A crawl towards the party: Day one at Left Of The Day 2025
Walking down the Westblaak, umbrella already broken, my friends and I quite literally scream into the wind of storm Benjamin: “Fuck this!”
Rotterdam is cold, grey, and raining in a biblical way. This is how Left Of The Dial festival begins, but as the event labels itself as a haven for optimists, everyone simply has to trust that things will get better. They do.
It’s a choppy start, though. As the storm settles in, the festival team are putting out comms after comms announcing cancellations for that day as bands are stuck on ferries being forced to return to Dover, or on planes unable to take off. It forces some things off the path for the team. There can’t be an outdoor bar, and the opening ceremony needs to be cut short and simplified. Even the festival’s signature car wash style dancing men have to be kept safe and packed away for now.
Mostly, though, the sleeting rain ruins the atmosphere, or at least it does in our team of three. We have to abandon plans to go to the opening ceremony. Instead, focus is on getting dry and donning extra layers. Our ideas to go see Honk, the first band playing the festival, are also left in tatters because the walk to the Waterfront feels genuinely perilous, and there are fears they might be playing in one big puddle. So instead, we’re walking down the Westblaak, screaming “fuck this” once again, and finding a pub.
Difficult to do in the midst of a storm, but everyone simply needs to trust that things will get better. In a situation like this, it is a game of acceptance and endurance, and those who manage will win. For example, those who put their broken umbrella in the bin and embrace the old Northern adage of ‘once you’re wet, you’re wet’ as they march to Roodkapje will be triumphant. Thursday at Left Of The Dial 2025 is a crawl towards victory, on a waterlogged path.
Dry off – Jo From School at Roodkapje
After making the executive decision that the opening acts are sadly lost to the storm, we regroup and go in for the second wave. The warmth of Roodkapje coaxes our mood back around. Jo From School’s music is a perfect accompaniment as her indie-laden alt-pop meanders from slow tenderness into headboppers that get us moving out of joy rather than out of sheer survival instinct for the first time.
She provides the first dance of the day, and the artist’s own smile on stage is infectious. You can feel it in the room as there’s a sense that every person there is feeling the same; battered by the wind but ready to be turned around and set onto the right course. With guitar lines that sound beautifully, for want of a better word, twangy, Jo From School sounds like the sun coming out, even though we all know it isn’t, and back into the fray we must go.
Chill out – Green Gardens at De Doelen Studio
The walk from Roodkapje and De Doelen is too short to do any serious mood damage, and when we arrive, the room smells like coffee, and the music is a warm hug, or a warm towel, tenderly wrapped around you.
Green Gardens has that effect as we walk in on a soft song. Playing for the first time out of the UK, this is also one of the band’s first chances to play their new album, Thistlesifting, as the singer, Chris Aitchison, explains that right after it was released, himself and the bassist and co-vocalist, Jacob Cracknell, went immediately on tour with a different band, dragging them away from their own creation before they even really got to bask in it. But they’re basking in it here as its many textures are played out beautifully and impressively by the neat five-piece who manage to sound far wider.
We arrive on a slower, softer song, get a beer, and are calmed back to bass level. Things are good, things are nice, and then the guitarist, Jacob Beaman, starts shredding. “Shredding” is apt because he looks like he’s trying to tear his own guitar apart. It’s at once the most aggressive and gentlest shred I’ve ever witnessed as it roars through the song. If I may get metaphorical for a second, Green Gardens’ music feels like a landscape. The vocal harmonies conjure swaying grass or soft moss, the layering of their instrumentals is everything else that Bob Ross ever mustered – the stones, the trees, the whatever. In that moment, Beaman’s guitar is jagged rocks, and it’s effortlessly cool. Things are back to being great.
Lean in – Hank, Curser and more at Rotown
But schedules remain rehashed. Initially, the plan was to go and see Piss, a band with a lot of buzz, partly because the festival put out a warning about the intense content of their music, advising people that it’s heavy, emotionally. But the spanner of the storm persists. Luckily, there’s a handy caveat up the festival’s sleeve – all the bands stick around, playing several shows over the weekend, meaning that there is always another chance, giving more room for spontaneity.
In this case, the spontaneity leads us to Rotown, a kind of centre point for the festival, and to some legal party pills, picked from a menu with help from a friendly shop assistant.
The placebo effect is a beautiful thing. Costing €12, those pills made the same impact as a Smartie, but suddenly, the mood is high. Next to me, my friend Beth is throwing her head around. I feel my body moving, I feel the body of the strangers next to me moving, and when I look over, we share a smile. It seems everybody feels it too. Suddenly, the important sentiment of the festival – exhibiting the communal power of live music while showcasing the grassroots glory – becomes very apparent.
Hank are a London mainstay that likely most of the London music scene expats, who seem to dominate the room, have seen before. But in this different setting, they sound great – grungey and pinned down by the drummer’s thick and full of flair playing.
Right there and then, safe in the good energy of the room, the unspoken decision to stay exactly where we are is made. The pints here are pint-sized, the people are friendly, the lineup is good, but it all rises towards greatness when Curser take to the stage. Fears of a wash-out from a few hours ago are replaced by a moshpit.
By the end of the night, as bands wrap up for the day and land at Rotown to take over the DJ booth, spinning LCD Soundsystem songs into The Dare, we can’t seem to leave. The wind blows so loud outside we can hear it, but that’s no longer the reason. It’s simply that each time we try, a new great song is played, dancing calls, and another drink is poured.
