Two announcements at the price of one from the Roadburn camp:
Dear Roadburners,
As the more old-school among you will remember, there was once an extra chapter to the festival: the iconic Afterburner, a separate but related event that kept things going on the Sunday after the main Roadburn programme. As Roadburn evolved over the years into the four-day event we know today, the Afterburner became part of our history, but the idea of creating something distinct around the festival never really left us. Over the years, we started dreaming about turning that idea around: what if, instead of keeping things going at the end, we created something special to kick it all off? That idea has stayed with us. Until now.
In collaboration with 013, we’re proud to co-host The Grand Opening of Roadburn 2027 with a 16 Horsepower performance at 013.
When 013 had the opportunity to book 16 Horsepower on the Wednesday before Roadburn, we simply had to jump at the chance to join forces to make something this special happen. After all, 16 Horsepower have been at the top of our various wishlists for as long as we can remember. Their music has been pivotal to so much of what Roadburn has grown to embrace. While our paths with David Eugene Edwards have crossed several times – through two Wovenhand appearances, including that legendary 2011 show, and his unforgettable solo performance – 16 Horsepower themselves have always remained out of reach. To finally welcome them to Tilburg under the Roadburn banner feels like a big piece of our own history falling into place. A long-held dream, finally coming true.
This show requires a separate ticket. Because of the close connection between 013 and Roadburn, we’re very happy to be able to make sure our Roadburn community gets the first opportunity to be part of this special night. Roadburn 2027 ticket holders and our newsletter subscribers will have access to an exclusive pre-sale before tickets become available to the general public. They’ll be priced at €44.80, including service costs.
The pre-sale starts on Friday, October 9th at 10pm CET and runs until Monday, October 12th at 10pm CET. The regular sale starts immediately after via www.013.nl/16horsepower.
At the same time, our traditional Wednesday gathering, The Spark, will be happening at the Next Stage as always – free and open to everyone, whether you have a Roadburn ticket or not. The Spark has always been about coming together as the Roadburn community starts to gather in Tilburg, and that remains exactly the same.
Whether you’re rocking out to 16 Horsepower or getting your party started at The Spark, we’ll see you in Tilburg on Wednesday, April 14. Wherever you are, that’s where Roadburn 2027 begins.
While 16 Horsepower represents a connection we’ve been hoping to make for many years, some of the other pieces of Roadburn 2027 are falling into place through discoveries that are happening right now. You may have noticed that we’ve been giving these artists a little more room of their own as we announce them. That feels important to us. Many are closely tied to the explorations we’ve been sharing with you over the past months, and to the recommendations and conversations taking place within our worldwide community. Giving each of them their own moment gives us the chance to tell you why we’re excited about them.
Accompanying Neurosis and Emma Ruth Rundle, the first pair of names we shared, Antropoceno, Trhä and Sadness have already emerged from different corners of that ongoing exploration, and now two more names have joined them from the UK: IAN and Kulk.
When we asked you to tell us what was happening in your local underground, one of the names that kept coming back to us from the UK was IAN. You told us about their debut album, about the impact of their live shows, and the amount of love for them was impossible to ignore. When we featured them as part of our underground explorations, your response only made that connection stronger. So we kept listening. And now we’re incredibly excited to take that conversation one step further: IAN will bring their unique, cinematic take on post-metal to Roadburn 2027 for their first ever show outside the UK. Sometimes following your curiosity leads somewhere special. We have a feeling this will be one of those times.
And IAN weren’t the only name you kept throwing our way. The love coming from the UK has been unstoppable, with Kulk right at the heart of it too. Kulk’s new album Choosing To Die, the latest in a run of very strong records, made a huge impression on us, and it quickly became clear from your response that we weren’t alone. Their music is bleak, noisy and sludgy, but delivered with an urgency that makes the duo unavoidable. As these things so often go, the connections run deeper: IAN’s cellist Hannah Asprey appears on the album, bringing these two very different but equally heavy worlds even closer together. Kulk will descend upon Roadburn 2027, and we can’t wait to experience that crushing intensity with you.
There are many more pieces of Roadburn 2027 still to fall into place, but we’re enjoying letting you see the picture emerge one connection at a time. Some of those connections stretch back through Roadburn’s history; others begin with a recommendation, a record we stumble across, or someone pointing us towards something happening thousands of kilometres away. That combination of old threads and new discoveries is already shaping where we’re heading next.
Keep listening, keep sharing, and keep sending us down those rabbit holes. We’re still exploring.
