Friday 19.4
The second day of the festival began in a rather unexpected but yet very relaxed and pleasant way: a cat café! Chilling a bit surrounded by those furry fellows set the good mood that characterized this second day. There was still plenty of time to chill at the pit stop area despite the intermittent clouds and wind. On that note a special mention goes this year to the new addition of The Junction, which quickly became my favorite hang out place whenever I felt like taking a break from all the music. Having a pop-up enclosed space with nice beer, good background music, and extremely friendly volunteers welcoming you was the best, and a real life-saver when the weather got gloomier every now and then.
So after chatting up with old and new faces, it was time to get this started, and we headed at The Terminal where Ragana and Drowse were showing their collaboration entitled “Ash from Mount Saint Helens”. The combination of the two artists resulted in some weird beast that merged slowcore vocals and doomy, indie rock sound, in a mellow and somewhat melancholic way. It didn’t quite connect personally on an emotional level, and to be completely honest the thought was going to the following performance at the Next Stage with Gelderland-based Fluisteraars. In the recent past I became quite familiar with that area of the country and came to enjoy a lot of the nature and other attractions that the area has to offer, and among other things, I got familiar with some of the names in the Dutch extreme underground, among which Fluisteraars clearly caught my attention. It was also a strange way to get introduced to the band as they were performing their new ambient record “Manifestaties van de Ontworteling” (from my limited knowledge of Dutch “manifestations of the uprooting”), which would be officially released a week after this gig.
Ragana and Drowse
Clearly I wasn’t the only one interested in the show because there was a big queue forming outside of the hall for this, and I am somehow saddened that I couldn’t stay for more than 15-20 minutes into the set. The music itself was interesting enough to want you to dig into it more, and the atmosphere with the semi-circular setup of different instruments and machinery on stage was just adding to the intrigue. After the festival I started wondering if maybe the ambient set of Blood Incantation would have worked differently in a more intimate setting such as this, and I am sure it would have, but would it have been better? More on this in a few paragraphs.
The reason why I had to cut short my time at the Next Stage was of course the commissioned work “Music for Gloaming: A Nocturne by the Hexvessel Folk Assembly”, a project entrusted to Mat McNerney with musicians from Hexvessel, Sapata’s vocalist Saara Šamane and the guest appearance of Dødheimsgard’s Vicotnik. Knowing how hard Mat and the guys have been working towards this day, we are happy to say the payoff was huge. The performance was quintessential Mat, you could hear and see his influences, from where he’s been coming from to where he is headed, and it worked beautifully. This musical journey included nods to Norwegian and Swedish black metal, My Dying Bride, even Alcest, as well as the range of different musical directions that has distinguished the artist’s career with Beastmilk/Grave Pleasures, Dødheimsgard, Hexvessel of course… you get the idea. It was not something simply put together, but a beautiful work of combining all of these experiences into a coherent, meaningful composition that really connected and resonated with the audience. Goes without saying that I shamelessly ignored any possible overlaps during this time, and only afterwards, charged with this sense of having just seen something special, went back to The Terminal for Home Front.
Hexvessel
The Canadians brought a fresh wind of retro-yet-modern post-punk played with an energy and enthusiasm that was simply contagious. The catchiness of their offer did the rest and the synths gave this anthemic feeling that made it near-impossible not to shake your body along with the music. It’s with this good vibe that we walked into one of the most awaited shows of the weekend: Blood Incantation performing “Timewave Zero”.
Blood Incantation
Admittedly the setup was very impressive (and there is some nice behind the scenes anecdote in relation to this from beloved Artistic Director Walter Hoeijmakers’ Q&A session), even among all the smoke and foggy, low-key ambience, dotted by rock salt lamps that framed the scene for this show, the first time this album was played in Europe. Listening this work on record has been setting the bar quite high for this show as it’s something that I enjoyed a lot, the sound quality was top notch from what I could hear and the atmosphere worked really well. But… I have to say a bit more than halfway through the show I started to disconnect from it somehow, and then it hit me: everyone I have talked with about this gig afterwards, either loved it, or was of a similar opinion. Every single person who loved it, turned out had been aided by some substances to enhance the trippiness of the experience. So that all makes sense: you had to be in a certain state of mind, and that just wasn’t it. Not even the appearance of Attila Csihar on stage changed my mind at that point, so I went for an early dinner (my scheduled break in my really sophisticated personal plan was coming up anyway), and had a few extra minutes to chill before DOOL.
DOOL
Having wanted to see this Rotterdam-based band for a long time without really ever getting the chance, this seemed like the perfect occasion, coinciding with the release of their new record “The Shape of Fluidity”, which they played in full. The band did a really strong and tight show, and one could see immediately why they have been hailed often as such a powerful band to see live. Again everything sounded quite nicely in the main hall of 013, and I can say there have been some really top notch quality shows over the weekend.
It made it easy to choose yet again to stay longer here and appreciate this unique rock/gothic/psychedelic combination and grab a drink in the process, rather than stressing out about running to the Paradox for what I believe would have been another equally interesting, albeit very different show, with Hedvig Mollestad Trio, which was marked in my original plan.
Instead just after DOOL we moved a few meters to the Next Stage for Xiu Xiu. At this point of the day I had exhausted all of my “must” see shows and all that came after was more of an added bonus. This oddity of an experimental duo presented a special set entitled “The police bear such resemblance to those they pursue”, including alternative versions of their catalogue, some previews from the new material, and some rarities. It didn’t quite work as well as one would hope, I suspect also from the words of Jamie Steward before the show, that “they were pretty nervous as it had been many many years since they performed like this as a duo” with Angela Seo. There were some very interesting moments but some parts felt a bit inconsequential, maybe because I am not well-versed into their music. Still it was hard to shake that occasional feeling that this was push “experimental” a tad too far.
Xiu Xiu
We continued to comfortably move within Poppodium from Next to Main Stage and vice versa, despite many other interesting happenings not only within the main programme, but as part of Roadburn’s Offroad offer (Alabaster and Atomic Vulture at the Little Devil, or Pruillip at the Hall of Fame for instance), so next up was HEALTH.
HEALTH
The trio was at Roadburn for the first time a couple of editions ago, and since then we have seen them a few more times touring in Europe, but I must admit that this was in my opinion the strongest I have seen of them so far. Taking advantage of the Main Stage, the band did a really great job and it was a very engaging performance. Focusing the set on their new “Rat Wars” and partly “Slaves of Fear” and “Death Magic”, their energy was really something this time around. This really made you want to lose yourself in the music for a bit, despite having to leave a bit early to be able to see the next weird thing.
Norwegians can be quite… unique, so when you see a green-caped dancing flute-wizard and a shirtless vocalist wearing purple pants with feathers covering his chest, you know you are about to see something weird. That’s the first impression of Tusmørke, and it was pretty spot on, considering the typical nordic humor that filled the pauses between one song and the other. Simply put, it was fun! This gig really put me in a good mood and just by quickly glancing around I clearly wasn’t the only one. At some point though I had to force myself to leave as I wanted to catch the previously announced Agriculture secret show (+ special guest) at the new skatepark. Mainly for three reasons: Agriculture, seeing the new skatepark, and this was a very good spot for me to see one of these secret shows without messing too much with my schedule (missing Royal Thunder of course, but that was a calculated sacrifice).
Tusmørke
After some queuing which wasn’t really a queue but a blob of people pushing you towards the entrance without need for you to move on your own, I got into the new, fancy-looking skatepark. I guess it’s nice for the youth of Tilburg to have such place to hang out, but I must say that having this nice-looking, brand-new place took away the whole vibe from the location, and it’s just weird that the stage had to be located in an uphill position in respect to the people in front of it (which is why a lot of the audience was either on the balcony area or on the higher spots on the side). But these considerations aside, I was glad I made it because this kind of show has clearly a more intimate feeling and generally a different vibe than the regular shows and it went to great benefit of the band. The guys on stage seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and it affected the crowd too.
Eventually UBOA (that was the “special guest” mentioned in the announcement) added extra noise elements and more improvisation into a fun set played in an environment that brings the fans much closer to the band. It’s a pity that there are so many restrictions on capacity and other safety rules that had to restrict the show to just a few hundred people. Surely it would have been much more intense given the interest around the band by much of the Roadburners.
UBOA
The day was not yet over because there was still one more act we wanted to check out, and it was the kind of show you walk in with not many expectations, but are just wowed by (unlucky technical issues plaguing the conclusion aside). The band’s contagious and highly danceable electronic rhythm mixed with industrial noise gave some angrier, harsher Boy Harsher vibes to this duo compared to the more popular one (and forgive the pun). The aesthetics brought back some Twisted Sister memories, and the songs, well, they were weirdly sexual. Actually everything kept getting more weirdly sexual, and then just sexual once you got used to it, from the singer/guitarist Actually Huizenga (who also happens to be half-Dutch) licking the mic stand, to her removing her shirt, to “The Drummer”’s outfit made of shorts that were worn very low-waist (“The Guitarist” was supposed to be also part of the trio, but the band turned up as a duo), you get the idea.
Eventually this turned out to be a pretty entertaining gig, at least until things started to go seriously wrong and the show got interrupted for a pretty long time, with the band trying to joke about it, but you could really feel for them to have this mishap right at the highlight show of their European debut.
In the end the hour was getting late and Saturday was going to be the most intense and busy day of the whole weekend, so I gave up on seeing if the show would ever get to completion, and headed back on a half hour walk to the Airbnb. Still this second day left a lot of good memories and a great feeling, and it was once again filled with some nice new discoveries and some really, really good shows, without forgetting all the nice people I had the chance to spend even just a few minutes with, enhancing the overall festival experience.
Text and Photos by Marco Manzi
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