The Bullet Is There: Best Kept Secret kicks off their 2024 lineup with Justice, Disclosure, and PJ Harvey, among others. This announcement came much earlier than last year, but it once again appears to be a topic of discussion. We particularly noted the following.
1. Inkara is not Primavera
Years ago, Best Kept Secret placed themselves in a niche within Barcelona’s Primavera Sound music stream, with which they often shared several headliners and also several smaller bands. There is also some overlap this year – we notice, among others, Amyl & the Sniffers, Disclosure, Julie Byrne, Justice, PJ Harvey and The Armed. Collecting all the names is not realistic, but neither is the rich harvest. Many visitors will be disappointed that The National was not included in the line-up. And of course we also mourn Pulp, Lana Del Rey, Troye Sivan, Arca, SZA, and Mitski.
Anyway, the ‘failures’ are perhaps the most obvious in this relegation: Massive Attack play in Denmark on the same weekend and still have some catching up to do in BKS, but are still missing out. Dream headliner LCD Soundsystem is on a festival tour in early summer: but it won’t go beyond Hilvarenbeek. Although it must be said that Primavera is also absent from these last two chapters. Who knows why, let me know.
2. Small big names
What is also striking is that the artists are described in the press release as “big names” in addition to the headliners. Maybe it’s just us, but we would never put La Femme, Libianca, Parcels and BADBADNOTGOOD in this category – we’ve never heard of Libianca. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it, but at least big is very relative here.
Naturally, there are not many mid-sized names to be found. While Interpol, 1975, and Caroline Polaszek (2023) or Fontaine, D.C., Beechhouse, and Jesse Weir (2022) have in recent years filled the gap between closed acts and lesser-known acts at the bottom, there is a lack of acts that will fill, e.g. AFAS Live.
3. Beats on top
DJs have been given a more prominent role on Best Kept Secret in recent years, and it appears that this development has now reached the highest reaches of the label. It’s not yet clear who the headliner will be, but it looks like both Justice and Disclosure will close out the main stage. They don’t do this with a DJ set meaning songs from others will appear as well. But Disclosure’s set is more or less a DJ set with their own songs, and Justice’s live set has largely been reduced to that in the past. There’s no doubt they’ll move the turf, but will they also be memorable endings?
4. What are the people?
The third title, which seems obvious, is PJ Harvey, who began her career with heavy rock, but has increasingly moved towards more distinctive ballads over the past twelve years. Her latest recordings are also noteworthy, but we hope that for her headliner she draws on her previous works a little more than she did during her last visit to Paradiso – and doesn’t wait until the last song to say hello to the crowd. It’s a great booking in itself, but the question is whether it will work with tens of thousands of people on that huge stage.
(Do you like totally weird people? Then you might as well call in the gorgeous Julie Byrne this year.)
5. Play that evil music
The loudest and rudest rock bands at Best Kept Secret had to be isolated in the Kasbah, but in 2023, they will occupy an increased space. The new punk generation is well represented, including Amyl & the Sniffers (a Lowlands and Pukkelpop 2023 standout), Mannequin Pussy, Viagra Boys, and the highly recommended band The Armed from Detroit. Add to that, fans of rock music and the completely unpredictable Osies can’t complain.
Join the discussion
Would you like to share your opinion about first names? Or do you think you already know more about the rest of the BKS 2024 lineup? Then speculate further on the Festileaks forum. There are a lot of discussions going on around the topic of BKS 2024.
Do you prefer to communicate with other festival goers via WhatsApp? You will find it in our Festifans WhatsApp community A collection dedicated to fans of Best Kept Secret.
Best kept secret 2024
Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands
date
June 7-9, 2024
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