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Left Of The Dial: Bands recommend their favourite hangout spots and venues in Rotterdam
“Left Of The Dial is still probably the greatest weekend we’ve spent together as a band. Everyone we know who’s played it over the years shares the same view as well,” Eades said when I went knocking looking for Rotterdam recommendations ahead of the festival.
They’re right when they say that seemingly everyone who has played the festival leaves with not only love in their hearts for the actual event, but for the city too. As bands tend to play several sets across the weekend, the set-up of Left Of The Dial isn’t like over festivals where bands are carted in, play one set on one day and then leave. Instead, they hang about, getting time to not only mingle with other acts, but also get to see other bands and get to see the city, just like the regular punters.
The set-up of the schedule also encourages it. The gigs don’t start until the afternoon, giving you all morning to explore or go crash out in the park over a bad hangover, and then when they do kick off, racing from venue to venue means that exploring the town is built in.
It’s led to an overwhelming love for Rotterdam as a city throughout the new music scene, as seemingly every band you talk to who has played will tell you a fond story of a particular venue, bar, park or even just a good takeaway. Not only does it immediately make me excited to land at the festival and gather my own recommendations, but it makes it very easy, because rather than having to do my own research, I can simply ask people who have been before.
“There are beautiful streets, enamoured with canals and whimsical trees whispering the secrets of a billion strangers. A Lovely pizza shop owner who once gave a very drunken English stranger a half-price pizza for reasons unknown to me. There’s also a giant gnome holding a butt plug?” Flip Top Head’s Bertie Beer said, and I’m already sold on what sounds like a truly eclectic city, hosting an event to match. But for more specific recommendations, members from Eades, Flip Top Head, Mandrake Handshake and Langkamer gave us their own personal map pins that shouldn’t be missed.
