fee was 10 guilders (approximately 4.50 euros), including breakfast. This 18-hour-long event had no top-acts but included experimental theatre, dancing, poetry, films, body painting and massage. The Utrecht municipality did not pay up the promised subsidy of 8,000 guilders after the event.

On the 28 December 1968 the festival was held a second time, postponed by a month from its original date of 23 November to try and get Jimi Hendrix to attend the event. This could not be arranged, and other large acts such as Jeff Beck and Jethro Tull were canceled. However, Pink Floyd remained on the bill. In the end, the show was sold out to its capacity of 18,000 visitors, and for many people it was a cold and disappointing experience as they were unable to get inside. Inevitably, there was unrest and the police had to be involved.

In 1993, organizer Willem Venema began another festival under the name A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise and since then it has been a success.

Life of Agony released a CD of their unplugged set from the Lowlands Festival in 1997, entitled Unplugged at the Lowlands Festival '97

[edit] Performances

[edit] 2000

[edit] 2001

[edit] 2002

[edit] 2003

[edit] 2004

[edit] 2005

[edit] 2006

[edit] 2007


[edit] 2008

Bands confirmed so far:
Ane Brun
Anouk
Anti-Flag
Asakusa Jinta
Black Kids
Blood Red Shoes
Booka Shade
British Sea Power
Crystal Castles
Danko Jones
dEUS
Digitalism
Diplo
Dropkick Murphys
Elbow
Foals
Grinderman
Hadouken!
Haydamaky
Holy Fuck
Hot Chip
I Am Kloot
Killswitch Engage
MGMT
Michael Franti & Spearhead
Modeselektor
Pendulum
Róisín Murphy
Simian Mobile Disco
Sons and Daughters
Sven Väth
Talking Heads
The Flaming Lips
The Fratellis
The Futureheads
The Hives
The Hoosiers
The Kooks
The National
The Pigeon Detectives
The Sex Pistols
The Tellers
The Ting Tings
The Wombats
Thunderheist
Underworld
Vampire Weekend

These are confirmed from the Back To Lowlands MSN group.
Check www.lowlands.oma-g.com for the Lowlands only confirmed bands. The ones above have been self confirmed by the bands themselves either by Myspace or in shows.

[edit] External links