Tonight is the 10th anniversary of The Life I Live festival. Note: their website is definitely experiencing server capacity issues, so it is a bit hit or miss to visit it right now.
The last edition was of course in 2019. It is held in The Hague’s city centre, with musical acts spread out over about 8-10 stages. The opener this year was the Ukrainian band Go_A. Last year they participated in the Eurovision Song festival held in Rotterdam. This year the band got special permission from the Ukrainian government to travel to The Hague to perform (as technically Ukrainian men are not supposed to leave Ukraine right now).
This stage was at the Lange Voorhout not far from the Escher museum and Hotel Des Indes.
This smaller stage was on the opposite end of the Lange Voorhout, featuring the band Kuzko. I didn’t stay long, but they really brought the bass! It was a weird feeling to feel the bass after not going to any concerts the last two years.
King’s Night (and more accurately King’s Day) is a holiday to celebrate the birth of the Dutch King Willem Alexander who turns 55 tomorrow. The joke “Max komt misschien later…” is a joke that Max Verstappen, the 2021 F1 world champion, might stop by here later. Hmm.
(Man, I still remember when it was weird to see Willem Alexander with a beard!)
A random shopping street with many Dutch flags out to celebrate the holiday (and possibly also to celebrate the first major celebration since in this corona era).
Above is the band “The Great Communicators” at the Grote Markt stage. This was the only one that had visible security, with bag checks and only one entrance in and out.
And a close up.
The only thing I didn’t take a photo of which might have been interesting was the group of 3-4 convenience store workers hastily ripping off plastic from the trays of Heineken beer to sell the cans to passersby. (Yuck. Warm beer.) A lot of stores are making a pretty penny tonight, as the festivities go on until 01:00.
Life in the Hague 
Fun times. The old “queen’s night” before it became too popular then was forced to stop was more fun than the current festival though. But it’s fun to walk around Life 2 Live for a bit.
Interesting food for thought. When I read Max I also think of Verstappen who kinda is the king of Netherlands now right? Or is it referring to Willem Alexander’s wife Maxima? I’m undecided 🙂