“Wolf Hour” (NPO 2) Honors Double Style Gold Earring

The NTR documentary “Het Uur van de Wolf” will broadcast this duo on Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 November at 8.30pm on NPO2. The central question in this film by director Marcel de Vries is how the rock formations from The Hague have managed to survive for sixty years. The movie makes it clear that this was not obvious. In the 1960s, for example, the lineup was regularly modified, the gold earring lacked a real leader, mutual communication was sometimes difficult and members regularly struggled with uncertainty.

“That Day – Farewell to Golden Earring” follows the announcement in February of the band’s breakup. Co-founder, guitarist, and singer George Koymans suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which makes it impossible for him to play.

For a long time, ‘de Earring’ (1961) was the oldest active rock band in the Netherlands and also one of the oldest in the world. “That Day” was the national breakthrough – until 1969 – of 1966’s “Golden Earrings”. The group (plus Kooymans composed by co-founder and guitarist Rinus Gerritsen, singer Barry Hay and drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk) became world famous through songs like Radar Love, Twilight Zone, and When the lady Smiles.

Gold earring “From bubble gum to rock and roll”

The turbulent lives of the residents of The Hague are reconstructed in the De Vré documentary on the basis of personal testimonies from the participants directly from the present and the past. For example, former band members Fred van der Helst (drums, 1962-1965), Peter de Rond (guitar, 1963-1966) and Frans Krasenberg (vocals, 1964-1967) paint the picture of the 1960s, in which George Koemans and his pigeon were more than His guitar and Rinus Gerritsen had to play the bass without being able to read a note.

[Tekst gaat verder onder afbeelding.]

golden earring; Photo: Marcel de Vries

“We’ve rapidly evolved from a bubble gum band to a rock ‘n’ roll band,” Krasenberg says in the film. The former singer goes on to say that he “understood” why he had to make room for Barry Hay in 1967.

love radar

“That Day – Farewell to Golden Earring” also devotes great attention to “Radar Love”, the band’s biggest hit. Willem van Cooten, a former jockey for Veronica discs, recalls that rockers initially did not see “any success” in this song. At his insistence, the song still appears as the B side of a single. The rest is history: thanks to “Radar Love”, the gentlemen gained a foothold in America in the mid-1970s.