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Three powerful days of Left of the Dial in Rotterdam have come to a vibrant close. A phenomenal lineup of 150+ mostly new and young bands played 300+ shows in around 20 venues in the center of this major Dutch and European port city.
The festival leaned heavily on 3-to-5 men/women-strong, mostly post punk ish, and mostly English bands that seemed to have taken the ferry together across the Channel to play out the Guitar World Cup 2025.
It really was amazing to see so many exciting varieties of the classic indie band setup! And what’s great about Left of the Dial too is that every band plays two or three shows. This creates a cool sense of community among the festival’s supply and demand sides – both finding their equilibria many times over.
Logistically, it also adds another very interesting layer to the optimization process of coming up with your own festival schedule. But most importantly this setup ensures that you will get to see your favorites and you might also spot other bands in the audience.
One of the finest shows then was put on by Irish outfit Search Results. They play a refreshing kind of indie rock carried by flawless songwriting and presented their works both ecstatically and effortlessly. They released a new album in May on Knob Polish (sic) that quickly rose into top of the year status. Their latest single Excruciating Heights is attached below – dive in.
Left of the Dial is going down wet and windy this week in a Rotterdam – a 3-day showcase festival that brings together some of the finest new and upcoming artists from Europe and beyond: 150+ bands playing more than 300 shows, spread out over 15+ venues. We compiled a Poule d’Or selection from the lineup – streaming over on Spotify for now.
Curser here is a very charming group of people from South London. They are set to play three shows: Thursday, 23h40 at Rotown, Friday 17h30 at The Cube, and Saturday 21h10 at Perron Small. Attached below is their latest single The Leech, which came out in April, with a promise of a debut album before the turn of the year.
Left of the Dial is a 3-day showcase festival in Rotterdam that has featured some of the finest booking of new and upcoming artists this side of the Atlantic. This year’s edition takes place 23-25 October and with great enthusiasm Team Poule will be making the trip to cover the ins and outs of this famed occasion.
The lineup features no less than 150 bands playing more than 300 shows, spread out over 15+ venues around this pearl of a port city, mostly on land but on boats and swimming stages too. We compiled a Poule d’Or selection from the lineup – streaming over at Spotify for now.
Cistern then are an exciting new band out of Squamish, British Columbia up in Canada, just north of Vancouver. If have ever been to Squamish, you will know it’s a rocky place like no other. The group then plays a refreshing take of early 2000s indie pop and showcases a keen sense for melodies and tempos. Their latest single is titled Illusion and is attached below. It’s from their upcoming album Rhizomes which will be out this Friday via the fine label Tin Angel Records based in Coventy.
Cistern will play two shows: The Cube on Thursday night 22h10, and Worm 1 on Friday afternoon 17h50.
Hamburg’s Reeperbahn Festival has grown into a massive industry gathering with more than 200 workshops and panels and over 600 concerts, orchestrating no less than 450 musicians and bands and 5.000 delegates. While also selling a load of “civilian” tickets – more than 43.000 people attended this year. In the past, this had led to smash packed venues and stressed out security personnel trying to manage expectations and realities at the door in realtime.
This year’s festival felt a bit different and more relaxed and Team Poule believes it was largely due to the phenomenal and diverse lineup they put together: a broad range of genres and popularities that kind of naturally enabled the masses to distribute themselves more evenly among the 70+ mostly small to medium sized venues.
To relive the experience, make sure to listen to the official Poule d’Or playlist. [continue reading…]
Reeperbahn Festival is about to take over the city of Hamburg this week. From Wednesday through Saturday, no less than 450+ concerts will turn the red light district of St. Pauli’s Reeperbahn into Europe’s biggest club festival. Another gem in the line-up comes in the form of four bands from Korea, that are going to be sharing the Spielbude XL stage on Thursday night for a special Korea Spotlight.
19.00-19.30: Wah Wah Wah (Rock)
20.00-20.30: Dabda (Indie / Rock)
21.00-21.30: Drinking Boys and Girls Choir (Punk)
22.00-22.30: Lee Seung Yoon (Indie / Rock)
Find Wah Wah Wah‘s gritty and driving single Dirty attached below – and also alongside many more from the lineup on our (only) official Reeperbahn playlist 2025.
