Live Review: RADAR Festival 2025 - Saturday
5th July 2024
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: William Mawdsley
As Saturday comes it’s difficult to gauge to what extent the controversy affecting Radar will affect the turn out. Before jumping to any rash conclusions one way or the other, it should be remembered that the Black Sabbath Back to the Beginning extravaganza is at Villa Park today and we’re only talking about ninety-minutes down the M6; and there’s Slayer at Finsbury Park on Sunday, both of which will have some crossover with the Radar ticket buyers.
A rejigging of the running order sees new addition, Break Fifty opening things up on day two. The local lads were parachuted in at the last moment and take the early Radar crowd by the scruff of the neck and bludgeon them into submission with their hard-hitting Nu-Core breakdowns. Fellow Mancunians, Vmbra were to open the Sneak Stage but were upgraded to the Kerrang one to plug the hole at the top of the bill. Their progressive take on rock and metal drew in a steadily expanding early crowd and showed they were able to adapt to the enforced change admirably.
Maisie, vocalist of Sheffield Alternative Punk trio, Air Drawn Dagger had decided to play the bulk of the band’s Sneak stage set from the middle of the crowd due to her ears not working. She takes the plunge during Cadavers and doesn’t retake her place until the end of the show. Covers of Prodigy’s Omens and Britney’s Toxic, along with Apparitions, Bellyaches and You Should Have Known Better turn this performance into one of Radar 2025’s most memorable ones. The last time I saw it done was by Jimmy G of Murphy’s Law a couple of years back at Rebellion, and it brings a closer connection between band and audience.
It perhaps says more about me than anything, but among the subtly cultured noodling of many of the bands this weekend, the abrasive Geeza-core of Guildford growlers, Pintglass really hit the mark. Clad in high-vis vests and making a deliciously ungodly racket, somewhere between heavy hardcore and slam death metal, they were the fix I didn’t realise I needed. In contrast, Lastelle are lush and tender, though their performance can hardly be objectively called restrained. The Oxford atmospheric post-hardcore band begin their set with a trumpet before laying on complex layers of guitar and ringing percussion.
Brummie bruisers Oceans Ate Alaska take a leaf out of Pintglass’ playbook and eschew the subtilties, preferring instead to beat the Kerrang stage into submission. Hard-hitting and uncompromising, they show the whole range of tastes Radar is attracting. Nashville, TN is not the usual place you expect to produce instrumental djent bands, but amid the Country & Western and the Grand Ole Opry, come Arch Echo, whose flights of musical fancy pique the interest in a very different way than Oceans or Pintglass, but still hold you enraptured by their compositions. If there is a frontman to the band, it’s keyboard maestro Joey Izzo, if only because he’s the only one with a microphone. Long involved passages might be the order of the day, but they never come across as being a chore, or a slog of a listen.
Parisians Novelists hit the stage and immediately call for a circle pit, their down and dirty riffing and ripping delivery belie the concept of the band as being French bohemians. Noodling solos and blistering vocals deliver Coda, from the most recent album of the same name, before delving into the band’s most recent history, heavily focused on the Déjà Vu album of 2022 and the single releases of 2023. British Canadian alternative punk duo, Shelf Lives waste no time laying on the urban beats and spastic rhythms, all with dissonant guitars and the snottiest don’t-really-give-a-f-attitude you’ll see all weekend.
Coincidentally, also from the Great White North, come Intervals whose epic flights of instrumental fancy are lifted straight out of the Animals as Leaders school of composition. Technically flawless, although a little at-arms-length at times, theirs is a set of precision and substance over style.
Topping the Sneak Stage bill today come Annisokay from Germany who show that the technicians might be camped on the Kerrang stage, but they intend to close Saturday with a bang. Their screaming post-hardcore invokes the energy of Converge and they wring the final drops of strength from the excited crowd as the curtain falls on today’s second stage proceedings.
Options and time were short for the Radar crew when it became apparent a change would have to be made at the head of their Saturday bill. Swedes Normandie have the chops and the stagecraft to move into a headlining position at a moment’s notice, so it became the best option. Their emo-tinged post-hardcore seemed to get the room bouncing from the outset and the level of goodwill directed at Normandie was palpable. Their dalliances beyond the usual scope of their sound, into alterative rock and, perhaps even, radio-friendly stadium anthems serve then well on what could have been a very tricky night indeed.
Photo credits: William Mawdsley
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