Like Karaoke But Good

I spent last Saturday morning on the bank of earth outside the Alpha tent at Lowlands in Holland, watching the largest crowd of the weekend go crazy for a retrospective of Dutch pop music. It took place not long after noon, but still the crowds came in their droves. They packed the tent, and sat all around outside in their thousands too, having the first beer of the day, or the first joint.

What the retrospective consisted of was this: contemporary musicians came onstage with the house band and did interpretations of the classics of the last fifty years of Dutch pop music. The performers ranged from the singer in Holland’s stadium punk gods Heideroosjes to a collection of other people you’d have to have grown up near a windmill to have heard of.

And the music ranged from this song about driving a motorbike by a man in a pirate hat, completely in Dutch, to Little Green Bag from Reservoir Dogs. It was like the afters of a wedding in the middle of the day with 10,000 people at it, in the sun in Holland. It was deadly.

As it came to an end, my friend turned to me and said “if they did that in Ireland, it would be terrible”. Would it? I think, for a backwater, we have quite a proud little history in the noble field of kitsch pop music.

Here are some of my suggestions for what songs could be done and by who:

Joe Dolan - Beautiful Woman
Covered by: Grand Pocket Orchestra - imagine it double speed, the horn parts on melodica, and the random piano plinks on toy glockenspiel… perfect!

Dana - All Kinds Of Everything
Covered by: Róisin Murphy - “things of the night” indeed.

B*Witched - C’est La Vie
Covered by: Fight Likes Apes - all of this makes so much sense in my head!

Wade in, disagree, suggest loads more, and we’ll make it happen at the next Analogue night. Maybe.