By Jase Walker
A bit of a late start for me today thanks to some arm twisting to end up in Satan’s Hollow last night but it wouldn’t be a Manchester trip without it I suppose!
After a lovely interview with the guys from Caligula’s Horse, I’m at the main stage to open my day up with I Built The Sky for some virtuoso guitar playing. I mean I say that, but that would be missing out the unbelievable keyboard and drumming work also on display at this show, stuff like this is my bread and butter. The big draw for these is not only are they technically brilliant, but the emphasis on solid melody writing keeps each song unique and most importantly, interesting. It’s also a bit amusing how the keyboard solos often get bigger applause than the guitar work considering it’s Rohan’s own project. And finishing up the set was a bit of an unexpected twist, Andy Cizek jumping up on stage to do a song with them! What a fantastic treat to finish off the set!
I’ve joined up with a group of friends to get some photos taken in front of the massive RADAR logo in the outside bit which ended up attracting the attention of the festival media so I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled of a few daft photos of myself in the coming days!
Anyway, back inside and getting myself a seat to cool off a bit while relaxing to Long Distance Calling whom I unfortunately missed a chance to see earlier this year after their tour was cancelled. They open up and their fierce yet atmospheric sound floods the room, it’s just the right sort of music I need for a bit of a break from hurrying around for the start of today. As with a lot of post rock, extended segments and passages are definitely the norm but they’re not used excessively to the point of being boring.
The intensity of each song stacks up repeatedly to a grand finale, layering changes upon each other until the full brunt is ready to be unleashed. The response from the crowd is fantastic as well, never missing a moment to clap along or whoop and cheer when given a moment to. Bloody love post rock stuff, Long Distance Calling were great.
Long Distance Calling were definitely the calm before the storm though, as next is The Callous Daoboys, absolute chaos incarnate. Surprisingly opening with ‘Star Baby’ wasn’t quite what I expected but these are anything but ordinary. A quick look behind me sees a fully packed room that happily sings along to a brief cut of ‘Sweet Caroline’ before smashing straight back into ‘Violent Astrology’ and pints get launched bloody everywhere. An incredible cacophony of discordant noises, frantic rhythm shifts, jumping between entirely unrelated genres at a moments notice, Callous Daoboys are ambiguous and completely unhinged.
This is the first time these have been overseas and to say they’ve been highly anticipated is probably quite an understatement at this point. This set has been nothing short of absolutely fucking ridiculous, pure insanity from start to finish. Also using ‘Show me how free your healthcare is’, is an absolutely fantastic way to tell the crowd to go mental in a pit, it seems it gave security a scare mind.
Time for an immediate dash over to the main stage for Caligula’s Horse: I’m definitely getting my fill of Aussie prog this weekend! Following through with getting some airtime for the ‘Rise Radiant’ album, ‘Slow Violence’ gets us off on the right foot. Following it up with a cried favourite, ‘Rust’, yet mentioning they have five songs on the set so surely that may mean ‘The Ascent’ is on there? Hmm, we’ll see. Following this up with ‘Marigold’, they’ve definitely opted for a strong selection of songs for their somewhat short set but that’s just how festivals go I guess. The last, lengthy song, was not ‘The Ascent’, this time but ‘Graves’, which in all honesty is every bit as good so not going to complain! A brief bit of time with these Aussie prog metallers but fantastic all the same, shame I can’t catch one of their headliner sets while they’re here!
An extended break for food and having a quick chat with Tiberius and talking about all manner of funny incidents and the state of the scene, I’m back at the main stage for Volumes. Opening with their ‘Happier?’ opening track, ‘FBX’, now arriving at riff city and probably couldn’t have gone with a better opener, djent isn’t dead. Relentless crushing guitars, the fattest bass drops and apoplectically angry vocals, they don’t care that it’s late on the final day, they want movement. Each song provokes more crowd surfers coming over the top than the last, I spotted a familiar figure coming over the top and sure enough Andy Cizek (Monuments) gets pulled up on stage and Olly Steel (ex-Monuments) walks on for a song, I’m not sure what’s going on at this point! Even the crew photographers are getting on board with crowd surfing as they bait the crowd into going mental with more crowd surfing and the amount of movement explodes!
Coming into the end, they’re hitting my favourites off ‘Happier?‘, starting with ‘Bend’, an incredible uplifting chorus that really goes for the feelings, it sounds better live than I could have imagined. Oddly they didn’t finish with ‘Get Enough’ which I’m a bit sad about but otherwise it’s been an incredible set and I’m happy to have finally seen these in action. Djent is most definitely not dead.
For the end of the day and festival as a whole, I’m gathering every last drop I have in the tank to keep myself going for Periphery. Almost single handedly the reason why I’m even here in their own right, I can’t wait to see what they do with tonight’s set! I get shivers as I realise they’re opening with ‘Muramasa’ from ‘P2’, what a throwback! Not only that it looks like they’re going for the full sword trilogy following it up with ‘Ragnarok’ which means ‘Masamune’ next! I never thought I’d ever see them do this ever again! The crowd is clearly equally as enthused as Spencer hasn’t even needed to direct them at all to go completely apeshit, they’re going mental all of their own accord. ‘Icarus Lives’ as well?? Oh my god, this set list is already my favourite they’ve ever done, all we need is to add ‘Jetpacks was Yes’ on there and I’ll be screaming.
Anyway the nostalgia trips done, let’s get back to some newer material, after all ‘Periphery V’ dropped this year! ‘Wildfire’ keeps the energy high and provokes the madness in the crowd to spread even further. Following that with more ‘P5’ with ‘Atropos’, I do wonder just how heavily they’ll lean on ‘P5’ throughout this set; given it’s a festival set I’m hoping for a bit of a spread of ‘bangers. Well certainly seems to be the case as they bring ‘Handsome Liam’, for a duet of ‘Marigold’! And surprisingly later in the set, ‘Reptile’, their nearly 17 minute long epic. Spencer tells the audience, after stressing how much he can’t wait for a kebab, that they’re playing two songs they’ve not done live before, starting with ‘Zagreus’ and following up with ‘Dracul Gras’, from ‘P5’. They came close to nearly being cut off by curfew but they’ve been given the all clear to carry on and blast through ‘Four Lights’, and finishing with ‘Stranger Things’ which brings this set and RADAR Festival 2023 to a fantastic close.
What a way to bring an incredible, but unbelievably tiring weekend to a close. I’ve had an amazing time returning to Manchester after moving away but you can guarantee that I’ll be back again next year. Thank you to the bands, team, crew, production staff, everyone so much for putting on a truly fantastic and special weekend. Time to sleep before flying back to Amsterdam!
- PHOTO CREDIT: All photos © Charlie Bluck/RADAR Festival. All copyright remains with the photographer.
- RADAR returns to O2 Victoria Warehouse over the weekend of 26-28 July 2024. You can sign up for early pre-sale discounts NOW.
- All written content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.