The thing I was immediately struck by upon arriving at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester was how much everyone attending absolutely loves RADAR Festival. Whether it was in the crowds of either stage, sat amongst everyone in the outside courtyard, or browsing the stalls at the extensive music and gaming market upstairs, everywhere I looked I could tell that the care put into tailoring every aspect of this event has successfully built such a strong sense of community.
It’s easy to see one of the reasons why everyone who comes to RADAR has such an affinity for the festival, and that is the incredibly interesting lineups that the organisers curate from the worlds of progressive metal and modern heavy rock. I was only able to attend the Saturday of this year’s festival, but even then, partly thanks to the festival’s no-clash set-up, I was still able to catch such a variety of different bands.
“I think we might have some weebs in this crowd,” suggests frontwoman Emma Shippen before launching into a rapturously received cover of the Attack on Titan theme. If there was ever a band that’s going to feel at one with the delightfully nerdy RADAR community, it would be Dacara, who expertly weave the aesthetics and sounds of video games and anime into their energetic brand of electronic-infused metal.
Dacara harnesses a level of controlled chaos for their live performances that amplifies their already lively songs to sound absolutely huge. Shippen shows off some dynamic, soaring vocals, and all of the band have great chemistry with each other onstage. For the first set of a long day of music, it was thoroughly impressive to see Dacara command such a high level of energy from the crowd, and you can only get that kind of reaction with an absolutely killer set of tunes.
Someone may have visited the stage while EVILLE were powering through their set and not gotten their head around the sight of frontwoman Eva Sheldrake rapping about how good she looks in her new bikini top and dancing in said bikini top to the tune of chugging modern metal instrumentation. I can only imagine how boring life would be as that person. Luckily, RADAR is a festival that embraces individuality and uniqueness, so a band like EVILLE, who are willing to embrace fun and femininity in a genre that can be overcrowded by a lot of self-serious men, are a more than welcome presence on this stage.
It helps that EVILLE’s tunes have the perfect balance of catchiness and genuine power. One minute you’re shuffling your feet to some incredibly groovy riffs and glitchy production, and then you’re being blown away by the combined harsh vocals of Sheldrake and bassist Jude Richards. EVILLE refer to their sound as ‘brat metal’ and, based on the fact that a room full of bearded metalheads were screaming along to a song called ‘BR4T MBL’, I think many people would happily hear more of something like this.
I have been listening to Glass Bridges for a couple of years now, and one of the things I was most looking forward to was hearing Simona Cutifani’s gorgeous vocals live, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Indeed, atmospheric and propulsive alternative rock anthems like ‘Breathe’ and ‘Pray’ reach new heights live thanks to Cutifani’s emotional performance.
For such a short set by a band that has only been active for a few years, you feel like you are seeing a well-seasoned live act power confidently through a string of certified classics, with guitarist Sam Canfield a particularly commanding presence onstage. With songs and performances like these, Glass Bridges are only going to continue their rapid rise, and by how busy the crowd got as the set progressed, RADAR definitely proved fruitful in getting even more fans on board.
I got right to the front for this set, which I feel like was the best possible place to take in the full majesty of Royal Sorrow’s theatrical brand of progressive metal. Getting to be up close and watch each member of the band expertly perform some of the most technically impressive instrumentation was a truly exciting honour.
The band’s command of crafting addictive metal melodies was on full display; songs like ‘Samsara’ and ‘Release Your Shadow’ sounded like they could blow the roof off arenas thanks to the imposing, professional performances, particularly from the frontman and guitarist Markus Hentunen, whose vocals effortlessly slid between smooth and soaring. I know there will be many curious attendees in that crowd who won’t be able to get those choruses out of their heads after that set, and the sight of the band triumphantly headbanging over their guitars in perfect synchronicity is an image I won’t be able to get out of mine.
If you came to the festival looking for a party, London nu-metal sextet BLACKGOLD were the band to provide you with everything you could’ve hoped for. A fair few ‘masked’ bands tend to shrink behind the costumes that hide their identity, but that is certainly not the case with BLACKGOLD.
All the band members were bursting with so much charisma and energy that the small stage could barely contain them, which, between that and the several enthusiastic crowd-surfers they inspired into action, surely gave the brilliant security team quite the headache. The hard-hitting guitar riffs combined with frontman Spookz’s old-school hip-hop flow to create a delightfully nostalgic yet irreverent sound that would get even the most cynical listener bouncing along to tunes like ‘It’s Art’ or ‘Wake Up’.
At one point, after a particularly brutal breakdown, Spookz was joined by the band’s two DJ’s for an extended passage of rapping that was being lapped up by a moshpit of people dressed up as Spiderman. It’s an image as unashamedly bonkers as this that an event like RADAR is all about, giving people who feel like outsiders a space to be themselves and enjoy themselves. The more moments of joy like this RADAR festival gives its community and the more incredible, varied acts it spotlights, the more this event is only going to go from strength to strength.
