Live Review: RADAR Festival 2025 - Sunday
6th July 2024
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: William Mawdsley
Oddly, the most disrupted line-up for Radar came on its final day, with some bands feeling they could no longer play the show. Their prerogative and - as Polonius said to Laertes in Hamlet (Act 1: scene 3) - to thine own self be true, so some respect must go to anyone who’ll stand by their principals.
Metalcore quartet – and Bloodstock bound – Waterlines start the show on Sunday with a raucous early sermon; mixing powerful beats and unexpected clean vocals, theirs is an unexpectedly refreshing take on the usual hooligan delivery. The similarly Bloodstock-headed Tiberius were here in 2023, bringing an Eighties vibe and a sense of fun to the Kerrang stage. Progressive and technical in equal parts there’s a definite need to check them out at Catton Park.
Not originally on the bill, but for a rejig of the line-up, Love Is Noise rarely put a foot wrong. I’ve caught them a couple of times when they’ve been in town, and always in July, with the likes of Paledusk and Palm Reader. Chunky guitars and a big bass blast give the band’s foray into all things Post as well as alternative and some heavy hardcore. Serbian David Maxim Micic is clearly a talented musician and creator, but there were parts of his set that I felt were to be admired from a distance, rather than get in amongst. Like great art can sometimes hold you from afar, I felt a little too removed to connect.
Poppy emo goth pop rock is the order of the day for High Regard and the Sneak stage responded in kind. Shields smashed it on the Kerrang stage with plenty of concussively heavy metalcore, while Welsh stalwarts, Continents, having reformed back in 2022, show what the scene has been missing with a solid set of emo-screams. There was a time when Brighton’s Yonaka were scene darlings, touring Europe with Bring Me the Horizon and having a BBC Maida Vale set. But Yonaka aren’t about to live in the past and cull more than half of tonight’s set from material released after 2021. By the time You’re Reading This and Greedy fire the starting pistol, with the likes of Welcome to my House, Ordinary and a closing Seize the Power. The 2019 album, Don’t Wait Until Tomorrow, is represented by an early Punch Bag and a late Rockstar, and a mid-set title track.
Categories, genres and boundaries are merely something to be shattered for Artio who throw alternative, electronics and rock into the mixer, flick the switch and see what come out. I’ve always had a soft-spot for Vukovi’s take on punk-infused sleazy rock n roll and Janine owns any and every stage she takes. Older material La Di Da and Run/Hide sit comfortably with the tunes from this year’s My God Has Got a Gun album. Openers Gungho and Misty Energy set the scene and Bladed sit between the two oldies as though it always did.
In from South Wales Dream State take Radar in a more accessible direction with their combination of post-hardcore meets alternative. They were here a couple of years back, playing special guest to the then headlining Heart of a Coward; whereas tonight, the second stage is all theirs to do with as they please. The crowd, three-days in and with an end in sight, muster up those final scrapes of energy and send the Sneak stage off into posterity with the fanfare it deserves.
Which just leaves Kerrang stage headliner, Underoath to bring the curtain down on Radar 2025. Ten albums and over a quarter of a century doing this thing, and the Floridians have got it pretty much off to a tee. Spencer Chamberlian leads his charges through a set of post-hardcore bangers and screamo angst. They bring the festival to a close and one can only imagine the sheer relief of the Radar hierarchy that 2025 went off with relatively few hitches, all things considered.
It was a triumph drawn from the very jaws of defeat and that it was able to go ahead and deliver thirty-six quality bands is a testament to the fortitude of the organisers and the team as a whole.
Photo credits: William Mawdsley
