From the V.I.P Seats - Lokaal Part Five

Last Sunday was the fifth edition of the songwriter’s evenings in Lokaal, organised by the Den Haag Songwriters Guild. Ton Jenner, Natalie Hagen and JopLin were booked to perform. To keep it simple, we had them play that order. Furthermore, Ton helped us out with setting up for the evening, so it was handy that he also kicked the night off.

Ton has a very particular way of playing. His songs are full of meaning, and he brings across his message in a serious manner. Seriously enough to keep the audience’s attention till the very last note. Sometimes it can happen, when the subject matter of songs is on the darker side, that the audiences’ attention can begin to wander, due to expectation of a certain level of entertainment. In my opinion, Ton could act on this, and by using some clever introductions, could manipulate the emotions of his audience more deftly.

The second segment of the night was in Natalie’s hands. She performed together with Ray, one of the band members from her fresh band “Trailer Trash Nana”. A performance that the well-filled venue warmed to. The majority of the audience stood right up against the stage, which made it a difficult job for myself to take photos! Luckily popfotograaph Ron was on the frontline with his weapon ready to shoot. Her voice floated out into the street, and charmed more people in from the street.Soon we found ourselves looking at the first packed house since we started the gigs in Lokaal. Natalie finished her performance by introducing all the rest of the members of her band, who had all turned up to watch.

After a short break of a few minutes the final band of the evening, JopLin, took to the stage. Singer Joppe Quaedvlieg was accompanied by Lindy Janssen on the guitar. Their sensitive repertoire filled with humour, songs about metrosexuals, coffee (or sex, whatever you make of it), bought some entertaining variation into the performance. This Utrectrian duo uses quite peculiar lyrics. Vocals alternated with rhythmic speech and finger picking on guitar caused me almost to forget to take any photos.

It’s a bit unfortunate that every Sunday night around 11pm people start to head to their beds. But there will still 50 people in the venue, so we really had nothing to complain about. This was of course thanks to the commitment of JopLin, who kept the public charmed with their unique performance.

So once again we can confidently say it was a successful evening. There was a great atmosphere in the venue, where many people sat and discussed the singer songwriters who had presented themselves on the night. Next Sunday the Den Haag Songwriters Guild will be back in Lokaal once again, this time with Tzja Giantor, Colin Black, and from Rotterdam Aletta