11-07-2008 North Sea Jazz

Venue: Ahoy Rotterdam (Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

North Sea Jazz is a major festival in the Netherlands. It is also one of the most known jazz festivals in Europe. Rotterdam is hosting it and although they hosting it only for the 3rd year (it was in The Hague before) all Rotterdam citizens embraced the festival.
Many festivities around the festival are organized and there is a very positive atmosphere in the city.
Many people from a lot of different countries make their way to Rotterdam to see this huge jazz event. And when I say huge I am serious. In total 16 stages, including two arena stages! All indoor! This day 22.000 visitors came to the festival.

Arena

Unfortunately when such a huge event comes, not everything is about to happen right at once, so come it took me 2 hours to get in. Lucky as I was I got help from 3 kind Italian guys. Being inside with the three of them we immediately got lost. We were walking around and suddenly we came to Murray stage, also known as “The Glass Palace”. Murray looks inside a bit like a circus tent with a lot of mirrors on the walls and the poles. The Adam Rogers Group was playing.
Adam Rogers is an American guitarist. His style is quite experimental and he played very precise. He brought Scott Colley on the bass and Clarence Penn on the drums. He won the Paul Acket award this evening, in the category “Artist Deserving Wider Recognition”.

After he got finished I made my way to the Yukon stage where I was just in time to catch up a few songs of Fink. This guy was sitting on stage with his guitar singing his songs. Musically, he is in style of folk music. I loved the way he dressed, together with the music he makes it brought a sort of gypsy mood in the air.

DBClifford

The tent of the Yukon stage was filled when DbClifford started. He is a songwriter from Canada. Songs influenced by The Beatles and Jamiroquai were played and it only took a while before people started dancing. He got announced as being a new upcoming talent. In Canada his first single named “Simple Things” made it to the top 40 and so it hits the people in the Netherlands as well. DbClifford brought two musicians with him and all together they played a bit around on the stage. As this performance proved the statement made at the announcement as new upcoming talent, the audience asked for an encore. After that the Yukon stage was closed, but acts such as Angie Stone, Jill Scott and Bootsy Collins were still on at the arena stages.

I took went to see the last part of Angie Stone, which was quite impressive. The evening goes on and on, the last performances end around 2 o’clock.
The city of Rotterdam took care of all the festival visitors, public transport stills goes to the city centre till early next morning. The next day will start the second of three days of North Sea Jazz with even more amazing acts

Pictures of DbClifford by sabinevangameren.com

Links:
Adam Rogers MySpace
Fink MySpace
DbClifford MySpace
Angie Stone MySpace