GALLERY: 17.4.2025 Roadburn – Day 1 @ 013, Tilburg

June 16, 2025

Roadburn 2025 took place from April 17th to 20th at the legendary 013 club in Tilburg, Netherlands, continuing its legacy as a hub for boundary-breaking heavy music.

After recovering some energy with a good sleep and a very nice breakfast in one of the many cafés in the city center, we went to get our wristband and media pass, which took a bit longer than usual due to some internet issues. Sorted that out and after a really quick lunch at The Junction area, it was already time to get started.

This year, the pit stop – the area of the Koepelhal where normally all the merch stands and the entrances to The Terminal and The Engine Room are located – is closed for renovations, thus forcing the organizers, and of course the audience, to use the emergency exits in order to enter these venues. This created possibly longer queues and some extra inconvenience, given also how much more crowded than the last few years the area has been from day one.

Once inside, we were ready to see again XIU XIU. After last year’s performance in 013 at the Next Stage where the place was so full that many, many people was not able to get in, this time there was definitely more space, and the band, a trio this time with the addition of drummer David Kendrick, had the opportunity to show what they got to a wider audience, as well as to showcase their new “13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips”-album. The eclectic and flamboyant Jamie Stewart certainly didn’t shy out from taking the spotlight with his moves, always well-supported by Angela Seo. The good news was that this time around the band seemed much better prepared to perform live than last year, and way more cohesive, providing a very good way to start the festival to the crowd present.

For now there was not yet need to hurry, so, while buying the first ice cream of the weekend on the way to the venue, it was relatively easy to head to the Next Stage for Lane Shi a.k.a. OTAY:ONII, performing her work “True Faith Ain’t Blind” as part of her – and Roadburn‘s new concept – triennial residency (meaning we will see the talented artist a lot more at least until 2027 around the festival). Lane surprised everyone by climbing up on stage from the audience, wearing some colorful clothing with flowers and with a peculiar hairstyle that seemed somehow quite fitting, she sat down at the piano to play her creation, guiding us by hand into her artistic journey. We already knew her talent as a musician and singer from ELIZABETH COLOUR WHEEL, but this was a far more intimate and introspective experience, which felt like building a bridge between the artist and the audience, bringing them closer.

Sadly, we had to skip the last part of the show as next door on the Main Stage, everything was ready for ORANSSI PAZUZU. It always makes a certain curious effect to see a band you have watched live so many times, growing and evolving through the years from their very beginning to where they stand now, and see them perform on such a great stage as that of the 013 main hall. The band is, of course, no stranger to Roadburn, gathering a big crowd to see their latest iteration when playing their latest “Muuntautuja” in front of them. Having seen them a couple of months earlier in Helsinki we already had a good idea of how the show would unfold, i.e. how the new record sounds live, but still the band delivered nicely and the quality of the venue, adding to the atmosphere combined with the audience did the rest to create an ambience we could easily enjoy for the whole duration of the show; a rarity at a normally very hectic festival such as this!

No rest for the wicked, as they say, so while waiting for KYLESA‘s return on the live stage, we quickly went back to the Next Stage to peek at ALORA CRUCIBLE. The experimental trio created a quiet and calm, almost peaceful setting with their melodies (that’s somewhat to be expected when you can count among the instruments a hammered dulcimer and a violin), and provided a few moments of relief from the hustle and bustle of the otherwise crowded festival. With that kind of spirit, we headed back again to see KYLESA. It’s worth to mention already at this point that on our path we had to miss already on a few interesting bands such as GLASSING, SUPPLICATE, MORVIGOR… but you can’t just have it all. We already made peace with the fact that we would have had to skip many potentially great (and maybe even not so great) shows. Regardless of this, we had some good expectations from seeing KYLESA live after their long hiatus. With Phillip and Laura now joined by John John Jesse (NAUSEA, MORNING GLORY) and Ray Mayorga (NAUSEA, SOULFLY, HELLYEAH, STONE SOUR…), they brought us back in time by almost two decades with their psychedelic sludge. With the band introduced by PRODIGY‘s “Firestarter”, their set was heavily focused on “Static Tensions,” and we were happy to see the band in good shape, giving it their all in their first European show for over a decade. They even threw in a NAUSEA cover, for somewhat obvious reasons.

Once satisfied with what was in front of our eyes – and ears – we were actually really curious to check LUSTSICKPUPPY at The Engine Room, so we left to catch a glimpse of that. Most likely, this one won the prize of the oddest show of the day, if not of the weekend. It was also seemingly hyped, but so far from our comfort zone that we probably missed what’s so very special about a sassy woman in a “creepy amusement park” setting. Mixing rap, electronic, noise, and a whole lot of other genres, it might have been that we came in at the wrong moment, but the show didn’t feel as engaging as expected, more like odd. So we took the chance to have a short break and get some food in our stomach before heading back to The Terminal for some “fairy doom”, how FAETOOTH defines their own music. Making their European debut, the three women, whom we decided to check out instead of GREAT FALLS, delivered what was a very chilled vibe with their melodies, broken at times by heavier and harsher vocals. This felt like things were going a bit back to normal after that strange parenthesis in the nearby hall. The musicians themselves seemed to be really enjoying themselves, and that made for a pleasant atmosphere, until we had to leave towards the Main Stage again, for the collaboration between THE BODY and DIS FIG. Performing their joint effort “Orchards of a Futile Heaven,” the three gave life to an intense and heavy show filled with haunting and screeching dissonant noise. This artistic union worked surprisingly well, and only the fact that everything everywhere was getting crowded as hell made us leave early to try and get a good spot for the multifaceted act THE EX.

There is so much talent and so many interesting bands in the local underground that we were really curious to see some veterans of the Dutch scene, and we were not disappointed. These guys were quite entertaining and certainly one of those bands that you need to see live in order to really feel their vibe and music. Playing their guitars by tapping the chords with a drum head, or passing through them with a brush, this seasoned foursome brought smiles to the faces of their audience, many of whom were dancing to the rhythm of the melodies from their latest “If Your Mirror Breaks.” Eventually, we left the hall for a quick visit to the Skate Park for our first secret show of the weekend, being curious about the Utrecht-based international post-hardcore/screamo act KARNABAHAR (“cauliflower” in Turkish) as they include members of GGGOLDDD and SECOND GUESSING. Not the wildest “secret” show we have seen, but it’s still intriguing to get to know more and more about the underground scene in The Netherlands, and besides this was a quite fitting entree before what was coming next. Without too much rush, we went one last time for today to the Main Stage to see Japanese ensamble ENVY in the first of their scheduled sets for this weekend. Playing their successful 2003 record “A Dead Sinking Story” in what was their Roadburn debut, they showcased what’s probably the highest point of their post-hardcore offer in a career spanning over three decades. This was an intense, rich, and somewhat emotional performance, something that you could feel even if you are not a big fan of the band or of their genre. However, we had only a short time to check the show, as given the humongous queues and the limited capacity of the venue, we wanted to be early enough at the Hall of Fame – surprisingly for the first time in this edition – for BLACK CURSE (sadly skipping DAME AREA in the process). The Americans had been touring Europe along with CONCRETE WINDS for a few days now, and we were lucky they managed to book them for a late-night slot today at Roadburn, given their tight schedule. In a fittingly dark atmosphere lit only by a couple of lights pointing upwards from the stage, they unleashed their blackened death metal on the lucky part of the audience who managed to find their way in, while many were still queuing outside in the spring rain. After half an hour, sadly, we had to cut this short and relinquish our spot to someone else, as we couldn’t have missed CONCRETE WINDS for anything else, not even THE BUG performing at the same time on the Main Stage.

This was by far the highlight of the day and definitely one of the best, most crushing, devastating shows of the weekend. Having seen them many times over, we knew exactly what to expect, and we spent a lot of time throughout the day telling others they should not have missed this. Every single one of these people later told us we were absolutely right. This band sounds exactly as their name, as if you are going to get hit in your face by a slab of concrete, their aggressive noise-y death metal something that overwhelms your senses and leaves you disoriented by its sheer power and intensity. The set was very much balanced between their three records, with the focus on the last two, and if this had been the last band of the festival, it would have been a brilliant ending. It served instead as an equally awesome ending of a long and exhausting first day, but with all this energy and adrenaline pumping up from their show, we didn’t feel tired at all (aside from a terrible feet pain later that night), so we still ended up at the Little Devil for some post-festival drinks before returning to our accommodation.

Without any doubt, the prize of best act for the first full festival day went to CONCRETE WINDS, with ORANSSI PAZUZU, KYLESA, and OTAY:ONII deserving honorable mentions. Time for a few hours of rest to try and recharge ourselves for the second festival day. Check our photo gallery here…