Since the night several weeks ago in Zimbabwe where we danced the night away to everything from traditional African tribal music to traditional Bon Jovi (whooohooo!), we’ve found ourselves more and more frequently out on the dance floor (or street) with friends, whooping it up and dancing late into the night.
As I said, it all started in Africa, but it continued the very first night that we were back in Holland. We ran into our friends Patrick and Sheila in the park and they told us that they had extra tickets for De Dijk, a very well known Dutch band that is a favorite from the late 80’s early 90’s. The band was playing Friday night at the amphitheater in our local wandelpark Caprera. Little did we know what we had signed up for when we accepted their invitation.
There were 7 of us at the show and apparently one of the infamous traditions of attending a Dijk concert is to drink bottle after bottle of really, really bad rose wine. But the sweet Boone's Farmish wine did help to prime us for when the band took the stage and the entire audience jumped to their feet. It felt more like a sing-along as everyone joined in, singing and dancing to well known favorites. Of course Beth and I had never heard any of the songs before and couldn’t understand a word of the garbled Dutch. But the music was great and the crowd’s enthusiasm was infectious so we just faked it, joining in like it was Don McLean’s American Pie. It poured down rain half way through the concert, but somehow that just added to the ambiance and we kept dancing and singing until the last encore.
The following weekend we biked over to Bloomendaal Jazz, a large street party in a chic little village about 3 km from us. Beth and I were just aimlessly wandering around between the different events and bands when we stumbled across Linke Soep - a really great 80’s/90’s coverband. They were playing a wide variety of music, mostly sung by their female vocalist. (U2 with a female lead…but it somehow worked). We quickly picked up the beat and pushed our way up to the stage where we spent the rest of the evening dancing on the old cobbled streets.
We liked Linke Soep enough to follow them the next weekend up to another village festival in less chic Santpoort. Our friend Esther came into town from Eindhoven and Sean and Sandra joined us as we all biked the 5 KM up to the village street party. The band was playing in a crowded little bar, but we still managed to stake out enough space to dance with the rest of the farmers. What a hoot!
And just last weekend I won the ‘husband of the year’ award by joining Beth back over at Caprera for ABBA Mania. This was an embarrassingly enjoyable show, complete with platform shoes and glitter hair. The band only let us sit for their intro piece, then they got everyone onto their feet and we found ourselves once again bouncing up and down the amphitheater - this time under a crystal clear night sky.
And one of the nicest things that we’ve noticed at all of these events is that we never stand out as 'the old farts' in the audience. In fact, we’re right at about the middle age bracket of the people who go to these types of things over here. I remember at the Bloemendaal festival taking a moment to look around at 11:00 pm. There were children splashing in a nearby fountain, teenagers dancing and trying to cop a mutual feel, loads of 30-40 - 50 somethings dancing, drinking and talking in groups, and quite a few senior citizens also swaying/bopping to the music – yes, even to the likes of Joan Jett.
And our favorite annual street festival is yet to come...Aug 18... Haarlem Jazz.
Ahhh….summer in Holland.
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