Crossing Border Festival


I didn't plan my trip to Amsterdam to coincide with Crossing Border
Festival, but I should have. Crossing Border took place at venues around the
Leidesplein on November 2, 3 and 4, 2000. The event that pulls together music,
literature, film and spoken word performers. The Festival purposely blurs the
distinctions between the arts and emphasizes the commonalties. Films, poets,
writers and musicians shared the same stages and the same audiences. Musical
acts covered the spectrum from Emmilou Harris to Asian Dub Foundation and a lot
of ground in between. Unlike industry schmooze fests in the US like South By
Southwest, Crossing Border was all about the artists. That alone made the
festival pretty refreshing.

One thing that this festival does have in common with South by Southwest
are crowds. I watched Daniel Johnston for a few songs while standing on a
landing, down a rather long hall, peering over heads through an open door. Not
the ideal way to see a performer, but Daniel's die hard fans had completely
filled the room more than an hour before his performance. I made it into the
room for the Delgados but I was massed into the back corner of the theater. I
could see the band, but I could barely hear them over the chatter. The theater
in the Melkweg was so packed for Goldfrapp's set that the security would let one
person in when another left (the sounded pretty good from the lobby).

I heard a few authors who peaked my interest. English author China Meville
read a twisted passage about a hacker sabotaging the infamous World Hunger
Website. It sounded like a fusion of William Gibson cyberpunk with Carl
Hiaason's loony crime fiction. I've looked for Meville's books in the States,
but they don't appear to be available here. Tobias Hill's historical fiction
sounded like a richly drawn study of 18th Century Britton. Allain De Button did
a great stand up act to promote his book, the Consolation of Philosophy. He'd
take questions from the audience and match their complaint to a particular
philosophy. Why does life suck' If you think life sucks, the Nietze is your man'
My girlfriend says I smoke too much at the coffeeshops! You sound like a man who
enjoys pleasures. Epicures is the man for you, my friend.

One of the highlight of the festival was finally seeing the Go-Betweens.
After a decade of pursuing solo careers, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan
reunited as the Go-Betweens earlier this year. The studio band that recorded
Friends of Rachel Worth included members of hip young bands Sleater-Kinney and
Quasi. On the road, Forster and McLennan are joined by bass player is Adele
Pickvance (who has played with both men on their solo tours)and the drummer is
Matthias Strzoda.

The Go-Betweens have a very strange chemistry. Forster and McClennan look
like they arrived on the same stage but should be in different bands. Forster
looked like he was trying to fill Brian Ferry's shoes in Roxy Music with his
spiffy red pinstriped suit. McClennan, decked out in athletic gear and shades,
looked like he should have been across Leidesplein at the Melkweg with Asian Dub
Foundation. (Strzoda wore a nice conservative suit while Pickvance looked like a
Riot Grrrl.) Forster chided the audience about being too polite and McClennan
asked about other bands. For awhile it seemed like there were two solo shows
occupying the same stage. Slowly, the unity of the Go-Betweens asserted itself.
Old songs like "Streets of Your Town" brought back a warm glow. New Material
like "Orpheus Beach" cemented the continuity to the past. The set ended with the
audience was singing along to an extended version of "Surfing Magazines." It was
a strange magic, but it worked.

The Magnetic Fields had a different kind of strange chemistry for their
set. Claudia Gonson and Stephin Merritt appeared on stage wearing long Dr. Who
scarves, fighting colds and jet lag. On top of that, Merritt's electric guitar
would not stay in tune no matter what he did. Given the peculiar circumstance,
the band acquitted themselves quite well, concentrating on material from 69 Love
Songs and the recent 6ths disc. I've seen the Magnetic Fields play better.
Still, I'm impressed with the ease with which they diffuse a difficult situation
and win over the audience.

I was actually looking for the room where the Go-Betweens were going to
play when I wandered in on the Icelandic band, Bellatrix. They won me over
instantly. I had intended to find the room and go back to the Melkweg to catch
another band. The punky energy of the music and the charm of the ultra cute lead
singer/violin player captivated me. I stayed through the end of their set and
then retired to the Get Records display to pick up their disc It's All True.
(See related story).

There were two moments that really summed up the spirit of Crossing Border
for me. The first was when The Posies literally shared the stage with Said El
Haji. The Posies wandered on stage to do a soundcheck to a mostly empty room.
Ken Stringfellow started goofing around playing Big Star cover to test the
levels. Soon a crowd gathered and the Posies started their set early. They only
problem was that author Said El Haji was scheduled to read before the Posies
began. So the Posies played a few unscheduled songs, then yielded the stage to
El Haji. Said read an excerpt from his latest novel and I couldn't understand a
word of what he said (it was all in Dutch) but I laughed anyway. You don't
always need to know what is being said when the delivery is over the top. The
German fellow sitting next to me explained that Said's book in about a young man
experiencing conflict over his Dutch/Muslim identity. The passage he read was
about this guy hallucinating that Allah was telling him to sacrifice a goat, and
the Dutch farmer who wouldn't let him walk away with said animal. After
reprising the best bit of his reading for a Dutch TV crew, Said yielded the
stage back to the Posies for their scheduled set.

The Dutch band, DeKift personified the spirit of the festival. Their
performance incorporated film, spoken word performance, acting and of course
music. They hour long set featured films projected on screens behind the band,
but the narrative shifted frequently from scenes playing out on screen to scenes
played out on stage to pieces where the live action and films each carried part
of the story. DeKift displayed an amazing versatility not only in dealing with
the shifting narrative frame, but in playing music that ranged from beer hall
sing along to punk rock to jazz. My only problem with DeKift's amazing
performance (and this is really self criticism) is that I had trouble following
the story which was performed entirely in Dutch.