By Jason Walker
Radar festival day 2
Festivities stopped a bit early yesterday as to quote Danny Glover, “I’m too old for this shit” but its only day 2 and I’m no quitter. Arriving just after doors and seeing some familiar faces and saying hi to get things started for today I’ve found myself back down the front for the first band of the day, Dacara.
Greeted by two screens showing Sans of Undertale, they kick things off shortly after and this is fucking LOUD. I’m absolutely stunned by the sheer outrageous force of their sound, loads of backing samples to add a bit of an extra layer but the bulk of it all is thunderous drums, fat bass, big riffs and huge vocal melodies. Genuinely kicking myself for not giving these a spin sooner, this is great! In addition to sounding bloody excellent, it really shows just how seriously they are taking this slot. It’s probably easy to give an opening slot for a long day a bit less care and attention, but Dacara aren’t doing that at all.
They’ve got their production with them, they’re going all out on the visual elements, everything is going into this. I really did not expect a cover of SiM’s “The Rumbling” along with video clips of Attack On Titan either, incredible. There is also some time for a Yu-Gi-Oh Card pull and subsequently grabbing a clearly rare pull to cause the rest of the band a shock too.
It turns out the Sans appearance on the screens wasn’t just for show as they smash out their own unique take on Undertale’s “Megalovania” which fully shocks me in the absolute best way ever. We’re not done with video game music either, “Just Monika” covers the weirder storyline element of Doki Doki Literature Club too. I’ve seen some pretty nerdy metal bands over the years but Dacara have fully leapfrogged a lot of them to really hit the nerdy itch in a massive way. And then the final cherry on top is their outro music being the Jujutsu Kaisen S1 Outro, absolute perfection.
Next up to keep the hype train going is party metal outfit, Seething Akira! Delicious djenty inspired riffs, two singers that just want to bounce around and spit bars but let’s not forget all the lovely synth bits to build on the hype similar to the likes of Electric Callboy. Honestly I think the world needs more of this sort of thing, they absolutely do take what they do seriously but through the lens of wanting to make sure that everyone has a ton of fun in the process. This would absolutely be like if Scooter started a metal band, fully committed to the bit come hell or high water. Seeing a solid core of fans down the front and a put that keeps bouncing around through the entire set, Seething Akira never disappoints and manages to pull yet more energy out of the bag with their cover of Faithless’s “Insomnia”. Every time these guys just get better and better and seeing them draw in ever increasing crowds that add so much more to the vibe is fantastic.
Next up for me today is Heart Of A Coward, an absolute never miss under any circumstances band for me! Coming right out of the gates with some of the filthiest riffs and pure rage, it’s time to fuck it up on the main stage at RADAR right now! A real crowd favourite that everyone here is down for and the curious will find becomes a fixation after one round with them.
The moment the chorus kicks in for “Hollow” I watch as several friends I’m with battle their way to the middle for a round in the pit! These guys keep the energy invested into the crowd running at constant high and are clearly well honed at this point. It’s no secret I’ve seen these a huge amount of times but I’ve never seen them come even remotely close to a bad show. Watching them dominate RADARs main stage and seeing the rabble in the middle smashing into each other while an army of people around me enthusiastically jump around is great to see. Of course, finishing with “Dead Weight”, there’s not a chance they would skip out on arguably their biggest crowd screaming moment in their catalogue. What a band, enduring, full of showmanship, class act.
As for today, one of my absolute biggest draws for this entire festival, Northlane. A band I will see again and again and again and never get even remotely sick of. Opening with “4D” gets the crowd going nuts right from the outset, a truly triumphant return for the now rave heavy metalcore outfit. “Bloodlines” sees even more people going wild in the centre and crowd surfing over the top and I might be thinking to myself why these aren’t headlining over Skindred. The gigantic void in the middle of the crowd sucks in more and more people with every song, the speed grows ever higher. Not a single moment of crowd participation is missed and Marcus barely needs to even direct people to go wild or clap along, it’s fully automatic. A brief remix of “Solar” does leave me wishing we had the full song but it works as a precursor to “Carbonized”, no complaints though because I find it hard to ever find fault with these. Finishing out their set with “Talking Heads” and “Clockwork” is an incredible way of closing things off but my god I really think these should have taken top slot. What an incredible band.
Skindred walks on to a familiar intro music set of AC/DCs “Thunderstruck” followed by a hip-hop-ified version of the Imperial Deathmarch. I spent the first couple of songs hanging back but couldn’t help but fling myself onto the pit for “Rat Race” and “Pressure”, I’m about that old school stuff and I’m gonna let them down the front know it. Skindred are easily one of the funniest live bands ever, such an immensely ridiculous show and I’m not going to waste a moment of my time in this crowd. Genuinely I’d love to say I have something more of note about this show but I’ve legitimately spent more or less half of this set in the pit and I’m sweaty as hell and having the best time. I wish I had more to say on the overall set but I was caught up in the moment so much that I surrendered myself to the mania of the put and that was it all the way to the end of their set.
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