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Home arrow Reviews arrow Books arrow "Kralingen: Holland Pop Festival 1970" - Peter Sijnke, Marcel Koopman
"Kralingen: Holland Pop Festival 1970" - Peter Sijnke, Marcel Koopman Print E-mail
Written by Matt   
Monday, 23 June 2014

"Kralingen: Holland Pop Festival 1970", a new Dutch language retrospective looking at this event, later to appear on film as Stamping Ground, has been recently published. It is a well researched and considered journey back in time, and includes a CD of musical highlights of the event (Pink Floyd included).

Kralingen is a smaller format hardback book, square, with a typically 70s festival image on the front – the sea of bodies and general chaos of attending such an event (all part of the "fun" of it - some people thrive on this, others, who like their creature comforts, don't!).

To position this review properly, my Dutch is rudimentary to say the least. Much of the text therefore was beyond my skills, as it would be for the majority of BD visitors, but the beauty of a retrospective such as this is that the visual (and audio) materials included within the covers provide more than enough of interest to most.

Many of you (the younger ones amongst us) will be unfamiliar with the very basic nature of outdoor concerts in the 1970s. Some youngsters today would have palpitations not having a strong 3G signal on their mobile, but as this book ably demonstrates, the 1970 Kralingen Festival featured not just an incredible selection of the year's biggest artists, but in an endearingly basic location, with negligible facilities.

Apart from attendees' own recollections of the bands who performed there, each act has its own section talking about their history, and their Kralingen appearance. Pink Floyd's section includes Roger Waters marking the sunrise at the site in the intro to Set The Controls, and there's a nice selection of six pictures of the band performing - all shots I don't recall seeing before.

The authors of this book have compiled an astonishing look at the event, from beginning (the planning) through to the end, with some really nicely reproduced advertising materials to go alongside the wide variety of photos. Theres also a section on the Stamping Ground film, a documentary about the Festival well known to older Floyd fans.

Finally, tucked into the back inside cover is a 16-track CD with musical highlights of the Festival, from Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, right through to the Floyd's A Sauceful of Secrets and Set The Controls, via tracks by Santana, The Byrds, Al Stewart, Soft Machine, and more. These are the same edits which appear in Stamping Ground, so if you have that, this CD doesn't offer any new material.

As a historical document, looking at how things used to be in music festivals, Kralingen does a great job. For Floyd fans, the addition of the pictures possibly unseen elsewhere, and the audio (which will be new to certainly a fair few) is a nice bonus, and - potential language barrier aside - it is a distinct possibility as an addition to the Floydian bookshelves.

If you wish to add this to your collection, you can place your orders through bol.com. At present, Amazon stores are not listing this as available. You might be able to find an alternate retailer though, and of course, stores in The Netherlands should have this on their shelves.

 
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