Simple Things 2025 review: A festival that knows how to spoil its punters
When your own personal taste in music straddles so many different genres and styles, it’s often hard to find a festival that caters to every single one of these fancies. For those whose preferences tend to fluctuate from one end of the spectrum to another, Bristol’s Simple Things couldn’t come with a higher recommendation.
Now celebrating their eleventh year in existence, the multi-venue extravaganza has thrived on the fact that it’s entirely possible to see titans of modern post-punk and untapped jazz talents from all corners of the world on the same bill. While one might think that this level of ambition would see them eventually run out of steam in their quest to curate the most far-reaching lineup, their 2025 edition pulled out all the stops to prove that there’s plenty of life left in their maverick approach.
While many would have marvelled at the pre-festival showcase gigs that took place throughout the week with performances from the likes of John Maus, Autechre and Daniel Avery, it didn’t take long for the ethos to shine through to those who descended upon Bristol Beacon early on Saturday for the main event.
Warming up the keenest gig-goers with a DJ set in the venue bar was snooker legend and experimental music aficionado Steve Davis, flanked by Swedish leftfield savant Stunty, who spent two hours spinning minimal techno and dubstep-inspired tracks for the premature arrivers. Following them in the foyer was Tanzanian duo The Zawose Queens, whose percussive and harmony-laden approach to the music of their homeland was a vibrant and life-affirming experience. You arguably can’t get much closer to reaching peak Simple Things than this one-two, and we’d barely even scratched the surface in the day’s proceedings by this point.
With four stages to choose from at the Bristol Beacon alone, you could have potentially managed to fill out your day in style by remaining within the confines of the city’s most illustrious venue. The main stage within Beacon Hall was blessed with many of the festival’s headline attractions, with The Lantern functioning as a secondary yet by no means subordinate space for the bigger names. With the Bridgehouse stage in the foyer and the stage reserved for DJ sets in the Cellars, there was plenty keeping those unwilling to vacate from the comfort of the flagship venue.
Among those gracing the main stage with their presence were Geordie bard Richard Dawson, whose labyrinthine tales of his upbringing in the North East are brought to life by his singularly knotty guitar-playing and exceptional vocal range. Hearing him perform in an intimate space is something I’ve found to be akin to a religious experience, but to hear his songs reverberate around a hall of great magnitude is just as divine, with tracks from his latest album End of the Middle losing none of their potency in the process.
On the other end of the storytelling spectrum, Dry Cleaning’s obtuse yet witty art rock was also a joy to behold, with the contrast between Florence Shaw’s banal musings and rabbit-in-headlights presence and guitarist Tom Dowse’s demented licks proving to be one of the highlights of their performance. While the grandiose environment didn’t necessarily help the band in capturing them at their rawest, with songs like ‘Driver’s Story’ and ‘Hot Penny Day’ losing a little bit of their grit, the rapturous response to big-hitters like ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’ and ‘Magic of Meghan’ highlighted just how essential they are in the modern post-punk pantheon.
Down the corridor, The Lantern hosted Southend-on-Sea siblings These New Puritans, with their abstract amalgamation of post-rock, industrial music and neo-classical influences. While their sound borders on being dour and apocalyptic at times, the tense nature of their performance is aided by frontman Jack Barnett’s straining vocals and the pounding tribal drums of twin brother George, and even though they’ve been known to perform with a chamber orchestra on occasion, the stripped back version of their set with just two additional members on stage doesn’t mean that the bite of their work is diminished.
Other highlights from the Beacon’s multi-stage bonanza included Belgian-American jazz pop outfit Fievel is Glauque, Atlanta’s fast-rising garage-punk upstarts Upchuck and Glaswegian EBM/trance hybrid Vlure, further demonstrating that variety being the spice of life is a maxim that Simple Things is beholden to. However, such was the allure of the Beacon’s programme, it left little opportunity to head to many of the other venues participating in the festivities, having to forego trips to the likes of Strange Brew, Zed Alley and Rough Trade despite intriguing bills on all stages.
Successfully drawing me in for two sets, Sportsmans and its timewarp boozer charm has always been one of the best places to escape from the clutches of the Beacon during Simple Things, and its programme was once again one of the most stellar that the festival had to offer. Barely able to contain its crowd and a stage simultaneously, Sportsmans is, to put it bluntly, not fit to be a venue, and given the fact that normally it offers nothing but pints and multiscreen sportscasting (who’d have guessed), it’s remarkable that it becomes a hub for the most electrifying live performances once a year.
Granted, they’ve taken some precautions to make the experience of watching a show in there less jaw-clenching, having removed the ceiling fans that almost decapitated Pom Poko singer Ragnhild Fangel Jamtveit mid-crowdsurf in 2019, but they’ve failed to address how the floor still bows under the feet of the rambunctious audience. Inviting in The Sick Man of Europe and Y, among other acts, was hardly going to make the loose laminate less treacherous.
With the former delivering a raucous display of early evening synth-punk for an audience who had made good headway with lubricating their throats with lager, it was Y’s closing set at the venue that proved to be the highlight of the weekend. At once venomous in their punkish snarl, but also inviting the crowd to bound about the place to their high-octane disco elements, the obliquely-named London outfit have been a consistent standout at festivals this year, and showed their mettle once again with a set that would have been worthy of destroying the flooring once and for all.
While Simple Things doesn’t get everything perfect, such as a running order which leads to intense conflicts of interest and frequent bottlenecks outside of performance spaces where too many people want to be, the programme of events is where the festival excels. There aren’t many other events that manage to consistently keep their curation as far-reaching and adventurous as Simple Things does, and that’s why it’s still the standout in Bristol’s ever-growing selection of multi-venue day festivals.
