In the late Seventies I became a fan of electronic music after purchasing albums by
Tangerine Dream and
Klaus Schulze, aka The Berlin School. To be honest, this 30th edition of the Dutch electronic music festival
E-Live was my first visit. So, during all those years I have missed performances by
Airsculpture,
Arc,
Rogue Element,
Red Shift,
Radio Massacre International,
Neuronium, and
Ron Boots,
to name a few, mouthwatering!
But today I was lucky with a top notch electronic music line-up, the best for years. And with almost 300 visitors
E-Live was close to sold out. The annual event is organized by Groove Unlimited, and prime mover Ron Boots did
the presentation during the festival, in his unique, often humorous way. During the gigs the EM fans could buy
a wide range of electronic music from several labels and artists, a kind of Electronic Music Heaven.
In the so called upperroom the festival started with a performance by the 10-year old (!)
Ansgar Stock,
it turned out to be a packed house, and an excellent gig, lots of euphoric words from the visitors. Only around
75 were allowed, people were stretching their necks at the entrance of the upperroom, in order to see a glimpse
of that very promising young EM musician.
Next the official start at the very comfortable theatre, good views from all side. The first musician was
C-Jay
(real name is
Christian Jansen), he was asked to present his album
Adem, after 3 months of preparation.
C-Jay delivered a pleasant and accessible sound, reminding me of the Berlin School,
JM Jarre and ambient.
The crowd responded to his performance with a lot of claps and cheers.
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C-Jay |
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Broekhuis, Keller & Schonwalder |
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Then
Broekhuis, Keller & Schonwalder, a very popular and prolific long-time Dutch-German project, playing
compositions from their new album
Purple, in the vein of the Berlin School: very melodic and loaded with
exciting work on sequencers and synthesizers, especially two tracks from the album
Green, with sultry Middle-East
sounding violins, goose bumps. A special feature was Keller playing on the laser harp.
The following artist was 'down to Memory Lane' for me:
Rob Papen, once a member of Dutch electronic band
Peru, I bought a series of albums in the late Eighties. In 1982 Rob Papen also had a #1 single with the
synth-pop trio
Nova entitled
Aurora. Rob Papen was born on 8 October 1964, at the age of 15 he started
with the Korg MS-20 synthesizer and a SQ-10 sequencer, on these machines he learned how to program synthesizers.
These experiences inspired him to compose music, He studied electronic organ (loving
JS Bach). And through
groups like Tangerine Dream,
Kraftwerk and artists like J.M. Jarre,
Georgio Morroder,
Vangelis
and Klaus Schulze he started making electronic music, also at the age of 15. In 2018 Rob Papen released the album
The Return, the first new one since
The Prophecies from 1993. Rob's set on E-Live was an excellent
blend of Berlin School and more modern electronic music featuring awesome work on sequencers, and spacey flights
on the Mini Moog synthesizer. His music was supported by mind blowing visuals, from
Hans Bijloo, enhancing
the music in a very pleasant way! The crowd showed its appreciation for this great gig with a standing ovation for Rob Papen.
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Rob Papen |
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Ian Boddy |
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The final performance for the day (around 0900PM) was by EM legend
Ian Boddy, he played without visuals,
in order to let the fans focus on his unique work (between Berlin School, experimental and ambient) on a wide
range of knobs and wires, and the Moog Voyager. This was EM magic, and Ian Boddy succeeded to mesmerize the crowd,
another standing ovation. Around 1100PM everybody went home very satisfied, a big hand for the organization, the
crew from De Enck, the grateful fans, and especially the artists!
Erik Neuteboom (edited by Dave Smith)