Primitive Festival Volume 7, Rotterdam

by Parsley on Tue, 2010/07/13 - 10:37am Post to Twitter

PARSLEY’S COMMLOCK
Festival Review: Primitive Festival Volume 7, 02-06/06/10, Rotterdam Holland (www.primitive-festival.nl)
I had the great honour of co-hosting the final Primitive festival in Rotterdam. For me it was a dream. Better yet, my Swedish mod band (myspace.com/themovingsounds) somehow overcame severe issues with holiday timetables and made it too. However, the occasion was tinged with sadness, because allegedly this was to be the last Primitive festival ever. Dandy Dave Andriese&Peter van der Stelt were going to have one last bash at making Rotterdam the 60’s garage music capital of the world.

When I played the first Primitive many years ago, I discovered it to be a magnificent bringing together of the sharpest and most exciting bands in Europe. The best of the well-known, the great bands that due to the vagueries of the music world weren’t being recognised, and the up-and-coming-you-haven’t-heard-them-yet-but-they-are-utterly-brilliant. In previous years, as chronicled in several possibly lost contributions to ArtRocker, I’d heard the Chesterfield Kings (“great to be here in Amsterdam…er, Rotterdam!”). I’d had Jorge Explosion pass his guitar to me in the audience so I could play a solo, overrunning their slot, whilst Billy Childish glared from the wings waiting to go on. I’d danced all night till it was light more times than I could remember. I’d been pelted with food, wearing a gorilla suit for ‘The Go Nuts’. I’d seen and met the magnificent Cynics, and subsequently guested on one of their albums.

This year was to be no exception to the genius of the festival, and there were many nice surprises to be had. A regular dancer I met on the dancefloor at the Dirty Water club in London, usually drunk, always wanting to say hello (Help! Leave me alone!), turned out to be Johnny Quid, singer of Johnny Throttle, who electrified the Thursday night show with their blistering punk energy.

The following afternoon J.C. Thomaz & The Missing Slippers, Rotterdam’s answer to The Cramps, warmed us up before a ‘jewel in the crown’ of the festival: a free screening of the European première of award-winning film ‘America’s Lost Band’. This was a documentary about The Remains, chronicling the story of their amazing support slot for the Beatles’ world-shaking tour of the USA, and bringing it up to date with where they are now and their reunion concerts. The Remains were one of the highlights of a previous Primitive festival, where they reunited in Europe to the delight of a massive international audience. They played a storm, the crowd partly joined them on stage, it was a frenzied party, and I was almost in tears when they played their great song ‘Don’t Look Back’. So it was only fitting that, with the extremely generous help of the film-makers, it should make an appearance at the festival. The cinema was only a short walk from the venue, and I was delighted to lead a procession of crazy attendees over to it. We watched in reverential silence, hearts leaping at some ticklish archive footage of the band. If you’ve been unlucky enough to miss the reunion gigs, then this is your best chance to understand The Remains, their music, and why people are still on the dancefloor for their music over forty years later. It is still a source of amused bafflement to me that even die-hard Beatles fans don’t know of the Remains, but I know that but for the smouldering 60’s garage scene, and the Primitive festival, I probably wouldn’t have known either.

That night I strolled along to festival venue Watt in my spacesuit to introduce the bands, pausing briefly to explain to the police why they shouldn’t arrest me. The Deaf kicked off the music with an explosion of energy, followed by Rockabilly combo The Ragtime Wranglers (featuring an ex-Nederbietel on drums). From Denmark, David Peter & the Wilde Sect played beat at a thousand miles an hour to show why they’d gone down so well at the Dirty Water Club. Finally, my fellow host Wild Evel brought the world to a standstill with his combo The Staggers, from Austria. Then the night’s dancing began to some excellent international DJ-ing.

On Saturday I took time out with kobietanawyspie.com’s editorial team to record a track for a local arts project called Grrr Jamming Squeak (grrr.nu). It’s a free recording project with all gear supplied as long as you include some of their animal noises in your recording. Then I had to hot-foot back to Watt, where I found myself not only introducing the excellent Skywalkers, but also carrying out a live on stage interview with surviving members of legendary sixties Dutch bands The Q65 and The Outsiders. They played some games with me (such as denying all knowledge of drugs). When I asked the Q65 if they were still playing, they replied (in suitable Dutch-deadpan tones) “well most of us are dead!”.

I returned to my hotel to chill out for the evening, but the bands stayed at the venue and continued to get ‘tanked’ up. On my return to the venue in my zebra suit, I was grabbed by Outsiders bass guitarist Appie Rammers who told me that he loved me… Later that evening he fell down an enormous metal staircase, but fortunately being drunk emerged unscathed!

First band of the evening was Spanish band The Right Nows, who played an extremely impressive set. They were followed by French band the Dadds playing sadly their last performance. The Outsiders performed a fine impromtu set with their new singer, and with a guest slot by festival organiser Dave himself as a special thank you. The Attention from Austria were an absolutely stonking beat band and looked totally the business. The proceedings were rounded off by Norwegians Peter Berry & The Shake Set, who were also dressed and performing super sharp, this time in a more Shadows/early Hollies vein.

It was a wonderful evening and a suitably amazing end to an amazing festival. What did it for me was that raw new genius I’d never seen before was rubbing shoulders with legends, and a crowd full of people, that didn’t care how old anyone was, experienced a festival of hugely enjoyable live performances with good humour and pleasure that crossed the European continent from top to bottom. Whether or not it happens again, I can only hope that those present now and in previous years will carry the spirit of Primitive into live music wherever they are.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]