Roadburn Festival - April 17, 2010

Saturday morning was a rough one. I had celebrated my birthday the night before and therefore woke up slightly disconnected; disconnected enough to get my gear together and head down to Tilburg for the third and final day of the Roadburn Festival 2010. I had originally decided not to attend the festival this year due to the sky high ticket prices and less than impressive line-up, but I had been to the festival’s 10th anniversary so I saw it more than fitting to take a peak at the 15th anniversary.

After wrestling with indecisiveness I finally got on the horn with a friend of mine who was selling his ticket for a third of the price. I figured it was a fair price, seeing as I’d only be going to one third of the festival. The news came in at about 14.30 that the ticket was waiting for me at Tilburg’s monumental 013 venue, and if I wanted to catch Astra at 16.00, I had better get in the car. I tanked up, rolled up, and drove off heading south on the A2 with the sun beating down on me through my sunroof and my black shirt did a fantastic job absorbing every degree of heat it could. I made it past the ring around Utrecht at which point I realized that the amount of places that you could hide a body grow exponentially in this part of Holland. In order to get to those places, though, you’d need to cross a perimeter of birch trees, which slightly resembled cacti because they were not yet in bloom. So there I was, cooking, baking, and gazing out on a landscape that I could only imagine is at least slightly comparable to the deserts that our stoner heroes, Kyuss, sang about. Talk about being in the zone!

Minutes before Astra took the stage, I pulled into a parking spot and moseyed my way down to the venue. Tilburg is a beautiful city with a rich rock n’ roll scene – especially when Roadburn comes a’knockin. I joined a fleet of bearded men in black shirts heading the same way but felt a strange vibe radiating off of them. As they slowly marched down the street, hardly saying a word to one another, it began to feel as though I had joined a funeral procession. I tried to crack a joke about a band named Master Musicians of Bukkake but was met with blank faces and what I assume was an attempt to tell me that these folks I had found myself with were from Italy and spoke very little English. Around this time I was able to break free and meet up with my buddy Bart who was holding the golden ticket. I strapped on a wrist band which marked me as a member of this spaced-out community and we headed to the Midi-Theater for the Astra show. Unfortunately, the theater had reached its capacity, so we headed back to the Main Stage to watch the other opening band of the day, Death Row.

You see, one of the main reasons I didn’t spring on tickets when the pre-sale went up was because most of the bands billed for the festival had outrageous names and even stranger music. Witchfynde, Altar of Plagues, Church of Misery, Trinacria, Valborg, and the list goes on and on. When I had previously attended Roadburn, the bands booked had strange names, but at least they didn’t insinuate cannibalism, death, or Satan. Bands like Brant Bjork and the Bros, Astrosoniq, Colour Haze, Leafhound, and Litmus, to me, are what made the festival so special. Super psychadelic wanderings, be it musically or finding yourself drifting from one stage to another.

That said, Death Row was kind of cool. Being an up-tempo rock band in a three piece formation of course made it a dead giveaway that they were trying to be Blue Cheer, and because of that I was only able to drift in and out of interest. Bart and I left the set early to check out The Machine, who I thought was a band that did Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd covers, but I was mistaken. The Machine sounded like a watered down Colour Haze and needing to watch them in an over-crowded Bat Cave (the small stage) just wasn’t worth the music. Meanwhile, Sons of Otis were about to take the stage over at the Midi Theater, and since I’m a sucker for most bands on the Small Stone Records imprint, I felt compelled to check them out.
Sons of Otis are also a three-piece, playing in front of a backdrop painted with cascading amplifiers and speakers not unlike the ones the band was actually using. The backdrop was probably there to give the impression that Sons of Otis played huge, heavy riffs with relentless force, which wasn’t really the case. The music was good – very psychedelic and tuneful – but the singer/guitar player needs to learn to use his pipes better. Whenever he stepped up to the microphone to sing, I cringed. But it seems to be working for them because they’ve been doing this for years.

After the set we went outside to bake in the sun a little bit and get some air. Brant Bjork was up next and I needed to recharge my batteries before heading back in. Brant Bjork and his bros took the stage 20 minutes late and first proceeded to tune their instruments. This seems to be a running gag on this tour, because they did pretty much the same thing back in March when I saw the band in Rotterdam. Of course the set opened with a jammed out version of ‘Freaks of Nature.’ When the song came to a close, Brant said a few words about how special Roadburn was and then they continued to plow through a set featuring songs from ‘Jalamanta,’ ‘Somera Sol,’ and the latest ‘Gods and Goddesses.’ After an hour and a half of wild guitar solos, heavy rhythms, and the sly and sleazy vocal delivery of Brant himself, the band left the stage on a high note (having played ‘Too Many Chiefs...Not Enough Indians’ with Mario Lalli on guitar) and beat out any other band we had seen so far. Up next was not so much a band as an ego trip, Garcia plays Kyuss. After such a respectable rock show as Brant’s, Garcia needed to bring his A-game.

Unfortunately, the entire Kyuss set fell flat on its face. Why? Well, John Garcia was the singer in the eponymous stoner-rock band by the name of Kyuss with buddies Scott Reeder (bass, now with Fu Manchu), Josh Homme (guitar, now with Them Crooked Vultures), and the aforementioned Brant Bjork on drums. What Garcia did, however, was round up a bunch of no-name Dutch guys to play the songs exactly like they’re played on record while he took center stage. There was very little movement on stage and even less communication within the band. It seemed like the band was told to tone down their stage presence to be able to shine the light on Garcia, who did nothing more than grind his mic stand or drink drink liters of water with his back turned to the audience while the band explored the instrumental territory of the music. At one point, Garcia invited Ben Ward, the singer from Orange Goblin on stage to sing a song – an attempt that also fell flat on its face because Ward only sung three words with Garcia every time the chorus came around. In short, if I wanted to stand while listening to Kyuss, I can do that at home and not feel as though I’m wasting my time seeing great music being torn apart by a sub-par show.

Once the Garcia set ended I tried to head to the Bat Cave to watch Ahkmed, but they were unfortunately not exciting enough to bring back the vibe the John Garcia had stripped me of. Up next were the two big closers – Los Natas and Enslaved. Los Natas I had seen open for Brant Bjork back in 2008 and was unimpressed. Enslaved is not at all my cup of tea. I actually ended up leaving early. What a shame.

Yes, I enjoyed myself. I was with good company and erratically ran into another few people I knew. The vibe was good, the sun was shining, and music festivals usually have a fitting vibe. But after spending seven hours at the 013 I realized that the only highlights were Sons of Otis and Brant Bjork. Until Roadburn goes back to their roots booking more bands like this, I think this will be my last visit to the festival.