Listen to Sam Lyster's audio interviews from EuroSonic

It’s not just the abundance of beautiful bodies or the cheap beer that differentiates watching a gig in the Dutch city of Groningen from one in London. It’s the trails of cigarette smoke drifting through the music venue I’m squeezed into.

UK band The Ting Tings are performing at Huize Maas, excited bodies press around me pushing for the front of the stage, and I have a familiar moment of checking that my dress has not caught the tip of someone’s lit cigarette. I’ve been set on fire before this way. While the smoking seems oddly retro, the reason we’re here is to celebrate the best in emerging new music.

Every year Groningen hosts the EuroSonic festival (also known as the Noorderslag Weekend), three days of gigs in over twenty of the city’s venues - all within walking distance of one another and clustered around its pretty, central square, Grote Markt.

Multimedia

• Groningen's EuroSonic festival

Hitting Amsterdam's dancefloors

Tulips, clogs and waffles; sex, drugs and rock'n'roll: the contradictions of Holland's laidback, clued-up capital

Raving about in Rotterdam - best of the 'dams?

Gareth Scurlock joined the 48-hour party people in Rotterdam

• Rotterdam is the tops

BACKGROUND

• Jigging on Jersey

• Ibiza's real clubbing scene

• Fjord fiesta at Iceland's outer limits

• Serbia's coolest festival

• Icelandic vodka with ice, and fire

Multimedia

• Groningen's EuroSonic festival

The city centre is the perfect place to hold such a showcase, on any night of the week you can see acts performing, from jazz to indie, funk or electro, thanks to a rule in the 1950s that one could only open a bar if it hosted live music.

Amsterdam may be the most well-known Dutch destination, but for many once you get past the novelty of coffee shops and the red-light district there’s just as much fun and hip hotels to be had in Brighton. However, Groningen offers a unique experience.

Huize Maas, 52 Vismarkt, is one of the more style-orientated venues. Fabulous black glass chandeliers hang over the audience and the walls are coated in designer wallpaper rather than sweat.

At either end of the building is a stage, so while one band plays another can be setting up for their turn to entertain. I’m back here the following evening to watch UK band The Futureheads play a storming set and then backstage, giggling with too many gin & tonics, I tell the lead singer Barry Hyde he looks like a Chippendale stripper in his bow tie and waistcoat ensemble.

Oh dear, did I mention the Dutch are very generous with their measures? It’s around six euros for a spirit and mixer, depending upon the bar, but they are more like triples than the single shot we’re served and if you’re not careful, where you meant to just have a couple of drinks, you end up accidently flirting with indie popstars.

Within rolling distance of Huize Maas is its antithesis, a legendary venue called Vera at 44 Oosterstraat. Vera has the traditional décor of a gig venue. Its walls are plastered with posters advertising bands past, including pre-stadium fame U2. It has that spit & sawdust vibe - a place where the next Clash or Nirvana could be discovered with the ensuing mosh pit riot.

Upstairs crowds clutching plastic pint cups of beer bounce around to the Icelandic band, Jakobinarina. In the basement bar, with its fairy lights and peeling paint, groups of rosy-cheeked drinkers hang out enjoying their last few months of smoking indoors. Groningen introduces the smoking ban from July 1, when patrons will experience the delight of waking up the next morning and not having their hair smell like ashtrays.

It’s not just bars and clubs that host live music. The University of Groningen is one of the oldest academic establishments in the Netherlands and its impressive buildings often double as venues for appreciative music fans. The theatre of the aptly named Muziek School, where I catch Stockholm producer Andreas Kleerup, lacks the right architecture for a pop gig.

Times recommends

• Burma: to go or not to go?
• The 8 best wintersun city breaks
• Dubai: the insider's guide