Dutch singer Ilse DeLange performed her latest single 'Something Good' at the Concert at SEA festival on June 27, 2026.
The performance marked 20 years since her first appearance at the coastal event.
Reflections on a 20-Year Journey
During an interview with NPO Radio 2, DeLange recalled her initial performance at the festival in 2006 after seeing an old photograph.
"Someone sent me a photo today, like: look, you were there then too.
I saw myself, twenty years ago, in high heels and in an unmentionable outfit that I thought: let's forget that quickly," she said.
"But I did think it was great, because I was standing on a wooden platform, but already with that immense audience in front of me.
How wonderful that I can stand there again 20 years later!"
DeLange praised Dutch band BLØF for establishing the festival in their home region despite initial uncertainties.
"BLØF has of course set something up. You also don't know if it will work.
It is quite a thing to start a festival as a well-known band in the region where you were born and raised," she said.
"What they have given back to the region is of course incredible.
But at the moment you start that, you don't know that yet, and you run a risk."
In 2006, DeLange had only her first major single success, 'The Great Escape', to perform for the festival audience.
"Then I really saw people singing along, also at a festival where they didn't just come especially for me.
That was a wonderful feeling," she recalled.
Since then, DeLange has achieved numerous Top 40 hits and is currently preparing for a new album release.
"I am writing a lot and I have a lot of new music finished. Later this year a new album of mine will be released," she said.
"I still find that very special, that I am allowed to do this for a living.
I am a lucky bird and that the music can still flow so fully is cool."
To select tracks for her upcoming project, DeLange composes an excess of material to find the best options.
"I always write more than I need, so that I can pick the cream of the crop," she explained.
"In the beginning it is still a bit directionless, then I meet up with all kinds of people and then one day I find that very beautiful, and the next day I think it's nothing.
And then suddenly there is a song where you think: this is the spearhead of everything.
That is 'Something Good', which we are going to play here on the beach."
