The almighty pairing of Managing Director Jake Longhurst and regular contributor Sam Christelow were recently sent across to the continent in pursuit of the finest live music you can find. They ended up at Roadburn Festival. This is what happened.
Roadburn Festival. The tagline of this fairly underground Dutch music festival is ‘Redefining heaviness’. As taglines go, this may be the single best and most accurate we’ve ever come across. The entire event takes you through more genres than you can shake a stick at, and yet the enduring sense is that all of the acts performing share a common mood, theme, atmosphere or emotional connection. Every one of the artists provided something different, something unique, and made the festival into the truly special event we now realise it is.
Day 1:
The very first significant part of our Roadburn experience was a bit surreal, especially for Jake. We got to interview George Clarke, the lead singer of headlining band Deafheaven, who happen to be one of Jake’s favourite bands ever! We then got into the music, and started out with a bang at a band called Yrre, a Swiss ambient black metal band who opened the festival at one of the larger rooms called The Terminal, in the first of the two buildings being used for the festival, the Koepelhal. Neither Jake nor Sam had actually heard any of their music, but it was the first set of the festival, and frankly it would be rude not to attend. They gave us an excellent start to the weekend, with a playthrough of an album of atmospheric black metal that was put to a film originally! We both thoroughly enjoyed that, before heading off to see another group we’d not properly listened to, Osi & The Jupiter.
S: You might be surprised to see me highlight a folk act at a festival so well known for heavy rock and experimental music, but for me Osi & The Jupiter personified Roadburn 2023’s tagline “Redefining heaviness” perfectly. No screaming, no downtuned guitars, no tsunamis of synthesised sounds. Just one voice, a guitar and a cello blended together to form a dark atmosphere of pagan rituals in long forgotten forests. The Next Stage was gathered in a hushed silence, reverentially taking in a softer moment among Roadburn’s packed lineup. They also covered Hurt which made Jake extremely happy.
...the band came out all-guns-blazing onto the 013 Main Stage, removing any doubt they don't still rock just as hard as in their heyday!
In between two performances, we had time to interview both members of Bell Witch, which you’ll see more about in the next day or two! They were both wonderful to talk to, and the way they talk about how they write music is nothing short of gripping. Next up though, we had a band called Burst who neither of us had ever properly listened to (this is becoming a theme) but decided to check out!
S: Swedish progressive metal legends Burst reunited for a rare live performance here at Roadburn 2023. Having (mostly) broken up in 2009 after releasing five successful albums the band came out all-guns-blazing onto the 013 Main Stage, removing any doubt they don't still rock just as hard as in their heyday. Linus Jägerskog charged, jumped and kicked around the stage, delivering harsh screams and huge grins in equal measure. They sounded well-rehearsed and tight, certainly enticing me into checking out their extensive back catalogue. It was also heartwarming to see a few hardcore fans headbanging at the barrier and singing every single word, they were loving every minute seeing a band they probably thought they would never see again!
We then took a long break for dinner, and strolled back to the tent to grab some food that we’d bought that morning from what turned out to be not only a money saver, but also frankly a true friend - the Albert Heijn XL supermarket that was about five minutes from the campsite. Once we’d finished eating, we wandered over to the main venue, 013, to watch a band we both most definitely did know, and were incredibly excited for.
J: Even though it was only the first day, it was time for what was inevitably one of the most talked about sets of the festival - Deafheaven playing their 2013 masterpiece Sunbather in full! They were naturally on the main stage at 013, the largest of all the stages at the festival, and the room was as full as it could possibly be, with people spilling out the sides, clamouring to watch the seminal album played in full with every interlude included. The band were on top form, and any set starts with a song as devastatingly powerful and beautiful as Dream House is already doing well. The entire experience was surreal, and frankly one that any fan of live music should experience, if the chance ever arises. With ethereal visuals matching the searingly brilliant sonic output, it was nothing short of a complete masterclass in live performance. To make things even better, I managed to get a setlist which further cemented the experience as one of the best I’ve ever had!
Afterwards, we planned to watch Antichrist Siege Machine, but our plans were derailed by a hilarious pair of drunk Dutch men who seemed like modern day philosophers on the topics of love, life and alcohol. We spent the best part of an hour with them, before making our way back to our tent to sleep after a day well spent.
Day 2:
This was a truly ridiculous day, packed to the brim with utterly incredible artists and performances, some of which were genuinely historic in the scene and will go down as sets of legend. It started with some wonderful Italian progressive black metal from Ad Nauseam, and then an interview with all four members of the noise metal stars Chat Pile, before we sidled over to 013’s main stage to watch a band play one song.
S: With curtains closed across the main stage and the room almost pitch black, Bell Witch’s performance began with an extended, ethereal organ solo. This was the grand opening of what was planned to be the only ever full performance of their latest album Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate, released that very same day! Stoic masters of the funeral doom subgenre, Bell Witch’s performances are certainly not for the short-of-attention span and perhaps not for the mentally well either (in a good way). What followed was over 80 minutes of crushing, dark, all-encompassing doom metal. Filling the ears of the audience and resulting in some of the slowest tempo headbanging I saw all weekend. This was a wonderful introduction to a unique band, certainly not something you get to see every day.
Have you ever sat alone on a warm evening, staring up at the stars, thinking of how your ancestors looked up at those very same tiny points of light? Realising the ephemerality of the moment as light, birthed aeons ago in the swirling nuclear inferno of a distant fireball, impacts your retina for the briefest moment of your preciously short life? The neurons in your overdeveloped monkey brain fire off and present you an image of the star - affirming your place as just one miniscule cog in an unfathomable, uncaring universe. Seeing Have A Nice Life perform live was something close to that feeling.
Whilst Sam enjoyed the entirety of the Bell Witch set, Jake took a visit to the Koepelhal venue and saw the large majority of the set from Glasgow’s own Ashenspire, which went down an absolute treat. Everyone watching loved it, and for good reason! They were excellent live, and for a band who are so abrasive they are unbelievably cohesive live. I then managed to rejoin Sam before Bell Witch had made it an hour into their single song set, and afterwards we made our way to the press room to chat to the perennially wonderful Katie from Pupil Slicer! They were, as always, a joy to chat to, and gave us one of the most entertaining chats of the entire weekend, interview or otherwise. As we walked back into the press room afterwards, we were told about a secret set that had been announced. To tell you that the look on Sam’s face as ‘Arrowheads Arrowheads Arrowheads’ were said to be playing the snug little Next Stage was anything short of incredulous would be a disservice, as he will describe below.
S: I barely have words to describe this performance but it was without question my highlight of the festival. I guess I have to try though. Have you ever sat alone on a warm evening, staring up at the stars, thinking of how your ancestors looked up at those very same tiny points of light? Realising the ephemerality of the moment as light, birthed aeons ago in the swirling nuclear inferno of a distant fireball, impacts your retina for the briefest moment of your preciously short life? The neurons in your overdeveloped monkey brain fire off and present you an image of the star - affirming your place as just one miniscule cog in an unfathomable, uncaring universe. Seeing Have A Nice Life perform live was something close to that feeling. Announced as “Arrowheads Arrowheads Arrowheads” (a nod to their iconic track Bloodhail) just a few hours before the show as one of Roadburn’s traditional secret sets, I was barely able to keep my excitement to an acceptable level for an adult. With the volume cranked up to 11, a setlist spanning all three albums and an emotional performance from frontman Dan Barrett it was a truly unforgettable experience. One of my favourite bands ticked off the bucket list - superb.
Afterwards was another exquisite performance from Deafheaven in the much larger room next door, who played through their latest album Infinite Granite in its entirety, before leaving to rapturous applause after performing two of the greatest sets the festival would see this year. We then were headed over to the Koepelhal again, as the one and only BACKXWASH was performing her first of two sets, and Katie from Pupil Slicer was going to be featuring!
J: The excitement in the crowd was truly palpable, a European debut from an artist who has gone from strength to strength. Combining an aggressive, metal oriented vocal style with rap flow, samples of activists and prominent musicians, and trap beats, to create something that she has labelled ‘doom rap’, BACKXWASH has made an indelible impact on the scene already and frankly deserves to experience a meteoric rise in popularity - the power in her performance and brilliance with which she writes is clearly deserving of the biggest stages we can provide! Not to mention the phenomenal sounds that Katie can provide, either on guitar or with her unholy vocals. The combination of the two was a triumph, not only musically but also culturally, to see the LGBT community creating such powerful art together is a beautiful thing.
the power in her performance and brilliance with which she writes is clearly deserving of the biggest stages we can provide!
However, we did have to leave a bit early due to another insane secret set; Chat Pile themselves were undercutting their announced show to do a secret set the day before, which would be their actual European debut!
J: I truly don’t know how the hell we made it into the Hall Of Fame, the room is probably big enough for 150 people or so but we were able to squeeze in for some of Chat Pile’s secret set! They were borderline hypnotic to watch, with frontman Raygun Busch acting like a magnet for every single pair of eyes in the room. The three other members also played their parts to perfection - Stin, Cap’n Ron and Luther Manhole gave their all onstage and it made for pure, unrefined chaos. They sounded impeccable, and also made room for a high energy cover of Rage Against The Machine’s song Bulls On Parade. Overall, it made for a damn good show which perfectly set them up as contenders for the best act so far.
Day 3:
Another day filled with unbelievable performances, our third day of music also was a day off of any significant press duties, aside from Jake’s near constant uploading of Instagram stories (@TheMicNotts if you want to go and follow us!). We started the day off very well, with London’s Pupil Slicer kicking off the proceedings.
J: Firstly, I would like to say that Pupil Slicer had the coolest backdrop of the entire festival by far, it is not even close. Secondly, they were brilliant. Easy as that. Pupil Slicer are an amazing band, they are brilliant live, their upcoming album in June is going to be awesome. Go and listen to them now. They play really damn cool mathcore/grindcore/metalcore oriented stuff, they slam.
We then went from a heavy as hell set to Sangré De Muerdago’s style of Galician folk music, followed by a commissioned set that paired Brazil’s Deafkids with Kenya’s Duma, which came out with a claustrophobic industrial set. Three vastly different styles in a row, and it was only going to increase! It was time for one of the most talked about sets on site - the mighty Chat Pile were taking the stage at 013.
S: Fresh off the previous evening’s secret set, Chat Pile drew the biggest crowd of the weekend to their Main Stage performance - Jake and I couldn’t even get through the door! The crowd were ravenous for the Oklahoma quartet’s noisy rock and the buzz in the room was palpable even between songs. Raygun Busch, with shirt, shoes and socks removed, strode across the stage like a titan, somehow striking a perfect balance between bellowing caustic lyrics into the microphone during songs and casually talking about 80’s action films in the lulls in between. Although many die-hard fans were in the room already there were clearly many people discovering Chat Pile for the first time; I watched with glee as the man standing in front of me typed out a WhatsApp message: “These guys are awesome, they sound like trailer park Limp Bizkit”. They play in Manchester in a few months, see you there.
We went from Chat Pile to Candy, who may just have given us the most caustic set of the entire weekend. Their 2022 release Heaven Is Here was played in full, switching between crushing grindcore and imperious industrial hardcore, just two sides of the same brutal coin that made them so powerful to watch. The musical brilliance did not stop there for day three though, as BACKXWASH was back for her second set of the weekend. This one was meant to be a more sinister set, as opposed to the previous set which was a more aggressive one. Early on she apologised for having a bad voice, yet she need not have bothered as frankly she sounded on top form, providing yet another stellar show. We then were treated to more crushingly sad music, as Sam has talked about below.
S: Dan Barrett struck again on Saturday night, bringing his solo project Giles Corey to Roadburn. Supported by a slightly reconfigured Have A Nice Life backing band, we were treated to a haunting, country-influenced performance of some of the most depressing songs I have ever heard (again, in a good way). This was a very emotive performance and I saw more than a few members of the audience crying, which is to be expected when songs like I’m Going To Do It and Blackest Bile are on the setlist. Having loved this music for a long time without ever truly expecting to see it performed live, this was a very memorable gig experience.
I was also lucky enough to catch the ethereal Nicole Dollanganger’s secret set at the intimate Paradox venue, or at least the start of it before I had to run off to do a very special interview - more on that soon! From the moment she opened with Lacrymaria Olor (the closing track from 2018’s Heart Shaped Bed) I knew I was in for a treat, her iconic “slowcore” sound transferred very well to the live setting and I genuinely think her voice sounded better live than it does on record. I was sad I didn’t get to catch more, but I didn’t have to wait very long to see her again…
Day 4:
The final day of live music began nice and late, at 2pm. We were able to take a nice easy morning, with a lovely walk around Tilburg to start the day off, taking in views such a wonderful park with a lake that had a publicly accessible walkway across it (with a public ladder! That was very cool!), and the Willem II stadium for the city’s second tier football team. As we walked back towards 013 for the start of the day, we reminisced over how amazing our experience had been up to that point, forgetting that it still had room to improve!
Certainly not for the faint of heart, but that’s true of most things at Roadburn.
S: Starting the day off on a high, it was a real joy to watch the performance of a special collaborative piece commissioned by Roadburn, combining the chaotic force of Elizabeth Colour Wheel with the multi-faceted musician and artist Ethan Lee McCarthy (perhaps best known for his work with Primitive Man). This was an engaging and thrilling performance - one minute blissful ambience wandering with no direction in sight before suddenly veering away into waves of noise and harsh screaming. Certainly not for the faint of heart, but that’s true of most things at Roadburn.
After the amazing commission, it was off to watch Imperial Triumphant for us both, a New York based collective of musicians playing some very heavily jazz inspired black metal. They play in masks and robes, and made a beautifully hectic cacophony of glorious jazzy brutality for all those in attendance to enjoy.
S: Next up was some homegrown black metal that came our way in the form of Ossaert, straight from the deep dark depths of the northeastern Netherlands! I love black metal and although I will admit Ossaert were not on my radar before Roadburn, they certainly are now. Their songs pack a real punch live while still feeling fresh in a genre (arguably) long past its heyday. In a surprising turn of events, the band have since announced this will be their only live performance, making this even more of a special occasion! They didn’t rule out the possibility of more music though, so certainly drop them a follow on your favourite social media platform!
After that I was off again! Seeing Nicole Dollanganger twice in as many days wasn’t on my bingo card for 2023 but I was certainly happy I got to do it! She seemed a little less nervous than the day before, perhaps having warmed up after her first-ever performance in Europe, but with her puffy white dress and penchant for looking at the ground she still fit the Tumblr dollcore aesthetic perfectly and that really set the tone for the set. She drifted effortlessly through a mix of old songs (Alligator Blood was a fantastic inclusion) and tracks from her latest album Married in Mount Airy. I felt almost entranced by the sorrowful beauty of her voice, feeling every note of anguish layered within her songwriting. With only two twinkly guitarists and her minimalist backing tracks this could not have been more different to most of the bands I saw over the weekend, but I think this is another great example of Roadburn’s mission to redefine heaviness in 2023.
J: We had only a few acts left after this, and the first of those would be the almighty Cave In, who played their latest album Heavy Pendulum in full! The Boston band turned up in style, with amazing visuals and a whopping great sound that filled up the entire room and threatened to send the ceiling clean off. As the final ‘headliner’ of the weekend, they did have an extremely healthy crowd, and yet the way they played deserved double the capacity, or maybe even more. We weren’t quite done though, as I have alluded to, and next up was the final secret set of the weekend - Duma weren’t done yet!
We’d caught a bit of Deafkids solo set earlier in the day, and it was time to watch Sam and Martin go absolutely nuts on the Next Stage. The crushingly heavy grindcore guitar lines and industrial MC-ing from Sam brought Martin’s harsh vocals to the forefront, allowing them to weave an atmosphere unlike anyone we’d seen as of yet, in no small part due to the fact that it was just the two of them so they were making very different music to many of the prior acts. Finally, as they finished up, we walked next door to catch the very last act of the entire festival. Oiseaux-Tempête would be the last hurrah of Roadburn 2023, and my god were they a fine choice. With a grandiose flourish of prog rock, blended expertly with ambient elements, the group filled the main stage with noise. As they walked offstage, it sadly signalled for us to, one last time, head back to the tent.
Day 5:
We woke up to a veritable flood in the campsite, with Sam’s boots floating and Jake’s being covered up to the eyelets! After sorting ourselves in the wet, we took an early morning train to Eindhoven, relaxed before our flight, then made it back to the UK nice and easily after the kind of weekend that you dream about.
Before we wrap things up fully, a quick note from Sam here! I just wanted to talk about how brilliant the facilities were at Roadburn Festival. The venues were brilliant, I particularly loved the option to sit down or lean against a barrier in several places across 013, perfect for resting your feet after a long day of music and the sound was excellent across all the venues. There was a great selection of food and drink at very reasonable prices for a festival, however the real stand out for me (and I apologise for this not being the most classy thing I have ever written) was the inclusion of real toilets, with water in them! I am so used to grimy chemical toilets at festivals in the UK so this was a very pleasant surprise. The campsite facilities were the same and also had showers in enough quantity that the queue was never more than a few people long - awesome. And from me and Jake’s end, the press facilities were excellent too! A dedicated, indoor space with internet, power, lockers and complimentary drinks is above and beyond what we expect as journalists - thank you!
To finish up, we’d like to say that Roadburn has made an indelible impression on both of us, so you can rest assured that we’ll be returning as soon as we can. The sense of community it has fostered since its inception, amongst the attendees and the Tilburg locals, show off the love that has been poured into it by the organisers, and the smiles seen plastered across the faces of each and every ticket holder cemented the feelings we both shared across this wonderful weekend.
Jake Longhurst & Sam Christelow
Edited by: Jake Longhurst
BACKXWASH photo courtesy of Méchant Vaporwave
All other photos and videos courtesy of Youtube and the artists/festival themselves.
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