Into the Great Wide Open

I’ve been doing quite some festivals this summer and last weekend was another Great one. A new festival in Holland and the location itself already got me excited…Vlieland, one of the Dutch Wadden Islands hosted the first edition of Into the Great Wide Open.

With ‘only’ 4000 visitors it was sold out and we were one of the lucky ones to cross the sea to have a look. On the boat it started out quite rainy and windy…

But as soon as we got the island itself on the radar, the weather got better and better.

One of the nice things about this festival was the completely different experience of going there in the first place; strolling across the island, people renting a bike to get from the boat to the festival, no queuing up lowlands style.

We rented a ’sleeping boat’, a small ship with 8 rooms to crash at night.

First we took the local puppy out for a walk on the beach:

We didn’t fell a sleep and it was festival time!

This is how the average Vlielander looks like:

This is how the average Amsterdammer looks like (hardly any difference):

Into the Woods:

There were lots of nice alternative indie plays playing during the day, but the act that made me decide to go here was in fact The Legendary DJ Derek…for those who have been to lowlands in 2008 maybe remember his his performance in the Groovetube on sundays…a classic and was an instant fan. I’ve been playing one of his mixtapes this year and it was great to see him back on saturday evening!

Wild animals on sundays:

I really enjoyed the Danish Efterklang, great live performance:

Besides acts on the mainstage in between the woods, there were also lots of nice side events in the village itself, like the local church that was transformed into a stage:

Great weekend, we’ll be back next year! Right ladies?