Saturday at Le Guess Who? this year heralded the introduction of Le Feast where 15 Utrecht households each welcomed a number of festival goers in for a feed and some chat so at 18:00 Stef & myself found ourselves (shamefully sans bottle of wine) settling down amidst a small international group for food themed music, excellent home cooked dishes and chat about the festival and beyond. Definitely an initiative that should carry on at future events.

Post-dinner we caught Magma for a couple of numbers in passing in the Ronda. They'd drawn what seemed to me the first major crowd for that hall so clearly the veteran prog/jazz group were a popular inclusion in the programme. We had other fish to fry though and weren't sorry to move on upstairs to secure a spot in the Pandora for Ringo Deathstarr.

As well as playing host to many of the most popular acts over the weekend this hall also seemed to suffer more technical issues than any other so the band were amongst those slightly delayed or interrupted by such things. They started off brightly enough once back on track but were curiously less engaging than on their recorded output.

As tonight had fewer personal "must-see" acts on the bill the next port of call was to see unknown New York trio Sunflower Bean over at the Acu venue. I nicely intimate hall well filled saw the likeable band play a set mainly culled from their forthcoming album Human Ceremony. Bassist Julia Cumming, pronouncing at one point that "bands shouldn't talk that much", has a very effective quick change from sweet to aggravated when singing, whilst Nick Kivlen manages to pull off some straight up guitar shapes that shouldn't really work in the context of the band's sound but somehow manage to.

More American unknowns were on at de Helling where recent Heavenly Recordings signings Nots were just taking to the stage after my sole drenching of the weekend. Visually it looked like two of The Donnas had joined forces with an electronics fan and a librarian but there was no way a simple "Shhh" would have damped down their raucous and hearfelt performance, their first in Europe. Finally I had a need for my earplugs. Single 'Reactor' and the rest of their set were torn through and the smallish crowd can be justly pleased with themselves for including this show in their attendances.

Back up to Acu next for the final bunch of unknowns, London's Housewives. The band utilise two drummers (albeit one only has a floor tom and a cymbal) to pound away in unison whilst the guitar and bass chop away and the monk-like vocals float over the top. Both Godflesh and Om came to mind during the songs I was able to see but the overall effect didn't really grab me.

The night was finished off back down at de Helling where Wavves enjoyed a capacity crowd and inspired more stage diving and crowd surfing than I've seen in a long time. Normally you see no security staff anywhere near the stages at Le Guess Who? but the extra bodies regularly taking to the stage had them hovering on the fringes this time. 'Way Too Much' and other tracks from new album V got a look in as well as older material such as 'Take On The World'. Nathan Williams had an uncomfortable start to the show due to the mic often shocking him but, with the application of a cover, that was consigned to the past and they carried on with the business at hand with 'King Of The Beach' being the most rapturously received song of the night.

The last act seen tonight were the Jacuzzi Boys, recently seen in Glasgow as support to Ex Hex & so a known quantity and one that didn't disappoint. Playing like their lives depended on it with barely a break between tracks they started off with 'Happy Damage' and inspired far more audience participation than at that earlier show. As is only fair when the band on stage are rocking out so hard. An enjoyable end to a night spent largely at the furthest reaches of the festival.  

It's been ten years since Maximo Park released A Certain Trigger, their seminal debut. Arguably a defining record of the mid-'00s indie boom, a lot has changed since Paul Smith and co scissor-kicked their way on the pages of NME. Many of their contemporaries have split up or faded in to obscurity, whilst others have been catapulted in to mega-stardom. Maximo Park on the other hand, have done none of those things. Instead they've tread comfortable waters, releasing a steady stream of albums, toured regularly and been celebrated by an ardent yet modest by comparison fan-base.

Tonight the focus is on their debut though, the album that made many of us here at the Albert Hall fall in love with the band, and the album which we're here to see in its entirety. The first half of the evening however, is dedicated to singles and rarities, the band careering through 'Girls Who Play Guitars' and 'The National Health', before a rare outing of early B-side 'A19' gets the pulses of die-hard fans racing. As does similar B-side 'A Year of Doubt', but it's 'Our Velocity' that gets the loudest reaction of the evening; the crowd's roar drowning out everything.

From our position behind, above and to the right of the stage, Smith's clearly overwhelmed by such a response, and thriving off it. Performing some impressively acrobatic dance moves that defy his skinny jeans, he bounces from band member to band member with gleeful abandon. Though there's little in the way of crowd interaction, it's more than made up for with the conviction they lavish on tracks that must have been played hundreds of times before.

In what's “possibly the longest encore ever”, over half the set in fact, Maximo Park begin the second part of the evening with 'Signal and Sign'. It's clear that these songs mean as much to the band as they do the crowd and it's obvious they enjoying playing some of these songs for the first time in a while. 'Apply Some Pressure' goes down predictably well, as does 'Going Missing', the track which spawned the aforementioned B-sides. Personal highlights come in the form of 'The Coast Is Always Changing' and 'Acrobat', though it seems the latter hasn't been played in a while, given Smith's, possibly ironic, reliance on a lyric book.

Though it's been over ten years since these tracks were written, they still resonate as strongly as ever. Some even more so. And while Maximo Park haven't reached the same kind of dizzying heights as early contemporaries such as Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian, their fans have stuck by them for a decade, something which stands as a testament to their longevity and something that makes tonight feel like a celebration of their relationship with their fans, as much as of that crucial first album.

The Tivoli Vredenburg venue has loads of areas that they can give concerts in, and one of those has eluded me up to this point, namely the one named Hertz. It is primarily used for classical concertos (is what I believe they call it), and today it is time for me to get in the classical kind of mood. So move over searing guitar bands like Titus Andronicus, A Place to Bury Strangers and all your kind that are also playing on this day, but let's sit back in one of the three layers of the Hertz hall to witness some proper arts, ya know?

Deaf Center is the first one to play. It is a combination of noisy ambient, a piano, and a guitar. The guitar, by the way, used in all kinds of ways, from being played as if a violin to just some old school guitar strumming. The noise makes sure there is always this layer of sound there, a bit grainy, a bit dark, and then the guitar and piano flesh the sound out or, often times, pierce through it with lighter, more hopeful sounds. That combination is something that always works well, it is the flower in the concrete industrial city, so to speak. Deaf Center also plays with volume, sometimes the music is very minimal, but on occasion they aren’t afraid to go at it a bit more loud.

Some stretches are interesting and captivating, though I’m not running to the merchandise stand afterwards. The hypnosis that this kind of music should bring doesn’t take hold of me, which makes the playing with light and deep, hard and soft also less effective. Now, it are hard circumstances and interesting circumstances for the band probably, as this is a festival where people like to come in and taste. So people who wouldn’t ordinarily be there will come in and have a listen, which is an enticing idea for the band probably. But these people are not going to sit down, be quiet, and stay for the whole show. So there’s always some noise, always people walking about, and always a beer bottle somewhere that is being knocked over. Also, don’t sit near the exit for this kind of thing, that amplifies all that, no doubt.

Swervedriver are playing a few floors down, and the veteran alternative rock band play their brand of shoegaze. A brand that doesn’t just include eyes down, building a wall of sound, and then dark, broody vocals on top of that. It veers more to the rock in terms of having songs that are interspersed with instrumental moments where the driving drums and the guitars work together to get going. That is also what is best about the show, the moments where the drums rattle their way forward, and the guitars bring it to completion before transitioning back to the song and the vocal part that belongs with it (which won’t be mistaken for Whitney Houston anytime soon). It’s good to see they are still going at it, but in terms of shoegaze I’m more traditionally inclined perhaps, and in terms of rock I maybe like more to happen on stage then that’s going on during this show.

Back to the Hertz room, as Lubomyr Melnyk is going to showcase his Continuous Music playing style. The older, Ukrainian gentleman is a mixture of two old professors I had class from back in the day. The humble demeanor, the large beard, the clothing, the slightly bend posture, and the enthusiasm for his craft is one, and again the enthusiasm, but with the tendency to go on and on until way after the bell for class has already rung is two. He, with love of the memory, tells a story of how he was playing in a hotel lobby at one point, just because there was a piano available. He said that probably most people thought, "Jeez, this old geezer at the piano, can he just shut up already?" (oblivious to the world renowned status of said player), but for the kids there, it was, "Wow, someone playing the piano". A lovely story, that gained an additional jokey layer when he went on about half an hour over his allotted time, and suddenly I was able to also understand the adults in the hotel lobby just a tad (for maybe he was on a 4-hour long marathon binge, who knows?).

Not that I was begging for it to be over (you can, in that case, just vote with your feet, so the people in front of me when leaving whining about how he went over time, you know, you can just stand up and go and fake having to catch a train or something). His quickfire playing style and the continuous piano sounds combined with the hits of the keys in between make for a lovely road of momentum, building a soundscape that one can fill with ones own feelings and emotions. The last track, called ‘Windmills’, especially is a good example of that. Probably the only lull is the song he does with the vocalist, who doesn’t come out of this endeavor all too well. But, in the end, a standing ovation, people hollering, and Melnyk repeating his call to see the beauty around us and in all of this world. A deserved ending, I’d say.

Since the concerto went over time, I can only catch the tail end of Anna Meredith, the young Scottish artist who is on stage with some extra people to help her out. And the wonderful thing here is that those people all bring something else to the project, from the more experimental and classical side of the cello and Meredith’s own clarinet, to the more contemporary and electro side of the music with some electro gadgetry and a big kick in the drum to give it this modern vibe next to the more compositional nature of some of it.

Even in the few songs I manage to catch I can see a whole range of influences, this being a woman who obviously isn’t thinking in boundaries and restrictions in terms of what goes. If it goes, it goes, and if it goes with a kick drum, then all the better. It makes for an interesting mixture of experimental, contemporary, compositional, worldly, and, oh horror, even some song structures in some of them to hang your hat on. Though not in all of them, and not all are equally accessible, but then the joy with which she is playing it makes it worth watching all the same.

Day two of Le Guess Who? 2015 and the big guns of the weekend were getting rolled out with some potentially ear-splitting acts on offer later in the evening's programme.

First port of call though was Moira to see the earliest act of the day, the homegrown project of songwriters Thjis Kuijken and Geert van der Velde - Black Oak. Think Buffalo Springfield and you'll be pretty close to the mutually beneficial and harmonious semi-acoustic americana they and their fellow players produce. Perhaps at times lyrically over-simplistic theirs was nonetheless a warm and engaging show.

On to the first of the bigger acts & more Canadian performers as The Besnard Lakes appeared in the Ronda at Tivoli Vredenburg. Here then was the first oddity of the night - sound at a moderate level and ample space to walk around freely in the upper reaches of the hall. Not that the band cared as they turned in as tight a performance as expected but for my money they're better appreciated in slightly more intimate surroundings and with greater volume.

Upstairs to the Pandora next for the unknown quantity that is Kaki King. Visually she takes the everything-produced-by-one-guitar thing to a new level as the instrument is fixed in place to allow it to also be utilised for projections and with the larger ones behind her the show realises her current project The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body. For me though if you've seen one person sample slapping the body of their guitar to get the drumbeat etc. you've seen them all.

A swift cycle to see more of the Kicking The Habit programme at Moira found up and comers Hooton Tennis Club just getting into position. Clearly an unknown quantity in Utrecht they didn't enjoy the largest of crowds & fell foul early on of a lack of spare guitar strings but you can't be too harsh on a band wherein one member sports a Brudenell Social Club t-shirt and which performs with such gusto (particularly 'Up In The Air').

Titus Andronicus were the second act of the night in the Ronda and were still running through the soundcheck when I got back there (interesting use of Grand Funk Railroad and 'Tarzan Boy' for that) so you had that odd experience of a band of their level all being on stage already then leaving to come back a little later as if none of us had been able to see them prior. They've a lot of songs to get through so there's no messing about once they return and energy aplenty being expended by all concerned. 'I Lost My Mind (+@)' and the rest are greatly appreciated by the main body of the crowd but again there's not the level of volume you'd expect and movement around the hall is comfortably achieved.

The reverse, at least as far as movement is concerned, is the case from now on at the Pandora. Protomartyr pack the place out, resulting in a one in/one out barrier having to be manned at the foot of the stairs. For my money the sound they were provided with was a little too clean, thereby making the overall performance seem a little pedestrian in places. Given the crowd reaction that's probably quite a minority opinion though.

Handily with the use of a bike this year the Tivoli de Helling is sooner reached than in years previous so squeezing in at the back of the rammed hall to take in some of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown takes no time at all. A performer for whom time seems to have stood still he's all over the stage, whooping up the audience (who need little encouragement), removing the keyboard from its stand so its player needs to come with it to keep the music going as it's the most important element of the band's sound and other antics. Even at this early stage people are calling out for 'Fire' but I presume that's always held over till the very end as I head off back into the city after the spirited version of 'I Put A Spell On You'. Definitely a highlight act of the weekend.

Once back at the main Tivoli the popularity of the Pandora means I've now failed to see Metz twice at Le Guess Who? With no wish to mill around in the vague 'queue' I head downstairs to the Ronda to see what Belgium's Evil Superstars are all about. The festival blurb mentions them in the same breath as dEUS, an act I've never got to grips with, and it turns out that I can't really do that with Evil Superstars either, despite their enjoyably cartoonish rear projections. If the Foo Fighters decided to start employing jazz time signatures and funkier basslines then this is I think the result you'd get.

Leaving Ronda as quickly as I arrived does at least allow time for some food from the Just Like Your Mom concession. The vegan carrot cake was grand but the jury's still out on the sausage roll. It also makes it possible to beat the rush and get into Pandora in good time for Viet Cong, who once more pack the place out but don't get the volume they deserve although they're not to everyone's taste as it's "five minutes of my life I won't get back" according to one audience member. Musing on whether some of today's programming should have been swapped around keeps me occupied on the cycle home.