WHY LEFT OF THE DIAL IS CALLED AN ‘ALTERNATIVE’ SHOWCASE FESTIVAL

(or: everybody is entitled to their own opinion)

A little while ago, someone let us know they took offense to us calling Left of the Dial an alternative showcase festival. The showcase part was fine, but apparently ‘alternative’ is insulting to some. We’re still not sure exactly why, but just in case more people were wondering, please allow us to elaborate:

Decades ago, popular music was roughly divided into two categories. On the one hand you had music the major record companies released, and on the other you had artists who put out their own music, or who were signed to small independent labels. The latter group was referred to in the UK as ‘indie’, or in the USA as ‘alternative’.

Not much has changed.

Most music in the charts nowadays is performed by a single artist, but written by a team of experts in making hit records. Of course there are exceptions, but most of these performing artists can hardly play one note on any instrument. On the other hand, you have artists and bands who write and perform their own music. For some reason, major record companies and big radio stations are less interested in those multi-talented artists.

But Left of the Dial is.

We have nothing against pop songs fabricated in high-end studios with the sole purpose of making loads of money. To each their own and if one of those songs leads someone to listening to more music, great. However, artists performing these songs don’t need Left of the Dial. 

Artists who write and perform their own songs do.

Some time probably in the 1990s, the meaning of ‘alternative’ shifted from ‘independent’ to a term used to describe rock bands like Nirvana, or R.E.M. and if you think we’re comparing all Left of the Dial artists to those kind of bands, we sort of understand that could cause some annoyance. 

But of course we are not.

To cut a way too long story short: by ‘alternative’ we simply mean that Left of the Dial artists are an alternative to the mainstream prefab pop music. We considered ‘a showcase festival for artists creative enough to write their own material and brave enough to climb on stage to perform that material to a new crowd’ but for reasons of brevity we opted for ‘alternative’.

You can still be offended if you want and you are also welcome to think it’s the lamest term ever, because everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

But so are we and unless someone comes up with something better, we’re sticking with ‘alternative’.

Big love,

The redefining-words-team of Left of the Dial

STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

Left of the Dial tries to be more than just a festival with a bunch of bands playing. Of course, music always comes first, but we want our ticketholders to experience something more. That’s why we have the Extra Extras for instance. An even better example of how we try to do things differently is the way we planned to set up the festival during the pandemic:

In 2020, with just a few days to go to the festival the government issued new regulations and we had no choice but to cancel the festival. We were absolutely gutted, because despite everything happening in the world, it was going to be the greatest festival. Due to all the restrictions, it was going to take place in 7 halls of one venue, and everybody had to be seated during shows. That was simply stated in the protocol. But that protocol didn´t specify what kind of chairs we had to use. And so, we had a room with wheelchairs, a room with exercise bikes and even a room with only rocking horses. We also had a room with a ‘one person wall of death’, and lots of more stuff to make people feel that they we’re finally at a real festival again.

It was going to be spectacular. And we essentially owe that to one specific person.

This person was one of the organisers of basically the first big European music festival, much like Woodstock. It took place in 1970, in our very own Rotterdam. Bands like Pink Floyd, T-Rex and The Byrds were playing to a crowd of 100,000 hippies. They had volunteers wearing shirts with ‘we help you’ printed on them to take care of everyone who lost their friends, took too many drugs, or had other problems.

Later on, this person organised another (indoor) festival in De Doelen, which is also one of the Left of the Dial venues. This was a blueprint for all festivals to come which wanted their punters to experience more than simply some shows. There were girls in bikini standing in giant plexiglass fishtanks filled with lemonade and each and every one entering De Doelen got photographed which resulted in collection with 6543 portraits. A rope was tied around the building and at one point set on fire, which made it appear as if De Doelen was burning down. Ask anyone who was there, it was a spectacular festival.  

The person responsible for all this retired from festival organising a long time ago, but his work remains the reason why we’re always trying to come up with weird things to liven up the festival.

So as a small gesture of our gratitude, our volunteers will be wearing ‘we help you security jackets’ as a reference to the first festival he organised. Now, we know a few printed jackets aren’t all that special, but it’s our way of acknowledging that we’re doing nothing new, we’re really merely standing on the shoulders of giants. 

Can’t wait to see you in October.

Lots of love,

The history respecting team of Left of the Dial