The Guess Who? it is a festival unlike any other – Giovanni Ansaldo

Towards the end of Abdullah Ibrahim’s concert, two elderly gentlemen sitting next to me hold hands, a little moved. The 88-year-old South African pianist is playing an encore after receiving an ovation from a seated audience in one of the concert halls of the TivoliVredenburg, an auditorium in central Utrecht, the Netherlands. There is a bit of coming and going, because other spectators, who are all much younger than the gentlemen next to me, are leaving. Maybe they’re going to see another concert that’s just starting, that of the duo formed by Panda Bear (voice of Animal Collective) and Sonic Boom (of fame for co-founding the psychedelic rock band Spacemen 3 with Jason Pierce). Or maybe they go to listen to those who will start in half an hour: the Gnod, rock band from Manchester, or the Congolese pop musician Pierre Kwenders.

Le Guess Who?, which this year was held from 10 to 13 November, is exactly that: a festival that has few equals in the world, capable of crossing genres and ages, bringing pop music together with jazz, electronics, even the avant-garde. A vertical utopia well represented by the TivoliVredenburg, a space conceived for music and designed by the architect Herman Hertzberger which develops around its escalators, escalators and others, and is surrounded by huge windows showing the buildings and canals of the city. The largest room is on the ground floor. The higher you go, the smaller the concert spaces become and it seems to be inside a club.

This is why it happens that a symbol of South African jazz and the fight against apartheid like Ibrahim finds himself playing in front of kids who until now had barely heard of him: his concert for solo piano, which lasted just over an hour , it was so intense that time stopped. Also because, fortunately, there was a ban on using phones to take photos and videos. In the end, Ibrahim was greeted with a long round of applause, like a rock star, and before stepping off the stage he sang two songs a capella, his voice shaking, before taking another standing ovation.

Yet, rewinding the tape, Le Guess Who? it could be told in a completely different way. Perhaps starting from the concert by Goat, a Swedish band that combines sixties rock-funk influences with a pagan aesthetic and hides behind tribal masks. He filled the Ronda room to capacity, giving an enthralling performance, above all thanks to his rhythm section. In this case we could easily be at Primavera sound, or at any of the international summer rock festivals, with the audience crowding to get closer to the stage, jumping, dancing, sweating. Turning the tables again, we could talk about the performance of KOKOKO!, a project by a collective of Congolese musicians led by Makara Bianko together with the French electronic producer Débruit who deconstructs African electronics and music with an irresistible energy; or the sophisticated rock of Welsh Cate Le Bon, who arrived in top form with her band; or the experimental pop of the Colombian transplanted in Berlin Lucrecia Dalt, who blends the musical tradition of her country with the suggestions of European electronics; or, again, to the infectious rap of the American duo They hate change, author of an impeccable performance.

Among other things, the festival certainly didn’t end at the Tivoli Vredenburg: at Le Guess Who? happened to hear Lole Montoya, innovator of flamenco in the seventies in the duo Lole y Manuel, in the late afternoon inside the Jacobikerk, a Protestant church in the city center; or Dj Travella, a nineteen-year-old brought here by the Ugandan label Nyege Nyege, who at two in the morning jumped like a cricket during a DJ set with very high bpm inside the Basis, a small disco with a low roof overlooking the canals of Utrecht.

The Guess Who? was born fifteen years ago thanks to two Dutch promoters, Bob van Heur and Johan Gijsen, with the idea of ​​bringing musicians from the Canadian scene to the Netherlands. In fact, at the first edition there were only artists from that country, starting with Caribou. But slowly it changed and grew, taking advantage of the investments of the city of Utrecht (which wanted the construction of the TivoliVredenburg, without which the current festival would be unthinkable) and a courage and foresight in setting up a program that are difficult to find in other European festivals. Furthermore, Guess Who? has picked up the baton of a festival that no longer exists, the All Tomorrow’s Parties in London, imitating its choice to let some of the invited musicians take care of part of the line up. The first was Michael Gira of the Swans in 2014. And this is one of the aspects that guarantee the diversity of the festival. This year the curators were the experimental rap group clipping., the London collective CURL (which includes Mica Levi, Brother May and Coby Sey) and the Americans Animal Collective, who however did not show up following the cancellation of the whole European tour for economic reasons, sending only Panda Bear in their place.

By the way, defections are an inevitable theme of the 2022 edition. The Guess Who? it has clearly shown what it means to have a festival in the post-pandemic world. Numerous artists, some very important, did not show up this year. If that of the American Low was unfortunately a special case – the absence of the band was due to the recent death of the drummer and singer Mimi Parker – all the other defections were due to logistical and economic reasons: if musicians like Animal Collective are forced to cancel their European tour means that there is a big problem for the whole live music industry.

But the strength of the Dutch festival, as mentioned, was to go further: Le Guess Who?, by precise will of the organizers, has no headliners, as the top artists are called in jargon, those written in larger characters on the bill . As the organizers themselves said in a podcast on the history of the event, “Utrecht is our headliner”. The concept of the widespread festival, which contaminates the city for a few days, in a certain way brings to mind the American case of South by Southwest, which however is an event with much larger dimensions and economic volumes. And this is another winning aspect of the Dutch event. The atmosphere you breathe at concerts – relaxed, with an educated and attentive, curious audience – is breathed in a large part of the city, even when you simply take a tourist stroll through the canals in the morning.

The Guess Who? it is a stimulating and visionary festival, but also livable. Those who have followed it for years go there regardless, even before the program comes out, because they trust the organizers. After all, sometimes it’s nice to go to a concert without having a precise idea of ​​what will happen, almost relieved by the desire to listen to a specific group or repertoire. Do you go to the Guess Who? to relive emotions, but to try new ones. Of course, that’s not always good, because sometimes it happens that you find yourself at a concert that you don’t like. But in the end, back in Italy, one gets the impression of having learned many things.