Frenchy’s Fracas

General Info
Festival: NuMoonFest
Location: Lantaren/Venster, Rotterdam
When: 13-15 December 2007

What’s it about?
Well, read about the festival here. It’s an interesting combo of different styles of jazz, electronic music, etc. and also movie documentaries. It’s my second visit, read my review of last year’s experience here. I’m a bit late with this review so my recollection might be a bit hazy, sorry..

Day 3 (15-Dec)
So remember, you never know what to expect on this festival and this year’s shows were diverse as ever. First off, a not so interesting performance at the cafe podium from Haale. The stuff didn’t work for me, oh well.
After that we got a very big black guy accompanied by guitar and accordion/squeeze-box, singing this incredible falsetto, which was nice. Picked up the closing fifteen minutes from Reboot Your Soul, a Dutch jazzy band fronted by Rob Van Der Wouw. Not bad, saw them this summer at the North Sea Jazz festival, the contrast was noticeable: the crowd was about a tenth of what was at NSJ, but they carried on as good as they could.
In the same hall we were treated by the good people of the Silent Disco. If ever you get a chance to see and hear this event, please do try it out!! It’s an simple concept but a bit hard to explain: everybody get headphones to listen to what the DJ is playing. Imagine a crowd with headphones on dancing to something you’re not hearing and having some wicked fun!
Back to the festival, in the main hall the Numoonlab Orchestra was performing an incredible set. The core band played from beginning to end during the whole evening and other performers would come up and do their thing and then move off.
For me the high point was the enigmatic and energetic and weirder than weird miss Ursula Rucker. She did her poetry like a fierce lioness, wow!!

Conclusion
With this year’s edition there were too many uninteresting performances and quite some main stream stuff too. But the Numoonlab Orchestra was an incredible experience! Miss Rucker was the wacky cherry on top!! I’ll be there next year, because it’s a chance to discover stuff..

Rating:

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General Info
Festival: NuMoonFest
Location: Lantaren/Venster, Rotterdam
When: 9/10 December 2006

What’s it about?
Well, read about the festival here. It’s an interesting combo of different styles of jazz, electronic music, etc. and also movie documentaries. It’s my first visit, but it’s definitely a great experience! Was there with me mates, Hieronymus Fox and DenDen.

Day 1 (09-DEC)
Hazy recollection, it’s the apfelkorn and sleep deprivation, bare with me Enjoyed a nice set by Belgian band Sweet Coffee, but was very much impressed by young Dutch talent Jeruma. The guy has a great voice!
The main attraction of the evening for me was that crazy combo of ultimate weirdness: Benny Sings with Rednose District. Awesome performance, played a lot of stuff I like of their album. These guys were a bit too mellow sometimes, chatting with each other and almost neglecting the audience, but hey, they’re Superstars (at least, here in Holland). I didn’t mind that too much coz when they connected with the audience, it was very good stuff!
This evening’s closing act: C-Mon and Kypski. Wow! These guys are funny and off-beat combining all possible styles of music and instrumentation. Much, much better than the stuff I heard on their myspace site.

Day 2 (10-DEC)
Slow start of the evening, still a bit hung over, but all for a good cause, heheh.. First surprise of the evening: Miss Sabrina Starke, damn! A very young and talented soul singer who for sure will mature into a songstress in the near future. At this moment she sounds a bit like Randy Crawford (but with more depth) and that’s quite an achievement! Dutch singer Corey was performing on another stage at the same time, but she really lost out to Starke.
Next on the menu: Monsieur Dubois, a Dutch jazz band with great musicians and a groovy modern feel. Great performance, but after ten minutes, Hieronymus Fox told me we should go listen to the best thing happening during this festival: Leslie Nielsen!! Nope, not the actor, but a small three-piece band with excellent musicians. These guys work hard, very very hard to entertain their audience and seem to have fun in doing so. They were playing at the same time as Monsieur Dubois and again the smaller stage drew the largest crowd. Lady Sherma did a coupla tracks on (guest) vocals and totally blew the roof off the place!

Final performance by Briskey was interesting: a Moloko/Portishead hybrid with incredibly motivated musicians - liked the lady doing the vocals: she dominated the stage with her presence.

Conclusion
It’s safe to say that for me, this festival was a great experience: listening to artists trying something different, something new. And listening to musicians I never heard of before offers both rewards and annoyances (Nelson & Djosa). So, yep, it was highly enjoyable!

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Oooohweee! Got me some nice things lined up: the NuMoonFest(links: 1, 2): a great combo of local and international nu-jazz, nu-soul, funk, hiphop, electro, soundscapes, film and multimedia talents.
The other thing? Well.. It’s Herbie Hancock live in Utrecht! Sooooo sweet!
UPDATE - my reviews:

• Numoonfest 2006
• Concert: Herbie Hancock @Vredenburg, Utrecht

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