- Hold Christmas Sacred! -
feat. BO NINGEN, ESBEN AND THE WITCH, ENPHIN, FRANCE, JULIE CHRISTMAS, JUDASZ & NAHIMANA, NORNA, THE SOFT MOON, WHITE BOY SCREAM, YANTRAS and YRRE
Yes, that's a long list of artists there for one bloke to watch in a day! And honestly two or three of those were only rather fleeting encounters on my part. But I felt like including them anyway and I am the sole king of this blog, so deal with it!
I can't remember anything worth reporting happening earlier in the day - and that's probably going to be the same for most of the following days, since the weather was... well, good enough for an indoor festival, but not motivating for any touristic excursions before that. So I brought a good load of photographic equipment for nothing. But that was ok. I was very fine with just having a little bit more time to relax, too.
Shortly after noon I arrived in Tilburg, where the festival officially started with the opening of the merch area (immediately scored a Roadburn tote bag and longsleeve shirt) and a young band from Switzerland having the honour of being the first to crank up the amps in The Terminal, on the bigger of the two stages here, which are familiar since last year.
It wasn't the kind of show which gave me very much to analyze or presented anything radically new apart from maybe the altered vocal part - but it didn't need to do that, because it was just very well done and a proper wake-up call for anyone still in doubt that it was that week in April again. Massive.
With sweet scent in the air and an occult-ish, ritualistic mortuary cult setting my first show here already checked some mandatory boxes for a complete and successful Roadburn experience.
The duo Judasz & Nahimana, aided by a third live member and later on by two guest musicians on vocals and violin, performed their album "Récits d'outre-mondre" on percussions, guitar, hurdy-gurdy and some interesting self-made stuff, crowned by beautiful mystic Folk vocals singing and chanting in French and Portuguese, but also ghost-like whispers and harsh male screams from the grave.
Musically I'd describe it as a mostly acoustic Ambient Folk suite with occasional subtle influences from the realms of Black Metal, Industrial and Contemporary Classical music. An earnest and solemn performance with much love and that special Roadburn spirit. With this the show I truly arrived at the festival.
There also wasn't much time to enjoy it anyway, because a couple of highly anticipated shows would soon follow a power walk over the busy crossroads away inside the 013 venue...
Among the few perks of writing stuff like this is that I sometimes get the possibility to listen to stuff long before its release, so I had already enjoyed the somber and rather quite material several times. Yet not being in "analytic mode" I had somehow not realized that the drummer wasn't actually playing any real drums, so the setup of the stage was already a little surprise.
And since I've ordered my ticket for the upcoming show at the Hafenklang in Hamburg before their appearance at the festival was even announced, I was in peace with only being able to watch about two thirds of their performance, no matter how mesmerizing it would be. And it was indeed as spellbinding as live music can possibly be!
Singer / bassist Rachel Davies is just blessed with an incredible gift of emotional expression, an aura in which any fragility or doubt turns into a powerful sting right into the listener's soul. The most Ambient, minimalistic arrangements Esben And The Witch have ever utilized only made her captivating, haunting presence felt even more. Absolutely beautiful!
I can't wait to meet this band again on tour with Fågelle (who I had missed due to Clashburn last year) and Radar Men From The Moon soon!
After her "Mariner" performance with Cult of Luna in 2018 and three years of covid postponement her solo show - to which she also brought CoL's Johannes Persson as part of her band - finally happened. And what a victory parade it was!
Playing tracks from her 2010 album "The Bad Wife" as well as material of her former bands Battle Of Mice and Made Out Of Babies plus some completely new songs she screamed and wailed against a cathartic wall of sound while absolutely commanding the stage - all while being dressed like a disposable Christmas tree, including colour-changing LED lights. Over the course of the show her outfit got more and more ragged - and she even cut big strains of her long hair. So all of this was just a ploy for her to save herself a visit at the hairdresser! Impressive.
But seriously: There was something special in the
Her performance was a highly experimental patchwork of piano, samples, drones and noises. A good instrumental backdrop, but elevated to other spheres by her incredible vocals. It felt like watching that singer from "The Fifth Element". Darker of course, but luckily without the lethal shoot-out. Absolutely phenomenal!
Oh (white) boy, I'm already starting to get exhausted of having to write about exceptional unique vocalists now, and Roadburn had so many mindblowing artists in that regard...
The show on the Terminal stage was dubbed "Far East Electric Psychedelic", so I guess the less song-oriented opening was something specially designed for Roadburn, but without past references I cannot tell for sure. However, the show was wild and out there. And since I didn't watch the whole seventy minutes of it I'm absolutely positive that I still missed some crazy shit. One of the biggest surprises of the festival!
(Would have loved to also have seen at least the former official location Cul de Sac back in action again, but maybe I'll get another chance for that next year. However if part of Offroad was motivated by making up for the Ladybird Skatepark not being available for secret shows anymore, it obviously was quite a compensation.)
As someone who doesn't drink beer at all I of course didn't stumble into the brewery by accident. I had researched today's Offroad bands on the couch in the morning and decided that the SubRosa vibes of the Dutch Doom band Yantras were something I wouldn't want to miss. That was the right call, because the Doomgaze / modern Sludge paired with both soothing warm and ferocious growl vocals by singer Natalya Thelen was absolutely up my alley.
On social media I've referred to Yantras's show as my possibly favorite of the day, which may sound like a little too much praise considering that there had also been Julie Christmas, Esben And The Witch, Bo Ningen... well, you read the review so far, right?
But then I not only really loved what the quartet did, but also the circumstances and timing of the show. It was just exactly what I needed when I needed it: Crushing emotional Doom in a very intimate setting. Of course the sound system wasn't nearly as professional as anything on the festival and the stage - it didn't even exist. They just played behind a bar. It was an awesome contrast. I loved it and I'm looking forward to the band's upcoming new album, on which I was told I will find most of the songs they played.
I've read that the Darkwave / Electro Rock project was supposed to play a full album, but somehow forgot about that promise and did a regular. For me that didn't matter, it was fine stuff anyway, even though I didn't have the energy to follow it with as much attention as it would have deserved.
A good soundtrack to come down before being on the way to my car.
It was pretty brilliant, and immersing oneself in this hypnotic trance for over an hour must have been awesome. So it probably was a little masochistic to give myself only this little glimpse of what might have been. But it was still worth it. Would love to see this Frenchest of all French bands again for a full show.
For most of the day I followed my plan, which is already a respectable achievement considering that with the exception of two Main Stage shows (Burst and Deafheaven) I was at least interested in every single show on all five stages. Only seeing Yantras shook my plan up towards the end.
As already mentioned the back-to-back shows of Esben And The Witch and Julie Christmas were already clashing at their rear and front ends, but they also prevented me from seeing both Alice Cotton and the mighty bludgeoning of Body Void, which was the most painful show to miss for me.
On my way to the car I got a little wet, but it was warm and not too much, so everything could dry until the next morning. And even with the temperatures about to fall that would already be my worst Roadburn weather (not counting the depressingly grey Monday afterwards). Rumour has it that there would be more than one occasion of really bad heavy rain, but I guess I was too much inside enjoying music to be affected.