Yellowstock Festival
By: Stijn Van Hees
Over ten years ago Freek Kruisberghs and some of his freak friends/drinking/smoking buddies over at youth house “De Bogaard” in the average Belgian town of Geel decided to organise a retro/hippie fest dedicated to the following of Sabbath / Hawkwind / Neu! or even fat old Jerry Garcia. So damn uncool, but such a shame it wasn’t being done at the time. Roadburn had already moved on to other, bigger, transcendental realms, the time was right. The party returned ten times and is over now.
Since the beginning Yellowstock has had a set up of 2 days and 2 stages, one indoor, one outdoor as soon as one concert is over, the next begins on the other stage. Simple but effective, once you disconnected from reality you never had to latch back on until the very end of the night.
What follows is my interpretation of what happened during that weekend in mid-August. Read it as a festival report but also as a heartfelt showing of gratitude to the people that put on this fiercely independent and charmingly DIY festival during the past decade. They’ve introduced me to a bunch of interesting bands, offered the opportunity to see some established names and served as a platform for some of the stars (in the making) of the current retro/psych/stoner rock scene in Europe and beyond. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to witness Blues Pills, Colour Haze, Ufomammut, My Sleeping Karma, Hypnos 69, Gentlemans Pistols, Karma To Burn, Baby Woodrose and countless others at the cosy stages of Yellowstock. A chapter has really been closed now, but no reason to sob, the memories (well some) remain and the music itself already was timeless before Yellowstock, so without further ado, drop out and read on.
Day 1
Birth Of Joy
While lining up to get our tickets scanned and exchanged for wristbands (boy technology, such a relief, when it works…) we could enjoy a bit of the retro vibes of Birth Of Joy. They are a young trio from The Netherlands who take a Doorsian approach of bassguitar-less organ-fueled psychedelic garage rock. Well that may not be an entirely correct description, their tunes often expanded way beyond the dark confines of an automobile shelter to take off into sunnier, freer realms of self-discovery and accomplishment. Indeed, theirs is a sound that is already full-bodied and quite rounded out for being only around for a relatively short time, certainly compared to some of the acts with whom they were sharing a bill that weekend. First band of the day, first pleasant surprise, as per usual, the early arrivers get rewarded at Yellowstock.
The Glücks
This jangly garage 2-piece are from my home town Ghent and part of a wider revival of brash, lo-fi garage rock that is going on in the area, see also Mind Rays, The Tubs, The Guru Guru. But the fact of the matter with this kind of music is that, unless you manage to convey the energy equivalent of a day’s toiling in the car factory into a 40 minute set, a big part of the crowd will start to lose attention after 15 odd minutes. Certainly if the crowd mostly consists of psychonauts anxiously waiting for the right moment to drop out. There simply aren’t so many ways to scream into a microphone and abuse a guitar if you deliberately want to keep it simple. Now given this predicament their set still served a purpose in the wider scheme of the final Yellowstock weekend. Something akin to the starting gun at the olympic racewalking contest.
Flying Horseman
Belgium’s indie darlings seemed an odd addition to the bill, but the band fronted by the slightly enigmatic Bert Dockx played to their strengths and managed to shroud the field in a dark haze of melancholy even though the sun was still shining. A big part in this are the wonderful vocal harmonies the band employs throughout most of their songs. The front man has a warm baritone – probably the most professionally trained voice of the weekend – and trades lines with or is backed up by the Maieu sisters who also double up as synth druidesses. Add to this the intricate guitar work and a flowing rhythm section, and well there’s a show that appeals to music lovers of any kind, stoned or sober, darlings or outcast. Maybe I ought to check out their latest album City same City after all.
Lay Llamas
I will mostly remember the Lay Llamas show for the band’s use of (ethnic) flutes, samba balls, bells and whathaveyou. This is not to say that the music itself was uninteresting, because it wasn’t, but it also wasn’t very dynamic nor heavy on the psychedelics so one tends to to look around a bit more and pay attention to details. Lay Llamas play a sort of repetitive psychedelic rock that has traded most of its sweeping parts for ethnic sounds and atmospheres. By the time this started to get a bit dull the bass player kicked into a higher gear and some decidedly groovy afrofunk vibes were added to the mix. I could definitely dig that, too bad the set was soon over. I wouldn’t mind seeing them again on a smaller stage, later at night and with a more aroused crowd.
The Machine
The Machine and I share a common trait I learned during their set: we’ve both been 8 times out of 10 at Yellowstock. I haven’t seen all of their previous 7 gigs but more than enough times to know what they sound like. That means appreciate their down-tuned grooves but after a while get bored of their cosmic guitar freak-outs. I must admit I haven’t listened to their latest album Offblast!, but it seems they lately reined that part in. You know a band has their priorities sorted out right if the amps are bigger than the drum kit and so The Machine played a tight, energetic set borne a by mighty full sound. The band were here to celebrate the legacy of the festival that undoubtedly played its role in their rise to to the top ranks of European heavy psych rock and did so with gusto. After this gig the festival had finally kicked into its highest gear.
Hills
I didn’t see Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, which had nothing to do with their awkward moniker, but all with replenishing the energy reserves. So the next gig for me was the Swedish Hills, a band that was totally unknown to me. They will probably be remembered as the band with the unintentionally wittiest stage banter. Upon being informed they had five minutes left in their set the singer retorted haplessly “But we have no five minute songs”. Luckily nobody objected to completing one last space séance under the setting sun. This small anecdote bears quite some metaphorical power in it, something about free spirits and letting the music speak first, but I’ll leave it up to some other soul to write an essay on that.
For the last one as well as for the previous songs Hills took their time to build up a layered spacey atmosphere floating over a steady cadence of motorik drum patterns, laid down by one of the 3 female drummers on the stool this weekend. As an aside, I’m quite sure the fraction of women among the punters was much higher than among the musicians, but at least it wasn’t a men only gig neither. So, again, back to Hills, they managed to carry me away into space and by the end of the set I was partly mesmerised, but personally I like my space rock a bit faster and more dynamic. Or maybe they should simply have been allotted even more time.
Zone Six
This German band is a bit more up my alley, while Hills still had some sparse vocals, Zone Six goes completely without them. Whole sections of their set also seem to go completely without structure or pre-meditated goals, other than zone in and freak out. Improvisation is a large part of their show, if not all of it has been improvised, but this isn’t some hermetic egotrip.
The trio of Rainer Reeff, Komet Lulu and Sula Bassana invite every open soul into the swirl, make sure you don’t lose your pink sunglasses though because we’ll be moving fast. Lulu and Sula deliver a steady bass and guitar backdrop for the unrelenting FX drenched spaceguitar travels of Rainer, so much is understood, but this rhythm duo has schwung, they feed of each other and of the crowd and launch the whole experience into the realms of the relativistic. Now I might understand that some detractors will claim this is boring, repetitive or pointless, but what about the concept of a ‘song’? Isn’t that boring, repetitive or pointless? Certainly if it is being force-fed down your throat or rammed into your ears on every occasion you venture out of your safe bubble into the realms of the real. No, bring me escapism, joyous, mindless old escapism, a thousand times I prefer to be floating around and taking in all the stimuli until the body is one with the waves of sound and the mind is a light-emitting fractal of unknown wisdoms.
Michael Rother
So, the sun had set on Geel and had been replaced by vintage liquid slide projectors and other psychedelic lighting effects. The freaks had gathered before the open air stage, especially the ones of a more advanced age, before the undisputed main act of the day took to their equipment. Michael Rother’s stage set-up betrayed his elaborate discography, a sparse drum kit in front of the stage, a second guitar player in the back and the man himself with a guitar strapped on almost hid himself behind a mammoth desk full of wires, gizmo’s and a laptop. As soon as drummer Hans Lampe let the motorik rhythms roll the crowd got into it. Elaborate space-scapes alternated with delightfully upbeat synth-infused rock. The remark was made at least few times that this music sounded like TV series theme songs. Fuck for all care it could be true, not that I have seen all that has been broadcasted between the seventies and now. Cheesy as it may sound, it did work, not in the least because the atmospheric and adventurous light show added a strong visual aspect to the whole thing. Of minor visual importance, but nonetheless delightful, was the persistent and consistently growing smile on the face of the two main players, Rother and his drummer. Both are men of great musical mileage, who were enjoying themselves so overtly, and even being vocal about it, that the sight of them made the night all the more worthwhile. You could be forgiven for thinking that all this kraut is just monotonous old tripe that easily overstays its welcome, but seeing some key figures of this sound enjoy themselves on stage with some of their decades long admirers freaking out in front of it, well that just filled me up with warmth and joy. And when I got to that point they rounded out their set proper with a climactic rendition of an old Neu! classic (his words, I’m too young to confirm) and that sealed the deal on another Yellowstock gig worthy of the annals.
K-X-P
Over the years it has grown to be a custom of Yellowstock to close out each day with an indoor gig that has a certain ‘afterparty’ vibe to it. I particularly remember that freaked out night with Gnod. Tonight we were served something not that dissimilar, namely the Finnish cloaked dancerock-occultists of K-X-P taking the stage. A set-up consisting of 1,5 drumkit and a Korg synth gave away much what was in store for us, battered freaks. Pounding rythms, mostly 4/4, quite quickly got heads bobbing and soon enough limbs thrashing about. It was unsightly but cathartic as fuck, for those into it. The few that just wanted to look on quietly and get into the groove drew the shortest straw, you had to thrash about or get the fuck out such was the wild enthrall that got hold of the hundred odd punters still up on their legs and draining their last energy levels. K-X-P took 2 or 3 songs to get to the max of their energy level, but then sustained that for about 60 minutes, no relenting, just pounding and vague hints of melody and groove. By the time they packed it up I had already been chatting outside for a while with an old friend and seeing the bipedal wreckage that staggered out of De Bogaard after the concert confirmed my gut feeling: it had been a demanding day filled to the brim with quality grooves and indulgent trances. But of course it wasn’t over yet.
Day 2
PAUW
I arrived early in order to make sure not to miss a single minute of The Grand Astoria and ended up regretting not arriving early enough to catch more of PAUW’s set. The hipppie chicks were already dancing when I arrived at the stage to check them out and they had no reasons not to. PAUW are a young Dutch band that listened carefully to 60’s psychedelic garage music and probably all have a Jim Morrison poster in their bedrooms. The band plays without bass guitar, but the sweeping organ and strong guitar work surely fill any possible holes. All in all the band reminded me quite a lot of the Von Hertzen Brother, a Finnish band that is hugely underrated outside of Scandinavia.
The Grand Astoria
I am now the proud owner of a ‘Russian heavy psych extravaganza’ shirt and that tag line isn’t just a self invented miniscule sub genre, no it is actually a quite accurate description of TGA’s music and philosophy. The Grand Astoria are one of the most prolific bands around and they also tour quite a lot, but this was the first time I was able to see them live. I was really curious, but at the same time tried not to set my expectations too high. Their records have a tendency to catch you off guard every time. Starting out as a largely instrumental jam act they moved towards a more punkier psych sound on recent full lengths, but they’re still prone to release curveballs like a 20 minute epic, a collection of acoustic songs or even a complete re-interpretation of a Black Flag album. So what would it be? Well it all turned out fairly traditional and most songs seemed culled from their last two albums La Belle Epoque and Punkadelia Supreme and brought in recognisable form. The band played tight and focused and managed to draw in most of the early arrivers who were in the room. Be it with groovy heavy psych tunes or more extended proggy freak-outs. Band leader and guitarist Kamille Sharapodinov traded vocals with keyboardist and fellow traveler Danila Danilov while the rest of the band settled in their roles as competent hired hands for this tour. Close to the end of the set the extravaganza part of the band’s identity finally permeated through when the Dutch bassist was offered center stage by Kamille and churned out effortlessly a 5 minute funky solo spot. I don’t know if they did this every night or just now because it was the last date of the tour, but the man surely held his own and mostly avoided boredom. After this we were treated to a final ten minutes of trademark TGA not-quite-prog rock and it became safe to say that the second day had started fine and was full of promise.
The Midnight Ghost Train
The Midnight Ghost Train’s set was without a doubt the most energetic, high powered set of the weekend. I had heard a bit of the band before, but in no way was I expecting this. The quite immense Steve Moss kicked of the set backed by sparse drums and bass and summoned his god to make it rain, make it rain. I learned later that this is a Tom Waits song and that makes perfect sense of course. What followed was an avalanche of thunderous licks, riffs and insane gravelly throated singing, the actual splitting of the skies and an ensuing deluge suddenly seemed much more plausible than the fine summer weather would make you think.
The Midnight Ghost Train play some sort of southern blues rock that has been pumped up on ‘roids till the point of (but not quite beyond) bursting and mutating into a filthy sludge. Not even half way through Moss was completely soaked in transpiration, but no relenting, no boy. The band just kept firing out the heavy blues, ‘Southern Belle’ was almost threatening and closer ‘Ain’t it a shame’ drained every last bit of physical and emotional energy from the first lines of the crowd and definitely still left a visible scratch mark on the souls all the way in the back.
Blown Out
Blown Out were playing inside and I stayed outside during their set, so I can’t tell you much, but I swear the whole building was vibrating to their super-heavy psyched out groove or was it a drone? Pretty hard to pin down maybe that is the point of their music, make your brain rattle so that thinking is rendered impossible and you just sort of flounder half-limp in the oscillating sound waves, or so.
The Flying Eyes
While De Bogaard’s roof top pigeons were returning to their favourite perches, now again motionless, the crowd was moving back to the sunny field and getting in the mood for the most tuneful act on the bill. I was personally looking out a lot to this one because I hadn’t seen The Flying Eyes yet and Lowlands is an album I always love returning to. Their concoction of hippie psychedelica, southern rock, and age old blues works as a mild mind expansive. The thing you may suddenly need about half way through any given day in order to keep your sanity during the rest of the day. You don’t freak out to The Flying Eyes, neither do you get down to it, you let their songs take you gently up, you float around on them for a while and then you go about your business neatly reinvigorated. At least, that’s what they do to me in their pre-recorded guise. And that Sunday afternoon was for many reasons the most perfect time possible to find out if the same is true for the live experience. And oh yes it is. Whether they were jamming out bluesy rock tunes or laying tapestries of FX drenched saw-fiddle it felt just right. They consistently struck a balance between focus and looseness. One moment singer Will Kelly was inviting the crowd to have beers with them and enjoy their and the festival’s tenth birthday and the next he would retreat into his bubble and churn out the true blues man’s most tormented wails. The beers went down easily and so was the landing after 50 minutes of a mildly hypnotic sonic voyage.
Terminal Cheesecake
After all that sunbathed bluesy bliss it was time for the greatest unknown quantity of this day’s Yellowstock bill. I had been doing my research and the prospect of that weird Gnod singer fronting a bunch of British pedigree noise/psych geezers actually sounded more enticing to me than it probably should.
They brought a full-bodied bass-heavy set to the indoor stage, propelled by the hardest hitting drummer of the weekend and topped off by layers of FX drenched guitar wails, the kind that nobody can get enough of on weekenders like these. Even though you can’t deny the superficial resemblance to other acts on the bill like Zone Six or Blown Out the general feel of Terminal Cheesecake is quite different. Their attitude to psych freak-outs is more that of recalcitrant anarchists than free-floating psychonauts. The non-conformist frontman is a dead give away, but there are more subtle hints of this as well: the quiff on the drummer’s head, the shit-eating grin on the trucker-capped bass player, a necklace made of toy animals and that whiff of poorly practiced punk still resonating in the feedback 30 or more years after they first picked up their guitars. Most important of all, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves and the band took their time to genuinely and sincerely thank us for showing up, likewise blokes, it was our pleasure too.
Greenleaf
Last band of the weekend to take to the main stage during daytime were Greenleaf from Sweden. They’ve been doing the rounds of Desertfest, Roadburn, Up In Smoke, and the like for a few years now so I bet 75% or more of the crowd had already seen them during the last 18 months or so. Greenleaf are of course a Swedish stoner rock band in the tradition of Dozer, Truckfighters and Lowrider. Like a multitude of other Swedish things (Absolut Wodka springs to the mind, but it’s not the only one) Greenleaf’s music is commendable, palatable, doesn’t fall apart immediately nor does it leave an unpleasant aftertaste and after all is done you find yourself doing some tough introspection: is this fulfilling? Has this experience brought me even somewhere near touching distance of satisfaction?
I know what my answers are, but kudos to Greenleaf for dishing out the unrelenting albeit predictable stoner rock that enough people still want to hear these days. And anyway don’t trust my opinion on Swedish products, I’ve been on #TeamFinland for the better part of 2 decades now.
Siena Root
Staying on topic, next up inside were Swedish retro-rock stalwarts Siena Root. They’ve been on the same circuit as the above band and I’ve seen them once or twice before at Yellowstock, but well I’m always looking out for a new gig of theirs. Siena Root stand for indulgence, let that be understood, and even though indulgence is sometimes a sin and often a nuisance this band can get away with it because they easily trigger that good old suspension of disbelief in their crowds, George Lucas could learn a trick from them. You aren’t just watching five 21st century longhairs in wide clothing with old instruments no you are experiencing the birth of an exciting new form of music that knows no boundaries, you are there, where it matters you know this is history in the making and you are fucking overjoyed to be part of it, if the acid has not completely burned through all of your synapses.
There have been occasions where the urge to jam seemed to have gotten the best of them but this time at Yellowstock they stayed focused, the singer got shoved aside for only 10 minutes or so and for once seemed an integral part of the band instead of just a set of hired vocal cords on duty. This band are a unit and their music has true transcendental power. A truly stellar set by a fantastic band.
Kadavar
And so we came to the inevitable, the last headliner on the last day of the last Yellowstock edition. To be frank I was quite disappointed that Kadavar were the chosen band. There’s nothing wrong with them, per se, but heck, they don’t even exist as long as the fest on which they were shutting the doors tonight. Moreover on both the occasions I witnessed them live before (first time at Yellowstock 4 years ago) they failed to leave a lasting impression. While enjoying the closing songs of Siena Root from the outside I got to chitchat with some knowledgeable folk and they told me that actually Colour Haze were the chosen band to headline the last day of the fest, but they pulled out and Kadavar stepped in. Indeed it would’ve made much more sense to have the legendary München power trio at that all-important legacy-defining top spot, but as it stood it was up the Berlin power trio to convince the masses that they could rise up to the occasion.
They kicked out off the starting blocks in high gear and didn’t relent much during the opening three tracks. Tiger, being the bewildered caveman behind the kit that he is, drew most of the attention to him, meanwhile Christoph “Lupus” Lindemann seemed to be mostly hiding himself behind a curtain of hair. His flimsy vocals searching for the right tone but wielding his guitar with both confidence and obvious routine. After “The Old Man” Lupus faced the audience for a bit longer and professed that they were honoured to be the last headliner of the Yellowstock fest and because of the special character of the evening they had a special treat to us: a front to back rendition of their whole first album. The crowd responded with an appreciative cheer. Kadavar has in the short time of their existence already become the kind of band that has a discography divided into “the first one” vs. “the rest”. Probably because they garnered some popularity outside of the retro/psych/stoner inner circle and signed to a bigger label, but tho hell with those observations, they fucking nailed it that night. The sound was full-bodied, the songs heavier than I remembered and most people got well into it, plenty of heads bobbing and arms flailing around to the tones of ‘All Our Thoughts’, ‘Creature of the Demon’ and so on. As the set went on the band seemed to enjoy themselves more on stage and ‘Purple Sage’ simply was a magnificent climax of the weekend. To answer my question of the first paragraph, yes Kadavar lived up to the occasion and left a mostly satisfied crowd behind on the field.
The Oscillation
After a brief moment of celebration and Freek thanking his “Yellowstock family” one last time we were all invited to join in for the last dance in De Bogaard with The Oscillation taking the stage. More than enough people still seemed up for it and the place filled up nicely for the very last concert in the Yellowstock history. I wasn’t acquainted with their sound but felt ready nonetheless for another trip on the back of psychedelic drones. The band started out nicely, and once they got to the trippy parts I was carried away, but not all the way. The Oscillation led their audience craftily into the arms of trance but then tended to let up a bit on the amplitude of the psych-waves, as to make us realize that escapism is allowed and fun and all that but still no replacement for the real world you’ll have to face. After such a cerebral moment they’d let the trance set back in. As you see they lived up to their name but after riding on one or two crests of The Oscillation’s pyschedelic surf I called it a gig and went outside to enjoy a last round of beers and banter at Yellowstock. As it turned out The Oscillation’s pulsating music was also very suitable as background music to such an otherwise mundane festival activity and managed to keep both nostalgia and euphoria at bay until it was all over for good and we started to realise how fucking special Yellowstock has been for all those years and how glad we were to have been a small part of it.
