Het Paard in The Hague grew from a scruffy youth club to an adult pop temple.The common thread in the programming is the local music scene. “We want to bea springboard.”
Thijs PapôtOctober 13, 202208:25
It is displayed like an archaeological find: the old dressing room door,covered with a dizzying amount of tire stickers. It is a collage of musicalfootnotes in the turbulent history of the Horse, which you can gaze at for along time. The ‘excavation’ is significant, because tangible memories of thepast of the pop temple in The Hague have hardly been left since therenovation.
Stories all the more. Visitors are invited to share their personal anecdotesabout the Horse in the video booth , in the former smoking area. ‘Memorableconcerts, awkward situations or even love stories’ director Majel Blondenhopes to collect. “We want to release it as a compilation.” The occasion isthe fiftieth anniversary of the stage, which opened its doors on thePrinsegracht on 21 October 1972 as the Trojan Horse.
“The Hague was longing for the Horse at the time,” says keyboardist and Haguedoctor Robert Jan Stips. ‘Beatstad’ The Hague was regarded as the Mecca ofDutch pop music at the end of the sixties. Big names like Shocking Blue,Golden Earrings and Sandy Coast spearheaded a scene that reportedly had morethan 2,000 bands.
Musical discovery and experiment
“A lot of subculture, but without a stage of its own,” says Stips. “The 1970swere dominated by musical discovery and experimentation. An exciting time froman artistic point of view, but commercially uninteresting for sports halls anddiscotheques.” The Horse came to the rescue.
The crowd was great when Stips performed there for the first time with hisprogressive rock band Supersister. The converted meeting hall of a formerCatholic girls’ boarding school turned out to be no match for the band’spopularity. “The building was a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, crawlingwith visitors who didn’t fit in the room.”
Ten days of party
With a ten-day anniversary program from 21 October, the Horse will skim past,present and future. In addition to performances by the Belgian dEUS and WhiteLies from London, there is a ‘Kitchen concert’ by artist and chef Jasper Udinkten Cate and the festival evening The Time is Now is all about women ‘swimmingagainst the tide’. , including Dutch-Iranian singer Sevdaliza and rap duoLionstorm.
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The Paard van Troje, located in three 17th-century mansions, was thereforeintended as a youth center, initiated by municipal welfare work. The foundersthought it was a fitting name, because they wanted to conquer the neat Hofstadfrom the gut. With a range of activities that breathed ‘freedom’. For example,there was yoga in the confessional room, drawing lessons and a women’s café inthe basement and ‘naked dance’ in the chapel.
The aim to offer a meeting place for ‘all young people in The Hague’ broughttogether a remarkable mix of visitors. Groups of hippies, Surinamese and HellsAngels gathered around the football table, the billiards table and thesteaming kettle of the teahouse in the attic. But it didn’t want to be amelting pot, says Paard chronicler Robert-Jan Rueb. “It was a multiculturalpowder keg, with drug use as the proverbial fuse.” A violent incident andcomplaints about disturbances and drug nuisance led to closure twice in ashort time.
The Trojan Horse in 1973Stockfish statue, collection of The Hague MunicipalArchives
‘I went there secretly’
The negative image remained attached to the center for a long time, accordingto Rueb. “I secretly went there when I was 15, because my parents thought itwas a place of destruction.”
The center also played a prominent role in the Dutch culture of tolerance. Thepresence of a house dealer in hashish attracted a lot of attention from themedia and policy makers, and in 1978 served – on the intercession of amunicipal drug advisory committee – as a blueprint for a national soft drugpolicy.
The rise of the squatters’ movement and punk music ushered in a new era, inwhich, in Rueb’s words, ‘Indian strings and floaty dance’ were exchanged forlink chains and ferocious pogo. Shabby but cosy, musician Henk Koorn sums upthe atmosphere at that time. “You kept your coat on or you threw it on theground. There was no wardrobe.”
Impressive posters
It became the musical living room of The Hague, where Koorn’s band HalloVenray enjoyed the designation ‘house band’ for a long time. “Because we livedin a squat across the street and could therefore be called up quickly toprovide the support act or to test the sound system.”
Despite the organizational and financial chaos of the early years, Het Paardsucceeded in its ambition to become one of the defining halls of the Dutch popcircuit. For domestic, but also foreign bands. The hall could boast ofimpressive posters of bands such as The Cure, U2, Pearl Jam and Radiohead –which had not yet broken through at the time. And, never unmentioned, thenightly surprise concerts of Prince and Mick Jagger.
The property remained a problem
The inefficient layout of the property remained a problem. “Luring renownedforeign artists to The Hague became increasingly difficult,” says directorBlonden, who worked as a programmer in the late 1990s. Also because the Dutchhall landscape went through a process of modernization around the turn of thecentury, whereby scaling up was the norm. Het Paard cannot stay behind andeventually the municipality gave in.
After a four-year renovation, in which only the facade was spared, a new largehall was taken into use in 2003. The concrete and soundproof box-within-a-boxconstruction, designed by architect Rem Koolhaas, can accommodate 1,100 people– a capacity doubling. Less characteristic perhaps, but the Horse (now withoutTroy) was back on the international map. Blonden: “We are now one of thelargest cultural institutions in The Hague, with a quarter of a millionvisitors a year”.
The Trojan Horse in 1977Sculpture Robert Scheers, collection The HagueMunicipal Archives
The Hague music scene
This was also the result of a more audience-friendly and broader programming,with space for art and literature, student evenings and political meetings inaddition to music and dance. “We are no longer a niche stage, but we propagatepop culture in the broadest sense of the word,” says Blonden while GuusMeeuwis’ roadies set up his show in the main hall.
The common thread in the programming remained the music scene in The Hague,with new generations of talent. The first Paard performances were also thestarting point of their careers for newly arrived bands such as Di-rect andSon Mieux. “We want to be a springboard for artists by guiding and supportingthem.”
The most logical place on earth
Beginning musicians have had a harder time since the pandemic, Blonden pointsout. “People have so much to catch up after two years of corona: parties,concerts, weddings. That seems to be at the expense of the lesser-known bandsthat we present in the small hall or the Paardcafé.”
Hague veterans such as Henk Koorn still find shelter in the Paard. ‘The mostlogical place on earth’ to christen the new Hallo Venray album last month,according to Koorn. His Joy Division tribute in the upcoming anniversary weekis a nod to the time when he himself could be found daily in the Paard.
Or was everything better in the past? “The Horse has changed from a dirtyknickers club to a clean knickers club.” He smiles. “That’s not a valuejudgment.”
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