De Kast

De Kast were a highly successful pop-rock band from the Netherlands in the late 1990's. After a four-year break, the band are back together again for a small number of gigs. Their songs are mainly Dutch, although some songs, like the ballad In Nije Dei, are written in their native language Frisian, which is solely spoken in the northern province of The Netherlands, Fryslân. During the high times of De Kast the band consisted of Syb van der Ploeg (vocals/guitar), cousin Peter van der Ploeg (lead guitar), Kees Bode (keyboards), Sytse Broersma (bass guitar) and Nico Outhuijse (drums). Their biggest hits include the smashing success In Nije Dei, Woorden zonder Woorden, Hart van mijn gevoel, Raak, Een teken van leven and Zo Jong. Over the course of 18 years De Kast released no less than six studio albums, five live albums (due to a widely respected live reputation), and numerous videos and dvd's. Highlight in their career was performing in front of 90.000 people in the Vitesse Arnhem football stadium in January 2000. The band formed in 1985 under the name of Wish To Escape at local high school in Dokkum. Peter van der Ploeg, who worked there as a janitor, approached student Kees Bode to be member of a new rock band. Peter's cousin Syb joined in, together with good friend Dikkie Visser, the band's original drummer. A fifth original member soon left the band. This resulted in 1987 in Sytse Broersma joining as the new bass player, and for a short time, as the new singer too, after Syb van der Ploeg had briefly quit the band. In the late eighties Wish to Escape had several gigs, whether it be on camp sites or in tiny little pubs in the middle of nowhere. During that time the idea of a very own studio album rose, which led to the recording of the self-titled Wish to Escape, an album with symph-rock influences. However, the band found themselves being more in rehearsal than performing live. In order to play more gigs, the band formed a new top-100 cover band, called Goldrush, in order to play the local discotheque circuit more often, with which the name Wish to Escape in fact disappeared. Soon Goldrush got booked all over the country, and, by gradually performing more and more own Dutch songs during the gigs, the band rose to the attention of record company CNR. By that time the band had already changed it name to The Cast, but all agreed on adopting a more Dutch styled band name (in order with the Dutch repertoire). And so the name De Kast was born. They split up in 2004. From 2006 on De Kast returned to the stage a few times with the original band members. On the 7th of August 2009 the band's management announced a new album to be released in the beginning of 2010, but it has been postponed to the autumn of 2010. De Kast released a single as the soundtrack to the Dutch film 'De Hel van '63', based on the Elfstedentocht of 1963 (an infamous ice skate competion in which the skaters pass 11 cities in Fryslân) on december 11 2009. (more to follow)