Desertfest Berlin 2025 Announces Elder, Lowrider & Castle Rat to Play
I’m digging the art designs for next year’s Euro Desertfests. As Berlin and London roll out their first announcements and Oslo confirms Elder — with more to come all around, of course — you can get something of a darker picture than some years past in terms of design, and while I don’t think a normal person sees strange orbs and gritty splatters and thinks to themselves, “Well this looks like a good time, I think I’ll buy a weekend ticket,” it speaks to the community without stonerly pandering and, in the case of Desertfest Berlin 2025’s sphere-shaped feature, feels somehow cosmic. If that’s an object about to slam into the Earth, well, that’s a pretty heavy experience. No doubt the festival will be one too.
Elder, Lowrider and Castle Rat are the first names. Elder‘s tour has been announced — the band quote below is making the rounds, assuring of moving forward even as they celebrate 10 years of a landmark record — and I’ll assume Castle Rat dates are forthcoming. I’m curious whether Lowrider will be at either the Oslo or Berlin Desertfests, but I’m not cool enough to have that kind of insider knowledge, and really anytime you get Lowrider to do a show anywhere, it’s a win. Should they turn out to be Berlin-only, good for Berlin.
Here’s what went out on socials a bit ago, emojis and all:
Desertfreaks,
we proudly present our first 3 confirmed bands for DESERTFEST BERLIN 2025:
⚡️ELDER ⚡️
Lore 10th anniversary show
Some thoughts from Elder: Lore is turning 10 years old. This album marked a point of departure for Elder upon a path which the band is still walking now. For us, this is the record where the band came into its own as a unique voice in the heavy rock underground. As we approach our second decade as a band, we feel it’s appropriate to look back on this landmark for us and acknowledge it properly, which is why we’re doing a tour performing the entire album along with some other tracks from our earlier catalog; we’ll give this era of the band a proper celebration before turning our attention once again toward the future and the next album, currently being written.
⚡️LOWRIDER ⚡️
Their Instagram bio simply states: ‘Rock and/or Roll from Sweden. Apparently guilty of being James Hetfield’s fav band.’ And we have nothing more to add to Lowrider🔥
⚡️CASTLE RAT ⚡️
Castle Rat is a Medieval Fantasy Doom Metal band hailing from Brooklyn, NY, and led by Riley Pinkerton — ‘The Rat Queen’. On her mission to expand and defend ‘The Realm’ from those who seek to destroy it, The Rat Queen is joined by Henry Black — ‘The Count’ and Ronnie Lanzilotta — ‘The Plague Doctor’, and Joshua Strmic — ‘The Druid’. Together, they face the relentless wrath of their arch nemesis: Death Herself — ‘The Rat Reaperess.’
👀Next Band announcement on 28th September!
Cheers,
Your Desertfest Crew
DESERTFEST BERLIN 2025
23. – 25. May 2025 – Columbia Venues
🎟www.desertfest-tickets.de
www.desertfest.de
www.facebook.com/DesertfestBerlin
www.instagram.com/desertfest_berlin
