Lowlands 2007

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Bringing 60,000 youth together for 3 days and 4 nights in an area of about 200 acres is madness. The only sensible thing to do under these circumstances is to allow them to bring their marijuana and hope for the best. Which is what they did, at the Lowlands music festival in Holland this past weekend. Lady fortune smiled down on the festival because no one died or lost their mind for any extended period of time.



It took me about 12 hours to adjust, and about 24 hours to seriously get into whatever it was that was happening. We arrived Thursday evening around eight to find the camping grounds to be completely and utterly packed with tents. Already tired of hauling our shit from the parking lot to the campsite, we spent another hour or so searching for a spot to put up our five tents together, which was hopeless from the start. I ended up jumping a ditch to claim a small patch between some bushes, severely spraining an ankle in the process. The prospect of limping around the festival for three days put a bit of a damper on the first evening. Also, coming from an ecological village in Sweden where I had been living and working for the previous week and a half, to this burning and howling place of madness was a bit of a culture shock. "What the fuck am I doing here!?" Indeed. What pulled me through the first evening was the realization that, despite appearances, this was still a civilized country, and if I would just brace myself and go for it, everything would be fine.

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The next morning, right after waking up, we started smoking hashish and kept this up for the duration of the event. A little over noon I felt ready to hit the festival grounds. Around midnight I felt I was truly into the swing. I remembered from previous, similar, festivals I've been to that it always takes some time, drink & drugs to get adjusted, whether you had a particularly bad start or not. After a while, the enormous crowd of people turns from an obstacle you have to scale, into the sea that keeps you afloat. After a while, the strange and larger-than-life objects of art that are scattered about the area turn from visions of a nightmarish hallucination into reference points that help you orientate and that actually make sense. After a while, the noise coming at you from 5 different stages turns from a torment that prevents you from thinking straight, to a reassuring baseline that reminds you you are there and alive. Lying on my back on one of the large blue relaxing pillows, staring at the dark clouds overhead with a joint in my mouth, surrounded by strange people and weird music, I didn't go insane. Surely, that must count for something.



Towards the end of the festival the true nature of the crowd became more and more apparent. Old folks were looking with empty eyes as they made their way across the festival grounds. Looking at the young people, once their hopes for the future, degrading themselves to the level of decadent and careless festival beasts. They had no choice, there was no alternative. There is only one way to do this, and that is to totally submerge yourself in the mud and the muck. Don't resist it, it will only leave you tired and gasping for air. Be a beast at this festival or don't be at all.


the exodus

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Some more pics: