De Nachten

De Nachten are the Mecca of the Belgian Alternative scene: a yearly festival, devoted entirely to alternative music. This is where the 'stars' come out!

De Nachten ('The Nights') started in 1996 as a concept about Paul Van Ostayen, a famous Antwerp expressionist poet who was born in 1896. It was all very underground, the location at that time being the deserted and almost collapsing railway station Antwerpen Zuid (recently almost broken down but perhaps now being restored).

Because of these origins, De Nachten are still just more than a pop concert: the line-up consists of musicians and of poets. Sometimes, musicians read poems (like Nick Cave did) or poets work with musicians to create a background noise to their art. There is also heavy use of video projection.

In january 1997, De Nachten moved to the CC Berchem, the cultural centre of one of the Antwerp suburbs. The CC Berchem has since become one of the 'places to be' for smaller festivals and alternative happenings, but it became too small for De Nachten.

A third location was found in 1998 in De Singel. De Singel is the temple of 'high' culture, a concert hall where normally only classical or world music find their place, attached to the Antwerp music academy. But since many of the musicians of the alternative scene were trained in the music academy, perhaps it's not really that strange to see how youth culture and 'art culture' are joined together.

The atmosphere is quite unique: it is an indoor festival in a very cosy environment, carpet everywhere, warm halls in the dead of winter, relatively easy chairs, and a mass of people you know, don't know and think you remember from somewhere: everybody who means anything to the scene, or to whom the scene means anything is there.

The fourth edition (1999) extended even more. While the main event is still 'De Nachten' in De Singel, a spin-off toured through Flanders in the winter of 2000: De Nachten On Tour. They visited many cities in Flanders with a constantly changing line-up. The return of De Nachten to De Singel was celebrated as 'De Nachten Back Home' (2000) and there was a 'Nacht van De Singel' when De Singel celebrated its 20th anniversary, with both classical and pop music.

The sixth edition (2001) was centered around dead singer-songwriter Nick Drake, and was a kind of 'back to the roots': less electronic acts and less international artists made room for great Belgian bands and people like Mauro Pawlowski, Gore Slut and Tom Barman.

The seventh edition (2002) was very modest: the only 'big name' was Millionaire, with Flip Kowlier + 't Hof van Commerce, Starflam and Buffalo Tom's Bill Janovitz as 'second line'. There were interesting acts and wonderful surprises (Ming, Les Messieurs and the Moldy Peaches come to mind) but over all it wasn't like the success of the previous year.

The official site can be found at www.denachten.com.