Left of the Dial is Rotterdam’s four-day surrender to guiding forces

Perhaps we should put the term showcase festival between quotation marks when it comes to Left of the Dial. In just a handful of years, the festival has mushroomed from maybe 10, 20 relatively obscure names to over 160 bands and artists scattered all over various venues across the Dutch port city. The tally of household alternative names who plunged into this mess during their more wet and naive years is honestly impressive; Lambrini Girls, PISS, mary in the junkyard, and Mercury Prize-winners English Teacher, just to name a batch.

Somehow amidst this upswell in profile and activity, Left of the Dial doesn’t have the kind of enterprising industry-leaning sheen of some of its counterparts. From the get-go, its relatively small organisation has been refreshingly transparent about the challenges they face on a yearly basis, equally forthcoming about failures as they are about their successes. The whole thing still feels like you're attending a local gig for 5 to 10 bucks, except this local gig takes place pretty much everywhere.

Maybe that could be explained by the fact that many of Rotterdam’s best local bands often work during the festival. Nagasaki Swim’s Jasper Boogaard, for example, helps with sound at Rotown, Library Card-bassist Kat Kalkman (who also plays in Nagasaki Swim) manages at Theater Rotterdam’s anteroom stage, and Thrilled-frontman Edward Smith was ambling around with a big orange badge as well. If Tramhaus and Texoprint weren’t out on tour, they’d be some kind of guiding force at some of these venues as well.

Many of these bands have benefitted tremendously from The Netherlands’ highly advanced live infrastructures, which in some ways is a byproduct of proximity (but also this thing called government funding). From logistics to (tour) managing to hospitality, some of the best people in the bizz operate together on this small flat patch of land. I mean, last December I attended Zeitgeist festival in Nijmegen’s Doornroosje, and geez luweeze, that place is the kind of machine that would make Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory seem like a dysfunctional mess.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that acts from environments with less nourishing infrastructures (refraining from using the word ‘professional’ here) get this very warm, very Dutch embrace during an intensive October weekend. Many people gave me a beaming earful about what a difference a succulent meal and a soft bed makes in focussing on the thing that ultimately matters the most a fuckton easier: what happens up on that stage. I guess Left of the Dial felt it was necessary too to put some locals on a pedestal on Wednesday; Rotterdam-based bands in venues close to Eendrachtsplein where my old pal Buttplug Santa keeps watch.

This choice was subject to many different reactions. Many independent parties felt you deny some pretty awesome Dutch bands the opportunity to mingle with international artists and industry types, as many of them set foot here on Thursday. But the flipside of that (maybe quite selfishly on my part) is that one gets to tap into some familiar and proven energies that got me vibrating high from the starting gun. It almost certainly contributed to enduring the cacophony of the three days that followed.

But yeah, for me personally, I couldn’t have wished for a better way to enter the fray than seeing Magasin kickstart things at Rotown. Sonically speaking, they’re quite like them skydancers: lolloping, thorny riffs and scratch and claw in the liminal space appears to be the very same parched tape looped beat over and over again. Despite this deliberately set limitation, the quartet writhe and wriggle their way inbetween with a delightfully madcap energy.

Vocalist Lola Diaz Cantoni brings eerie shades of Lucrecia Dalt (or heck, Björk-before-she-became-Björk in bands like Sugarcubes, K.U.K.L. and Tappi Tíkarrass), with Milo Mooi Wilten’s (ex-KIEFF) basslines beef up the monotonous metronomes with delightfully herky-jerky movements. On the left side we have none other than former Lewsberg guitarist Michiel Klein (some call him the Dutch Jandek) and on the right stands Daanie van den IJssel (who wielded the axe for the unforgettable scene-reviving supergroup Neighbours Burning Neighbours) providing noise and melody respectively.

Magasin could turn into DEVO just as easily as Captain Beefheart, but you get the sense they’re actually totally fine operating within the confined space they created for themselves. Like The Velvet Underground way back when, they are a band that wipes the drive anew again, and whomever’s ears are lucky to be tickled by their high-wired, barely-contained tomfoolery will go on to be the next critical darlings in the expansive avenue of punk rock. An admirable ethos indeed; inside a smoky, half-empty Rotown, Magasin conjured an unspeakably cool scenery.

The rest of the tally on Wednesday wasn’t too shabby either; the aforementioned. Thrilled remain one of the finest shoegaze-revivalists around, while Inner Basement labelmates Loveth Besamoh lifted their shamanic Afro-psych rock to more widescreen firmaments. ebby, an understatedly great trio comprised of Doortje Hiddema (also in the excellent Sacrificial Chanting Mood), Klein, and Personal Trainer-producer Casper van der Lans simmered down their Kim Gordon meets Atlas Sound indie pop once the crowd started flapping their gums a little too loudly, blending in briefly before rising above the hubbub again with their quizzical indie pop spiels again. Though not directly observed by me, the carnavalesque cavalry that is Fellatio was felt, as crowds seemed rabidly drawn to their unruliness like moths to flame.

The Wednesday unfortunately, but predictably, wasn’t as well-attended as I would have personally liked. On Thursday, the energy shifted significantly with the vast influx of UK bands reaching Rotterdam’s dockyards. Largely for the better in the case of Nina Winder-Lind, who performed Left of the Dial before in 2023 as part of the magnificent The New Eves, which was a definitive highlight during that edition.

Despite being sleep deprived from a show in Berlin the day before (which happens), Nina and her four bandmates (which also includes fellow New Eve Ella Oona Russell), seem at ease beneath the empyrean glow of the Paradijskerk. In fact, the church seemed to amplify the more soulful, gospel-tinged elements of Winder-Lind’s fantastic solo debut Wild Love, summoning elements of Patti Smith, the infancy of Bob Dylan’s electric era and PJ Harvey’s collaborations with John Parish. Winder-Lind’s voice reaches frequencies both joyous and urgent: the trifling looks she gives her guitar player fall into the former mood. Urgent however is the final song, where she calls upon the many mothers of her mother, instilling a need to believe into even the most staunch atheist in attendance.

August at UNIEK needs a little more time to marinate however, posturing like the next Arcade Fire but sounding a bit more like Patrick Watson’s first band or whatever. Like many emerging bands now operating in the slipstream of a Black Country, New Road, the conviction of communion/collectivism within a larger band dynamic is easily shattered by a single person trying to act maybe a little too cool on stage. There’s a great influx of cool ideas here, but if you audaciously Fortnite-emote in the middle of all that, it can easily snuff out whatever magic you’re trying to manifest out there. There’s a lot to like, but in the end you cannot fake the funk.

Some UK bands offered reflections of a more disturbing kind, I’m not sure whether this was the intent of GX Nurse (FKA Sunken) at WORM. They tap into that early Blonde Redhead nu gaze thing pretty strenuously, and overall it sounded great. To be a bit blunt, I was both put off and distracted by some of the voyeuristic gentlemen up front oggling vocalist Poppy Billingham like Jabba the Hutt, and how rather vacantly the rest of the band were mainlining off of those bad vibes, as if to enact out some kind Nietzschian passage with the odd exclamation mark. Though sonically precisely my lane, this entire show left a queasy, bitter taste in my mouth. Maybe leaving people disturbed was GX Nurse’s entire point.

Luckily the vibes were a lot more cosy with indie folk/slowcore quartet lots of hands at the Arminius. Not without a jitter or jolt, because this young bunch look like they huddle together summoning spirits at some abandoned graveyard. Their songs are not even real songs yet, nuzzling into you like clumsy admissions of love. It suits them at an early stage: their music is like a Stephen King novel without the Killer Clown. It made this here clown wish for a world where the biggest horror would be telling your crush how you really feel about her. lots of hands play their tunes as if they’re tiptoeing down the stairs to sneak out on your parents; but something about their songs suggest they’ve already been impacted by heavier things than pebbles thrown at their window.

Where Thursday felt like the kind of survival horror that would get your newly-minted J’s smudged, Friday restored our faith in humanity a bit more again. French triad Billy BonBon not only has the perfect name to pronounce with a thick French accent, they reminded us why we fell in love with indie rock in the first place. Scuzzy, squeaky and brimmed with fuzz-drenched bonheur, they played Café Stalles like it was their last show on earth.

Their vocalist brandished a pair of shades on one of those nifty aviator hats like a younger Damon Albarn in a parallel universe where he believes “Song 2” isn’t some kind of joke. Fans of Broken Social Scene, Dinosaur Jr, and Sebadoh got their fill and then some, with special kudos to the real life skydancer flailing up front (this cat also was also doing his thing at the Search Results-gig at Waterfront last year) . In the back, programmer Stephan Maaskant and festival director Minke Weeda were caught cheesing brightly and visibly too.

The French congregation at Left of the Dial brought a much-needed réjouissance to Rotterdam, further punctuated by a euphoric La Flemme gig at Theater Rotterdam’s lobby stage. Imagine all the winning elements of Pixies, Stereolab, Thee Oh Sees and DEVO jam-packed into one band, and you get pretty close to the level of fantastique this foursome brings to the fold.

If your heart is open and you can shoot 100 percent from the field when it comes to tunes, it’s damn easy to end up cheering and dancing like there’s no tomorrow. At one point the rosy-cheeked singer/guitarists entrusts his six-string to a lanky and tall Dutchmen in the crowd while he parts the ocean of frolicking folks; everyone above and below proceded to completely kill it. And even as the crowd gradually thinned and dispersed during this set, the flirtatious, frenzied vibes of La Flemme never yielded.

Back at the lovely Paradijskerk, Jana Horn expresses bewilderment that we Dutch people appear very trusting when it comes to leaving their bikes unlocked. It’s true, we don’t exactly gatekeep medial movement. Horn’s ghostly, spare songs seem likewise comfortable swerving over a tapestry interlocking rhythms attentively provided by her drummer Adam Jones. Horn plays her set chronologically, from older material, one song from her second record, and then all new stuff.

In between each song, the Texas-based songwriter takes a sip of water, telling the witnesses that everything more or less falls apart if she forgets sipping just once. Horn’s hazy songs trust their own weight much like Lewsberg at their most gentle and nonplussed, stretching time and place to more malleable shapes. Imagine Broadcast’s Trish Keenan with Low as her backing band, in this beautiful church no less; it’s goosebumps all over the place.

At a packed WORM, Austria’s Gardens engulf their dream pop nirvana around its cracked sticker-infested walls. Their music is like wearing your favorite new sweater, except there’s now a stain on it because you laughed a little too hard at something, which made you spill your coffee. Nevertheless it’s a stain you hesitate to wash off because it reminds you so much of cracking up that one time. The redhead in the middle, Luca Celina Müller, sings in this really pleasing, mellow lower register, like a secret simmering beneath a room where everyone is vibing off, absorbing the final sunbeams, and exchanging glances. Those jitters are rife within their music. There's even a quiet, barely-there singalong near the end of their set, which somehow felt more apt than people belting away with abandon.

We brave the rain and arrive soaking wet at SAHARA in the city’s Beergarten area, where fun (‘gezellig’) expresses itself in often unpleasantly sharp edges. Aptly enough, Dutch art punks My Purse held one of the weekend’s coolest performances here, making us turn our frowns upside down and avert our gaze from any annoying discord within this packed dim-lit dungeon. My Purse are effortlessly good at addressing dark stuff and making said dark stuff fun to swing like a motherfucker to. One particular song (“Objects”) is sung from the perspective of a clingy stalker-type, whereas another (“I Smell”) flips shame into flattery with a simple turn of phrase. For good measure, the drummer also added some comedically deadpan vocals from behind the copper. Heroic show, hopefully more soon from where that came from.

Black Nylon are one of the buzzier names at this year’s Left of the Dial. They’re playing at the Theater Rotterdam foyer stage Kat Kalkman of Library Card manages, which prompts a working theory of mine as to why every band I see here this year is so good. When you have strong guiding forces like Kat nearby, they tend to pan out on stage, directly or indirectly. They didn’t disappoint in the slightest, partly inspiring the question ‘What if Personal Trainer’s Willem Smit listened to White Pony instead of Slanted and Enchanted?’.

Caught in the slipstream of the Irish export boom, this young bunch already did some pretty high profile tours, rubbing elbows with Kneecap, Inhaler and Just Mustard – and truth be told, they have bona fide tunes and sonically occupy a really interesting zone. Their songs are anthemic and earnest in the vein of Britpop heavyweights like The Stone Roses, but also lean heavily on atmospherics and sound. But you do hope they land in a situation where their creativity and well-being can be nurtured to the fullest.

The next morning on Saturday, Library Card were fully locked in for their second show at Arminius this weekend. This was a meteoric performance that left me weeping continuously, not because it was such a downer, but because they too occupy such an incredibly special zone. It’s as if a band like La Flemme suddenly possessed a more arty angular bunch like My Purse or something, with ample time under their belt to sharpen their edge below the grindstone. Black Nylon followed in the same venue right after, and I figured that in Library Card’s wake, they would turn in one of their best shows yet (and it seems that was indeed the case!).

One of the most affecting moments of Library Card’s second Left of the Dial show was a refusal to leave the crowd out on a higher note with an “Out Of Context” or “People Pleaser”, instead stuttering their usual aerodynamic strides to a stop with blood-curdling renditions of “Every Ten Minutes” and “Temperance”. The former track opens up Lot van Teylingen’s unvarnished diatribe against femicide, referring to the amount of times women and non-binary humans get murdered each day, whereas the lurching latter track sits with the numbed aftermath of this deep-seated dread, turning a stoner sentiment (“There’s a skeleton inside of me”) into something genuinely fear-inducing.

Which brings us to Latter’s spectacular show at the very same venue that same night, a display that shell-shocked us with a combination of camp and righteous anger. They are from Chicago, which means they can fucking play, plus they also have the mileage to never suffer fools ever again. I’d reckon if vocalist Meredith Haines had played for GX Nurse’s WORM crowd, she would rip out someone’s still beating heart and eat it in front of them just three songs in.

For all of Latter’s lack of subtlety (they sound like a hardcore punk band covering L7 and Courtney Love hits), they are tremendously effective in turning trauma into a roaring revolt; they ended their set with Haines changing into a psych ward gown and using a hand-held saw to tear at it some more, as the band creates a maelstrom of ruckus around her. I suppose it’s no worse than what’s going on in your parents’ bedrooms.

Off to Rotown where Spike Fuck and his band traipse through an all-too-rare down and dirty set that could even be filed under the hackneyed term ‘throwback’; Small Faces, Dr. Feelgood, The Doors, or maybe even a Nick Cave who prematurely found God during his malignant The Birthday Party beginnings. It all seems way too cool to fake. Though I’m not super familiar with this Aussie cult hero’s full body of work, Spike Fuck and his comrades seem perfect at ease marinating their jams in excess and sin without being carried away by such things. Fascinatingly, Spike instructs the light person to keep the stage bathed in darkness during the first half of the set; only about two-thirds in, they illuminate the figures prowling the stage. And we see a visible smile on Spike’s face.

We clock out of Left of the Dial 2026 at MAQUINA’s closing performances at De Doelen’s big Central Hall. The Portugal powerhouse easily sandblasts this place into tiny chunks with their propellent, hyper-impactful blend of dance punk, industrial, EDM and techno. There’s no discernible darkness or light in what they do; simply a heady tractor beam of pure unfettered noisy expression. Saudade, but maybe a wee bit, uhm, louder? Like many other singular creatures witnessed at Left of the Dial this year, it’s a guiding force in and of itself, carrying us across the currents.