Thursday
We start our Thursday at De Drie Gezusters with the fast paced punk rock sound of Bongloard, the trio bring a furious and heavily riffing vibe to the back room of Groningen’s grand cafe at the market square. Next we head to a networking event organised by Scotland’s Wide Days, who bring delicious whiskey, deep fried Mars bars and delicious vegetarian haggis!
Groningen’s market square is temporarily occupied by Eurosonic Air’s massive festival tent which is completely packed for Dutch surf rock outfit The Vices who have turned towards a more English alt rock sound and left their incredibly catchy ‘Life Grows’ era behind them. A shame, but every band needs to evolve, right?
Next are fantastically tight alt rock outfit Queen’s Pleasure who manage to pack out what is usually a pool café. All Round is buzzing and filled with the infectious tones of Queen’s Pleasure’s ‘Living A Lie’ and absolute hit ‘Sitter’, which they close their set with. Tamara Kramar contrasts greatly with Queen’s Pleasure but these artists are unified in our enjoyment of both. Stylistically they’re on different ends of the spectrum, with Kramar’s sound combining influences taken from jazz and pop, but at the end of the day they are the ones occupying the top of our favourites-list of ESNS!
Friday
We head to Buckshot Cafe for a wonderfully relaxing showcase organised by b-kube music, we enjoy Dutch artist Joep Hoedemakers and his warm and subtle pop songs while enjoying a wine, a beer, and the fantastic photographs adorning the walls of Buckshot. Next we head to the Focus Wales showcase where we finally reunite with our favourite eccentric pop rock outfit Melin Melyn, by the end of their set no member of the audience is left without a smile on their face.
Chroma bring fiery punk rock energy with an incredible singer and a tight band bringing the riffs and drum rolls to Blokes Bar. Our next stop is De Drie Gezusters for energetic Irish rock band Cronin who perform at the Gentlemen Recordings showcase, after which we get swept off our feet by Spanish English pop artist Ona Mafalda who performs at Groningen’s Grand Theatre! Last of our day two is Dutch raging punk outfit HOOFS who create punchy tracks for fans of IDLES and Fontaines DC. They turn De Drie Gezusters upside down with mosh pits erupting at the start of their set and ending a while after their set’s ended. They’re angry and so are we, only they’ve found the words we can finally scream along to!
Saturday
We start our Saturday with a delicious lunch at Café Willem Albert, then head to Groningen’s potentially most ugly building but despite its looks, Forum does give us a fantastic 360° view of Groningen from its freely accessible rooftop! Once we’ve located our favourite venues, the Groninger Museum and the Febo we’ve been getting our dinner from the past few days, we head to De Oosterpoort for Noorderslag.
On our wish list are a mere three artists we’re excited to catch, and luckily for us, none of them clash. We start with very young pop artist Lenny Monsou who, with a big band, brings a suave, confidence, and infectious pop songs to the stage of De Oosterpoort Foyer! We then wander through the building, in search of the Nieuw Nederlands Peil stage which is located somewhere at the back of the building but don’t ask us for directions because we wouldn’t be able to give you them…
There we find a brand new love of ours in the form of Hiqpy. The powerful goth rock outfit stole our hearts at the start of January in Paradiso and now do so again with a powerful but much too short set of explosive and thrilling dark rock tracks. The last act of our Eurosonic Noorderslag before we head back to the UK is Dutch artist and producer Adriaan Persons. His soundscapes are incredibly infectious and make it impossible – for us – not to dance along, but his lyrics could be a bit – a lot – more poetic. We’d planned on catching Dutch indie outfit The Indien, but sadly 350 others were ahead of us and filled up the room before we could join them!
Another year of a fantastic music festival and conference ends and our hearts are already aching, missing the energy of the city while it is filled with international music industry, artists, and music lovers, and every single business seems to play their part in what is Groningen, and the Netherlands’, biggest music week! We’ll see you all again in 2025…
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