The Streets Lowlands Festival 2006

Biddinghuizen, The Netherlands, 19 August 2006

I bought 2 tickets for Lowlands, one for myself and one for my friend Laura, my friend Ozzy couldn’t go, because he was on a holiday, a sailing holiday in Croatia…. what a terrible life he has…. 😉

Right… I had a crisis, I had no money at all, and my car broke down as well, and I had to buy a new one, I need one for work, so I had to sell the tickets… it wouldn’t be enough for a new or 2nd hand car, but I could take public transport to work.

Laura helped the “Get Tess to Lowlands fund” and got an idea, why wouldn’t I work at Lowlands? Brilliant idea Lau!! When I got the working times, I found out that I was going to miss 30 minutes of the Streets. Well that’s not going to happen, they are the reason why I’m trying these options…

Then at the right moment, I found out that I could fill in some forms for my travel costs for work, from all the time I used the bus and metro and train…. I got so much back from the past 3 months, that I can buy a 2nd hand car & go to Lowlands, this time I had to go alone though, cos Laura made other plans.

I didn’t have to buy a ticket for Lowlands now either, because I got a ticket for my b-day from my dad. Well, the festival was sold out, but I bought my ticket on marktplaats.nl. My dad gave me the money that I needed.

Thursday, August 17th 2006:

My mum packed my bag, as I had to work a lot of overtime. Besides my tent, I had a bag with me, I think I could survive a whole month in the jungle, my mum gave me everything she could think of. “Mom, I’m going to a festival, it’s only 3 days. Thanks for your help though, I do appreciate it!!

Anyways, as I promised Mike, I brought my Union Jack bikini.

Friday, August 18th 2006:

I went to work in Amsterdam, only half a day today, at 1pm I finished I didn’t go home to Hillegom first, I went straight from work. I took the metro, the train, then transfer to another train then a shuttle bus. I arrived at lowlands the day before the Streets were playing.

It is 6pm, I set up the tent, but left the airbed for what it was. I wanted to see Snow Patrol. On my way to the tent where Snow Patrol would play, I met an English guy and spend the Friday evening with him on the festival. He was crazy! Probably the drugs in his body made him do weird and horrible and dirty, disgusting things and he scared me a little. I went to Hard-Fi and more bands with him.

When it was time to go to the tent he walked with me. He helped me with the airbed. I gave him some lemonade, something my mum had packed. I thanked him for making my airbed and wished him good night. That was not his plan, I think, because I haven’t heard of him for the rest of the weekend. “Well, I’m sorry, but I have a boyfriend”…. and you’re weird and scary, I’m glad I didn’t hear from him anymore.

August 19th 2006:

The day that the Streets were playing.

I went to see Urban Dance Squad, that was pretty good. I met a Dutch girl, I believe her name is Nicole. She was there alone as well. She came to Lowlands with a friend, but her friend left, her friend went home, because she didn’t like Lowlands much.

(not my video)

I also met Dolf Jansen, he is a Dutch Stand Up Comedian. There was a very tall man standing in front of me, sure he was longer then 2 meters. Dolf said, “Ask him if you can sit on his shoulders”, I thought it was a brilliant idea, so I did ask the guy. Guess being tall isn’t always nice, because he told me that he had a sore back, “That’s ok, thanks for thinking about it anyway, but please step aside, so I can still see something.” He stood behind me, thanks so much mate. Much appreciated!

I spend the rest of the weekend with Nicole. She asked me what I wanted to do, I told her that the only band I needed to see is The Streets, I didn’t care about the rest, she was fine with that and told me that she would join me. The rest of the day we chilled a bit, saw some theatre shows also FBI/CSI reading, if I can remember well. It was boring I nearly fell asleep…. we walked around the festival. We had some dinner, met another English man, he was there alone as well, enjoying his burger.

At 6.30 it was time to try to get to the front for the boys. I told Nicole, that I’m going my own way, I want to be up front, follow me! I can’t keep an eye on you. She agreed and followed me. She stood next to me.

At 7.20, nearly time for the Streets. DAMN I’m not up front, I texted Ozzy while he’s on that sailing boat. Only one girl in front of me though, so not too bad. Until there were two guys, who were up front, left, the girls said to each other, “shall we move more to the middle?”, I said “yes, please do…. so I can be up front as well”. The girls looked at me… confused. And they did move. YES I was up front, so was Nicole. And I text Ozzy again on that boat. “I made it, I’m up front”. Ozzy was laughing there on his sailing boat in Croatia.

I was wearing THE bikini™. Then Mike came on. He saw me and indeed he recognised me. Mike asked me if I wanted a drink. “Yes please!” So Mike came over to me and gave me a token and said “Get yourself a beer or wine later”. “What are you getting with that? A beer or wine?

During War of the sexes he said “pretend to listen, staring at her drink token” 😂

At the end of the gig the boys took their shirts off, so did Mike. Everybody threw their t-shirt in the audience, Mike waited. Until he stood right in front of me and then he threw it in the audience.

There was a girl next to me who caught it, obviously I grabbed it as well, but the girl was amazing, she said, “don’t worry, I give it to you. Mike knows you, I’m sure it’s meant for you anyway”, so when she got rid of all the hands, she gave Mike‘s t-shirt to me.

OH MY GOD!! WOOHOO!!!! I was so happy, I gave the girl a kiss and a cuddle.

After that… we went for a drink, I’ve never had such a lovely beer before. Haha well, I’ve had a Heineken before, but it never tasted the same. Although it was festival beer… thanks Mike!

After this we went back to the tent to bring Mike’s sweaty shirt there. Then we went back to the festival for a 90’s party. And we partied a bit longer.

August 20th

The next day Nicole and me met up again and went to see some more bands and theatre shows. That evening we saw the Artic Monkeys. They were not enjoying themselves. They looked bored! I preferred watching people sliding of the hills in the mud much more.

After this, it was time to go back to the tent to break it down and go home. I missed Muse because of this unfortunately, but I had to work the next day. At midnight I got home in Hillegom.

Didn’t have anymore plans. No more Streets gigs this year. 2006 was a great year. A new fan is born!

I started this blog for myself, I started with Amsterdam, my first gig, then Luxembourg and Lowlands. All in 2006. I showed them to some people on the forum of The Streets website. They said, you should put them together as a book, well… there were only 3 gigs, hardly enough for a book, but I can put them together in a blog. So I did. I started with the Apple website “iWeb“.