Down the Hill Festival, Rillar, Belgium Aug 25-26th, 2023

I arrived at the Brussels airport about 1630. 30mins late. Dave (Hypnos69) picked me up and we chatted about studio stuff and modular synths, etc….    I have a nice place to sleep in the control room of the studio.. The Kanaan guys will also stay here.   We had some cold veggy lasagna and then headed over to the festival in time to catch about half of the Belgium stoner rock band, Fire Down Under. They have 2 albums out and new one next month… Pretty much straight up classic stoner rock sound, a bit of Swedish influence… Crowd was really into it and I could meet my old friend Silvana!  So nice to see her. She looked great..

I had heard from others that Mojo and the Kitchen Brothers were really good.  Pity we did not get to see them. Dorre had also played but I do not know them.  Also missed Slow Bear on the Dome stage. 

Koonda Holaa was on the small Dome stage where I will play.  A big mean angry looking guy doing a lot of experimental guitar looping and vocals songs. It was pretty cool…  

GNOME, a local phenomenon with their army of fans with the garden Gnome hats!!   The old Temple Fang drummer is pounding away in this group now. Heavy, metal-hard rock cross of aggressive rock music,,  They had some clear songs people were really into and a certain image as well.  Their set went down really well. 

 

Set List: Balls of Broekvol, Wencelkwast, Golden Loemperik, Antichrist, T¨Smitje, Empire Strikes back, Tong, Kraakpand, Framboos

Radar Man from the Moon, a Dutch band, I have not really heard much by them but I remember them as being more fuzzy and spaced out but now they are just a heavy intense wall of psych noise with 2 drummers and an angry singer.. The do it good but it was a bit too much the same not enough variety in the sound for me. . Reminded me a bit of a less wild and improvised GNOD! Crowd dug it.. 

Dries Geusens was a guy with a huge table of synthesizer modules, a MOOG subharmonium and some sort of sampler. He started off very promising and spacey and slowly added interesting modular elements but sadly, after 10mins or so started just putting in techno like beats and it became something normal and not very interesting. It was such a pity as it could have really evolved into something cosmic….

Sula Bassana Band, I was really looking forward to see and I had some time to hang out and chat with Dave which was great.. Such a nice human.  It was very cool to hear this songs from some of his solo albums. They are much heavier live for sure.  Lost in Space from the Dark LP was so great.. Audience really loved it. He did a nice balance of his keyboard and guitar playing. It was a solid band and people really dug it. They had some sound issues at the start but great in the end.. It was the best band of the day for sure!  Good luck Dave…

Day 2

I was totally exhausted when we got back at 130 in the morning. DId not get up until 10. Feel a bit strange still…  Going to have to find some new energy for tonight… Event is starting now but I am still too tired.. I will go downstairs soon. Had musli, fruit, banana, bread and cheese. All good…  Dave offered to let me use any of his synths so I need to go see what might work for me,.,.. He has the Mono-poly, Poly D, KORG Ms20 and MS50 sequencer, ARP2600, lots of cool stuff..  I played the mono-poly for a while but decided not to borrow it for the gig..

Lots of great bands today. Hypnos 69, Mars Red Sky, Kanaan, Earthless….  Not sure what time we will go to the festival.. I can rest a bit more.. 13 now…

We arrived at the festival about 15.. I heard that Kameel was really excellent as were Etherik and Ambi-J. Freek (used to put on Yellowstock), did not realize he was playing under the name Floating Bodies, so I missed his set. Damn….. I heard it was a really cool ambient set.  Music for Floatation tanks..

Grandma´s Ashes (France), was a female heavy rock trio.  They had a special look but they knew how to rock, despite the lack of attack from the drummer.  Mix of doomy, melodic pop elements and just rock and roll…  The crowd dug them….

Venediktos Tempelboom was a guy with acoustic guitar but he had loops and effects and did singer songwriter sort of stuff…  Always a cool crowd of people watching these solo artists in the dome tent..  Foto below I am not 100% certain it is him. 

Condor Gruppe was a big 9 piece band from the Netherlands. It was basically instrumental eastern film score music. I am pretty sure they did a few covers (Marcoinne). 3 horn players but they also played keys, percussion, congas, etc..  3 guitar players, electric sitar, drums and bass. It was a nice set of music with a cool vibe.. 

I was busy at the merch stand trying to sell some records unsuccessfully so I did not see the next two acts on the Dome stage, Jef Mertens and Jonas Meersmans.  

Kanaan was next on the main stage and what a powerful set they played. Wow.. They knocked the audience out!! The set was quite different from Sonic Blast 2 weeks ago. Amazon, Orbit, Jm, Bordum, The groke..  They were so good… It does still annoy me that Ingvald, just bashes the shit out of the ride cymbal way too much for me. Just makes this white noise over the sound completely as it always too loud…  What an amazing drummer.. Actually, these guys are all so skilled and so nice.. 

I caught some of Vitja Pauwels in the dome stage.  He was a very unique guitar player. He had a huge load of drum triggers, guitar pedals and other stuff (laptop) and played like no one else at the festival. Strange but so cool.. Awesome…

Hypnos 69 was the band (with Sula Bassana) that I was most looking forward to see play and they were awesome .  The band have a great sound and they focused a lot on the older material and jamming.  There was a massive thunder and lightning and rain storm that lasted 10 or 15mins in the middle of their set. The crowd scattered..  Great set..Since all bands had to play on their own gear and they had to switch out everything for every band this time the started 15mins late and played 10mins over so we were 25mins late in the end…

I had to set up for my own gig so only heard some of Mars Red Sky in the background. I think they only ended up staring 15mins late.   My set up went very smooth and the storm had not got the area too wet or muddy.  I had a great sound on the stage but was still nervous. 

Dr Space.. what can I say. My first real solo gig. The tent was packed and I just do what I do but the people were so wonderful and yelling and into the trip of cosmic music that I presented. It went quite well actually.  For those that want more info, here is what I did.  I started with some space wind noise on the modular and faded into a 6 different synth loops (arpeggiations) on the Novation Ultranova synth in a different keys. In most songs I would also add some mellotron or some space sounds or solos on the kaossilator pad or the modular and just went with the flow!! I played for about 40mins.. I had so much positive feedback from the Sula Bassana band, Dave and many others. Wow.. made me feel really good. Only sold 1 record after the show.. Thanks to Tom for the pic below.

Earthless was the main act and just killed it of course. They are still playing the title track from the last album jammed out and then Shinki, Speed and Glue track into Cherry Red was the encore.  I met Mario after the show. Super cool guy..  still hope we can do something one day Several people said they thought I would be a good fit..  We will see..

Awesome festival with super nice people. I had a great time and people were so kind..  Thanks to Dries and everyone at Down the Hill and all the amazing people I met..

peace love and music..

http://downthehill.be