- The Spiritual Sound of Hypnotic Eternity -
feat. BLAWAN, CRIPPLING ALCOHOLISM, DEAD NEANDERTHALS, FAUNA, HET CONCREET, MARUJA and SHEARLING
How to Roadburn:
Start overplanning your personal schedule when the running order has been announced, do your YouTube research and use a tool like Clashfinder to create a personal timetable so extensive that you have to print it in A3, so you can even read everything. On this plan various colours mark what's at least interesting, what's THE PLAN, what you're most painfully missing and what you won't miss no matter what. It includes all up to six official stages, only omitting the Ladybird Skatepark, because all the secret shows happening there will only be announced on the day anyway. So if something interesting and doable appears there, just add it to your printout with a ballpen!
As OCD as this may sound to some people: my fear of missing out on something has actually drastically waned over the years. After all you're about to have so many outstanding experiences at Roadburn that it's pretty easy to be Zen about the fact that you cannot have it all. With that mindset you will also survive throwing your carefully created plans into disarray on a whim without lasting damage.
On the other hand however there's a growing list of points which ideally have to be checked, so that the festival feels complete to me. Like seeing at least one show at every stage. Not being able to attend a single Skatepark show last year had been a bummer, which I didn't want to repeat this time.
And then there are of course the Offroad shows in various bars, clubs and other locations in Tilburg, which are free even without a ticket and add even more variety to the overall experience. Getting a different surrounding, be it the intimate Little Devil Bar or the huge library of the city in the LocHal not only brings new flavours, but has also led me to see some really great performances during the last couple of years. So yes, look up what's happening offroad too!
My schedule also included at least those Offroad stages which seemed interesting and realistically possible to squeeze into my day. And on this very Thursday there was one which boldly went on for three full hours! Attending that one would have a substantial inprint - and staying at one thing for so long at such a festival of clashes seemed like a personal achievement in itself to me. You'll see if I made it later below!
As OCD as this may sound to some people: my fear of missing out on something has actually drastically waned over the years. After all you're about to have so many outstanding experiences at Roadburn that it's pretty easy to be Zen about the fact that you cannot have it all. With that mindset you will also survive throwing your carefully created plans into disarray on a whim without lasting damage.
On the other hand however there's a growing list of points which ideally have to be checked, so that the festival feels complete to me. Like seeing at least one show at every stage. Not being able to attend a single Skatepark show last year had been a bummer, which I didn't want to repeat this time.
And then there are of course the Offroad shows in various bars, clubs and other locations in Tilburg, which are free even without a ticket and add even more variety to the overall experience. Getting a different surrounding, be it the intimate Little Devil Bar or the huge library of the city in the LocHal not only brings new flavours, but has also led me to see some really great performances during the last couple of years. So yes, look up what's happening offroad too!
My schedule also included at least those Offroad stages which seemed interesting and realistically possible to squeeze into my day. And on this very Thursday there was one which boldly went on for three full hours! Attending that one would have a substantial inprint - and staying at one thing for so long at such a festival of clashes seemed like a personal achievement in itself to me. You'll see if I made it later below!
But first the most important lesson on How to Roadburn:
Especially if you're new, don't do what I do! If you followed me around, you wouldn't see anything of the city besides the way from my parking space tothe festival locations, because there's always something on the agenda - and longer breaks for a real meal aren't guaranteed either. In truth everybody just has to find their own way. And there is no wrong way.
Mine is more right than others though. Even if it involuntarily starts like this:
Yeah, this is no mistake. The very first band playing at two o'clock in the afternoon without any parallel alternative was one that had already performed at The Spark the night before.
Since I wrote that review I've learned that Crippling Alcoholism playing on Wednesday came to be, because the band had simply been nervous to play their first European show ever on the huge Terminal stage in the Koepelhal, so they the Wednesday spot as a warm-up gig. As understandable as this is, it made the start into Thursday weird. A big chunk of the audience had seen the band play the very same setlist not even a full day ago, while many people who only arrived at Roadburn on Thursday surely weren't even here yet. So at least placing the band on a later spot and having another artist opening would have served everyone better.
Of course that doesn't mean their show was bad, not at all. But the band's Goth Post Hardcore Punk also wasn't that good that I needed to see them doing the same thing twice almost back to back with only Bad Breeding in between. So I only stayed for a couple of songs, took note of the vocals and keyboards, which I could hear better now than the other night from the front row and upgraded my memory of the previous appearance with that additional information.
Since I wrote that review I've learned that Crippling Alcoholism playing on Wednesday came to be, because the band had simply been nervous to play their first European show ever on the huge Terminal stage in the Koepelhal, so they the Wednesday spot as a warm-up gig. As understandable as this is, it made the start into Thursday weird. A big chunk of the audience had seen the band play the very same setlist not even a full day ago, while many people who only arrived at Roadburn on Thursday surely weren't even here yet. So at least placing the band on a later spot and having another artist opening would have served everyone better.
Of course that doesn't mean their show was bad, not at all. But the band's Goth Post Hardcore Punk also wasn't that good that I needed to see them doing the same thing twice almost back to back with only Bad Breeding in between. So I only stayed for a couple of songs, took note of the vocals and keyboards, which I could hear better now than the other night from the front row and upgraded my memory of the previous appearance with that additional information.
The good thing was that leaving that early made it easy to get a great spot for the next show just next to it in the Engine Room. Since there were no more construction works going on in the Koepelhal this year, the merch area had moved back to this venue again and both stages were accessible directly from there again.
Yes, I had done my homework. But I had done it late and revised my plan a couple of times, so other than Shearling being the band I was most keen to see at this time, I couldn't really remember what they were actually about. In hindsight however I doubt that anything could have properly prepared me for their perfomance anyway.
There was no light show, just light. Full focus on the performance itself. And that performance was brutally mesmerizing and positively exhausting. Based on a Sonic Youth Noise Rock foundation and conducted in a very michalgiraesqe way by guitar/organ player and singer Alexander Kent, their glorious celebration of repetition, which included impressively rectangular riff and rhythm patterns, was one of the closest things I've ever seen to Swans without being a carbon copy.
Simply put: Shearling were absolutely amazing, a far greater wow moment than I would have ever expected this early into the festival. With their heavy hypnotic excess the switch had been irrevocably turned on: Roadburn 2026 had arrived!
There was no light show, just light. Full focus on the performance itself. And that performance was brutally mesmerizing and positively exhausting. Based on a Sonic Youth Noise Rock foundation and conducted in a very michalgiraesqe way by guitar/organ player and singer Alexander Kent, their glorious celebration of repetition, which included impressively rectangular riff and rhythm patterns, was one of the closest things I've ever seen to Swans without being a carbon copy.
Simply put: Shearling were absolutely amazing, a far greater wow moment than I would have ever expected this early into the festival. With their heavy hypnotic excess the switch had been irrevocably turned on: Roadburn 2026 had arrived!
Over the last one and a half decades Roadburn has provided plenty formative shows for the development of my personal taste, yet the Heavy Free Jazz inferno of Otto Kokke and Rene Aquarius aka Dead Neanderthals at the Cul de Sac in 2016 will always have a special place in my heart.
Now, ten years and somewhere between at least thirty and forty releases (including related projects) in my collection later I finally got to see the core duo at Roadburn again - this time in the Hall of Fame right next to Koepelhal with the components drums, guttural vocals and ridiculously distorted heavy synth. The show contained the whole "Demo MMXXV" EP, but since twelve minutes would have been a little bit short for a live performance, there was more material in that same style of incredibly sludgy, nasty, yet somehow also hypnotic primitivism. Towards the end my mind began to hear imagined notes that weren't even played in the beautifully brutal textures - probably a way of the listener's brain to healthily process the music's adamant simplicity.
Now, ten years and somewhere between at least thirty and forty releases (including related projects) in my collection later I finally got to see the core duo at Roadburn again - this time in the Hall of Fame right next to Koepelhal with the components drums, guttural vocals and ridiculously distorted heavy synth. The show contained the whole "Demo MMXXV" EP, but since twelve minutes would have been a little bit short for a live performance, there was more material in that same style of incredibly sludgy, nasty, yet somehow also hypnotic primitivism. Towards the end my mind began to hear imagined notes that weren't even played in the beautifully brutal textures - probably a way of the listener's brain to healthily process the music's adamant simplicity.
Above I deliberately didn't even try to find another word than hypnotic, with which I have also just described Shearling. Because undoubtly these shows both had been super heavy instruments of inducing trance, each in their own twisted way. And both were equally brilliant.
At the other main hub of the festival, the 013 venue, today's main theme of hypnotic performances was continued on the smaller Next Stage with the nine Swedish ladies and gentlemen from Fauna, who chose a less heavy, yet all the more colourful way to entrance their audience. Danceable electro-acoustic beats from multiple percussionists, keys, krautrocking and funky bass lines and guitar licks, crowned by beautiful flute and ethereal vocals set all signs on Psychedelic party. Trippy and wonderful!
However I still left after two thirds of the show, because a new location came into play now...
However I still left after two thirds of the show, because a new location came into play now...
CLASHBURN:
Of course my path through Roadburn could already have looked different, had I for example not preferred Dead Neanderthals over Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, or Fauna over the Post Hardcore tornado Eyes, which I had seen causing havoc before in Copenhagen back in 2023.
But now the beforementioned three hour Offroad performance lay ahead and with it a commitment that left neither space for Acid Mothers Temple's first of three shows as Artists in Residence, nor for lauded Columbian Dungeon Synthwave artist Filmmaker or the Main Stage show of Post Metal institution Cult of Luna.
And I freely admit that I felt a weird nerdy sensation in missing all this for only two notes, B3 and F#4.
But now the beforementioned three hour Offroad performance lay ahead and with it a commitment that left neither space for Acid Mothers Temple's first of three shows as Artists in Residence, nor for lauded Columbian Dungeon Synthwave artist Filmmaker or the Main Stage show of Post Metal institution Cult of Luna.
And I freely admit that I felt a weird nerdy sensation in missing all this for only two notes, B3 and F#4.
"Composition 1960 #7" actually is the only one of composer La Monte Young's works from that year's cycle, which even contains a musical notation, albeit a very short and unspecific one, as it doesn't say anything about instruments or tuning, just the direction "To be held for a long Time".
In their tribute to the influential Avantgarde performance artist the Experimental Dutch collective Het Concreet followed the length of the piece's premiere in 1960, their instrumentation consisted of electronic stuff, organ, cello and guitar resonance. The place of minimal action was St. Jozefkerk, Tilburg's Neo-Gothic main Catholic church right next to the 013.
I honestly had hoped for some kind of Roadburn event there for a while, thinking of pipe organ players like Anna von Hausswolff, Kali Malone, Hampus Lindwall or Never Sol. But the strict atheist in me gladly took this excuse to go to church - and sit for a long while! -, too.
It took long for the two notes to even be there. At point seven o'clock a priest chanted far away from the pews where the audience was seated, seemingly blessing the performance. Then the four musicians entered the stage at the crossing of the nave and the slowest, quietest ascend into tone I've ever (rarely) heard began. In this first phase noises from outside like a choir singing far away at the street, the entry being opened and shut, the footsteps of people coming and going was the core of the piece, rather than what - not even all - musicians were doing.
But at some point it shifted, as more elements joined in and the tone grew fuller and louder. Not Roadburn record loud though. This wasn't going to be the most escapist Ambient or the loudest Drone ever, but rather a Deep Listening experience. And I indeed started very concentrated, observing the minimal slow motion development in meticulous detail, before the same phenomenon from the Dead Neanderthals show earlier set in and my inner ear, which was already interweaving the sound with my right-ear tinnitus, made up its own overtones.
After over an hour of sitting I followed the encouragement in the show's announcement to wander around and discovered that there were also speakers pointing from the back of the stage to the altar - and from there back. That was the sweet spot few people explored. There you could rest right beside the sound system and take in a multiple of crispy textures more than what most of the ausience would here on the other side. Right there I really got into the zone - until I didn't.
At some time around the two-hour mark I must have begun to distract myself too much during taking pictures and checking my phone and realized that I wasn't actually following the two notes any more. And since I felt I had gained everything possible from this performance, I didn't try to zoom into the sound again, but rather left after respectable two hours and twenty minutes, so I could still make the best of the rest of tonight's "regular" Roadburn programme.
In their tribute to the influential Avantgarde performance artist the Experimental Dutch collective Het Concreet followed the length of the piece's premiere in 1960, their instrumentation consisted of electronic stuff, organ, cello and guitar resonance. The place of minimal action was St. Jozefkerk, Tilburg's Neo-Gothic main Catholic church right next to the 013.
I honestly had hoped for some kind of Roadburn event there for a while, thinking of pipe organ players like Anna von Hausswolff, Kali Malone, Hampus Lindwall or Never Sol. But the strict atheist in me gladly took this excuse to go to church - and sit for a long while! -, too.
It took long for the two notes to even be there. At point seven o'clock a priest chanted far away from the pews where the audience was seated, seemingly blessing the performance. Then the four musicians entered the stage at the crossing of the nave and the slowest, quietest ascend into tone I've ever (rarely) heard began. In this first phase noises from outside like a choir singing far away at the street, the entry being opened and shut, the footsteps of people coming and going was the core of the piece, rather than what - not even all - musicians were doing.
But at some point it shifted, as more elements joined in and the tone grew fuller and louder. Not Roadburn record loud though. This wasn't going to be the most escapist Ambient or the loudest Drone ever, but rather a Deep Listening experience. And I indeed started very concentrated, observing the minimal slow motion development in meticulous detail, before the same phenomenon from the Dead Neanderthals show earlier set in and my inner ear, which was already interweaving the sound with my right-ear tinnitus, made up its own overtones.
After over an hour of sitting I followed the encouragement in the show's announcement to wander around and discovered that there were also speakers pointing from the back of the stage to the altar - and from there back. That was the sweet spot few people explored. There you could rest right beside the sound system and take in a multiple of crispy textures more than what most of the ausience would here on the other side. Right there I really got into the zone - until I didn't.
At some time around the two-hour mark I must have begun to distract myself too much during taking pictures and checking my phone and realized that I wasn't actually following the two notes any more. And since I felt I had gained everything possible from this performance, I didn't try to zoom into the sound again, but rather left after respectable two hours and twenty minutes, so I could still make the best of the rest of tonight's "regular" Roadburn programme.
What a contrast! After spending so much time in a place of quiet standstill and religious solemnity The Terminal through me back not only into the action of the festival, but also into the turmoil of the world outside the Roadburn bubble with Maruja from England, who conquered the hall with an incredibly energetic performance definitely not suited for the keep politics out of the arts crowd, which thankfully is in the minority at this event anyway.
With the most visible pro Palestine people stance I've seen since Alabaster Deplume at Überjazz Festival, armed with drums, bass, saxophone, vocals and occasional guitar Majura spoke "Pain To Power" and delivered clear messages of peace, community, love, maintainnig mental health and surviving the human condition in a fluid firestorm of Hardcore, Jazz and Hip Hop.
If I had to guess the quartet's regular jobs I'd say they were definitely giving social worker dealing with strugglling street kids in their own language vibes. The saxophone beast was almost a tad too aggressive at times, like when he punched me in the chest shouting Come on! ... but then that moment when he parted the crowd for a beautiful solo was one of the oustanding moments of Roadburn 2026. Alas his cable wasn't pulled in fast enough when he rushed back to the stage, while the flood waves of people clashed back together again and some feet got caught in it, causing a cup of beer splashing right into my face.
Damn. This passionate, explosively cathartic show however still was one for the books. Absolutely on fire!
With the most visible pro Palestine people stance I've seen since Alabaster Deplume at Überjazz Festival, armed with drums, bass, saxophone, vocals and occasional guitar Majura spoke "Pain To Power" and delivered clear messages of peace, community, love, maintainnig mental health and surviving the human condition in a fluid firestorm of Hardcore, Jazz and Hip Hop.
If I had to guess the quartet's regular jobs I'd say they were definitely giving social worker dealing with strugglling street kids in their own language vibes. The saxophone beast was almost a tad too aggressive at times, like when he punched me in the chest shouting Come on! ... but then that moment when he parted the crowd for a beautiful solo was one of the oustanding moments of Roadburn 2026. Alas his cable wasn't pulled in fast enough when he rushed back to the stage, while the flood waves of people clashed back together again and some feet got caught in it, causing a cup of beer splashing right into my face.
Damn. This passionate, explosively cathartic show however still was one for the books. Absolutely on fire!
CLASHBURN:
Even before Majura had started I luckily had already decided that I would watch them until the end, foregoing my original plan to see Unsane at the Next Stage, which was probably the worst miscalculation of a show's popularity of this Roadburn edition, because the queue of people probably not making it into the room, while the band was already playing for a good while, went all through the lobby and far beyond that outside of the building.
You could easily skip it though if your destination was the far bigger room, so contrary to my expectations I was actually about to see at least one Main Stage performance on Day 1 after all.
You could easily skip it though if your destination was the far bigger room, so contrary to my expectations I was actually about to see at least one Main Stage performance on Day 1 after all.
Not that there was much to see. Just one dude behind his huge desk and a remarkably fat light installation behind him. Already by the look of it there was no doubt that this show was definitely in the tradition of Roadburn alumni like The Bug.
So yeah, Blawan delivered loads of delicious bass, accompanied by cracking beats, glitches, samples and all kinds of tasteful Electronic sounds in the whole spectrum of frequencies. Since the show had already started when I entered I didn't aim for the first row, but rather did the same thing as before in the church, moving around to several different spots on the ground floor and gallery to enjoy this late night rite of sophisticated, dark, magnetic Techno.
Not what I had in my cards, but a fitting, excellent way to close this pretty unique Roadburn Thursday. On my way back to my bed I was filled with excitement of three whole more days of awesomeness to come!
So yeah, Blawan delivered loads of delicious bass, accompanied by cracking beats, glitches, samples and all kinds of tasteful Electronic sounds in the whole spectrum of frequencies. Since the show had already started when I entered I didn't aim for the first row, but rather did the same thing as before in the church, moving around to several different spots on the ground floor and gallery to enjoy this late night rite of sophisticated, dark, magnetic Techno.
Not what I had in my cards, but a fitting, excellent way to close this pretty unique Roadburn Thursday. On my way back to my bed I was filled with excitement of three whole more days of awesomeness to come!
reviews of the other festival days:
ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2026 • THE SPARK: Wednesday, April 15th
- The Bad Bird Catches The Spark -
