Roadburn 2018 Day Four: They Have Dreams
Posted in Features, Reviews on April 22nd, 2018 by JJ Koczan
04.22.18 – 11:31PM CET – Sunday night – Hotel Mercure Rm. 224
I saw a lot of cool shit today. This whole long weekend. There wasn’t one day that didn’t deliver some moment that seemed to me to be something special, whether it was Earthless‘ first set, or Volcano, or The Heads, or Joy tonight jamming out with Dr. Space. This afternoon, though, I stood in the back of the V39 across the alleyway from the 013 venue and watched a Q&A with Roadburn‘s creative director, Walter Hoeijmakers, aka Walter Roadburn, aka just Walter, run by Becky Laverty, who runs the fest’s PR.
He spoke about how the festival has grown organically over the time since he started it, how it changed as his tastes changed to encompass an expanding definition of what “heavy” 
is and means, and even about some of what the future holds in Roadburn 2019’s lineup. He wasn’t giving away who’s curating or anything, but as one might expect, there will be more commissioned projects like Waste of Space Orchestra on Thursday and the Icelandic black metal group work Vánagandr: Sól án varma, this afternoon. Talking about how young and creative the Icelanders specifically are, he said, “They have dreams,” and you could hear in his voice the deep level of respect that notion commanded from him.
That was a beautiful moment, and like so many I’ve seen in the 10 times I’ve been fortunate enough to make this trip to Tilburg, I felt lucky to be there when it happened.
There was still a lot to see today, though, and while I did stop by uninvited to catch some of Vánagandr, my final day of Roadburn 2018 began in the Green Room with Iron Chin. For much of the day, I sought out spacier fare, reminiscent somewhat of the spirit of the old Afterburner, which has kind of been subsumed into the festival proper even though there were “only” four stages running today: the Main Stage, Het Patronaat, the Green Room, and Cul de Sac. You’ll have to take my word for it when I say it was plenty.
So I had made my way to the Green Room with all the grace of a low-self-esteamboat for Iron Chin, and my reasoning was simple: Oeds Beydals. The Death Alley guitarist was leading the charge in the new group — fronting the band, on vocals as well as guitar — 
and playing alongside for The Devil’s Blood bandmate Job van de Zande (now also in Dool), Ries Doms (Powervice) and Wout Kemkens (Shaking Godspeed), the idea behind the band seemed to be the Dutch heavy scene’s way of welcoming San Diego’s scene to town. The actual output was somewhere between space rock, heavy psych and jamming, with Beydals riding dynamic grooves as he sometimes does in Death Alley but bringing that side of things more into focus. Naturally, there was a song called “Iron Chin,” and just as naturally, its chorus made fitting and frequent use of the title.
I had caught a couple minutes of their soundcheck before doors opened, and knew it was going to be worth the time, but an even more pleasant surprise was when Beydals brought out guitarist Zack Oakley, drummer Thomas Dibenedetto and bassist Justin Hulson — in other words, the entire trio of Joy — to sit in on a few jams. Oakley‘s guitar fit right in the psychedelic wash, Hulson manned a Nord to bring some organ to the proceedings, and he and Dibenedetto both added percussion as well. It was a trip, and that was clearly the intention.
When I saw Beydals later, I asked him if they were going to record, and he confirmed it. That’ll be one to keep an eye out for. He’s developed a considerable stage presence since I first saw Death Alley at the Hardrock Hideout in 2014, and he wasn’t exactly lacking one to start with.
Keeping with the ethereal and/or cosmic, I clomped to Cul de Sac in order to see Belgian progressive rockers Hidden Trails. I knew the challenge in writing about them would be going a single sentence before
mentioning their connection via bassist Dave Houtmeyers and drummer Tom Vanlaer to the much-missed Hypnos 69, and now that I’ve thoroughly failed at that, I feel a little bit like I can move on. Houtmeyers, Vanlaer and guitarist/vocalist Jo Neyskens released their debut, Instant Momentary Bliss (review here) in 2016, and while it’s a thrill for me pretty much anytime I can watch a band play who’ve put something out on the label Elektrohasch Schallplatten, their blend of classic proggy exploration, organic tones and melodicism made it all the more special.
The concept of the Afterburner, with fewer stages running, etc., was that it was a smaller day to kind of transition from being neck-deep in the full force of Roadburn and returning to regular day-to-day existence. As I started to think about things like flight times home and changing trains at den Bosch on the way to Schiphol — always a challenge because I never know which track the train to the airport is coming in on and have to ask at the info counter, where they basically call me a moron every single time — the soothing vibe of Hidden Trails eased my anxious brain a bit and gave me another chance to bask in the breadth and warmth that Roadburn can sometimes offer, you know, when it’s not tearing your face off.
Speaking of, Wiegedood were next on the Main Stage. I have no problem admitting that, at 36 years of age, after three-plus days of festival-being-at, late-night-reviewing, ‘zine-editing and the rest, my ever-expanding ass was fairly well kicked. I went up top in the Main Hall and sat for a while of Wiegedood‘s set, flashing red strobes, skin-peeling sharpness and all, and then flumped back downstairs to have a quick dinner — the return of the fish in lemon cream sauce; I’d happily eat it every night until I died from mercury poisoning, if that’s even a thing here — before Zonal and Moor Mother took to the Main Stage at 19.00.
Zonal, with Justin K. Broadrick of Godflesh and Kevin Martin aka The Bug, who was here collaborating with
Dylan Carlson last year (review here), claimed half the stage for a table flanked by bass stacks and left author and spoken word artist Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother, the other half to annihilate as she saw fit, silhouetted by lights behind and enough fog machine output that even the hallway outside the Main Stage area was enshrouded.
And annihilate she did, though her words were somewhat obscured by the wash of electronic noise surrounding. It was a performance geared for impact and it seemed to make one on parties either curious or who knew what they were getting, and as the bass beats vibrated in my chest, my mind flashed back to Walter earlier at V39 talking about pushing into new concepts of what “heavy” means. There it was, right in front of me. Impossible to see for all the smoke, but there just the same.
Word had spread of Harsh Toke playing a secret set on the skate ramp up by Hall of Fame, and I know I’ve said before that when Harsh Toke are jamming, that’s where you want to be, but I didn’t see Godspeed You! Black Emperor last night specifically knowing that I’d have the chance to catch them today, and in my mind the commitment was made. With video projection art behind them, they came out to the Main Stage gradually and arranged themselves in a semicircle under barely-there light and like the chamber music of the damned, they treated Roadburn 2018 to their massively influential and richly evocative instrumentalism, creating a space for themselves in the room much as they’ve essentially created a genre for themselves over their 20-plus-year history. I’d never seen them before and won’t claim any expertise on their back catalog, but though the audience in the back was sitting — as was a goodly portion of the band — it was clear they were also being taken somewhere else completely.
That one-two punch, of Zonal with Moor Mother and 
then Godspeed You! Black Emperor probably would’ve been enough to call it a day, a weekend, and a festival. That is, I couldn’t have reasonably at that point asked for more than I’d gotten out of Roadburn 2018. But the day started spaced-out, and I knew it would end the same way. Joy and Dr. Space jamming together at the Cul de Sac? Yeah, you can count me in for that.
In fact, since I looked at the final schedule and knew that I’d be in Tilburg again this year, I’ve known that Joy and Dr. Space was how I wanted to close out my Roadburn. Scott Heller — Dr. Space himself and bandleader of the Øresund Space Collective — started out the set on his own for a while, just oozing vibe on the crowd from his custom-built synth setup, arranged facing away from the audience like a secret box of magic tricks. Cosmic rabbits in lysergic hats and all that. Joy — the aforementioned Oakley, Hulson and Dibenedetto — arrived a short time later and with Oakley‘s guitar easing their way in, embarked on a longform jam that absolutely melted the room surrounding. Also helps that the Cul de Sac was wall-to-wall with bodies and about 100 degrees (or whatever that is in celsius; a million?), but yeah, one way or another, it was going to be molten.
Even without the unforeseen symmetry of opening and closing the day in the company of Joy, I was right in my pick for how to cap the night. The groove was easy, the vibe fluid and the mood in the room just about perfectly embodied the two parties themselves: “joy” and “space.” Beat as I was, I had a hard time dragging myself out of there. But I did, and after a few quick goodbyes back at the 013 itself, I doltishly florped back to the hotel past drunkards young and old, pissed and reckless, dazed and
dancing and riding bicycles. It was another Sunday night in Tilburg. Tomorrow morning they’ll powerwash Weirdo Canyon again and it’ll be like none of it ever happened.
Except it did. And everyone who was here will carry it with them wherever they might be headed next. Home, far and wide, another bar, whatever. I don’t think it’s possible to be here and not be touched in some way by the spirit of it. For me, after 10 times, I can hardly begin to conceive the ways it’s helped shape who I’ve become over the last decade, how I’ve thought about music and culture and art in general, and the lessons that each year reinforces about what truly matters in creativity, which is that it keeps moving forward. Always forward. That it keeps dreaming.
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I’ll have a wrap-up post tomorrow at some point. Till then, thanks for reading and more pics after the jump.
