Harley Young returns to Victoria Warehouse for another weekend of headbanging
What: Radar Festival
Where: Victoria Warehouse
When (2025): 4-6 July
Tickets (2025): Weekend tickets currently available at 25% off (£121.97) - buy here.
Radar Festival says: Radar is an indoor music festival focusing on modern, contemporary and progressive rock. It’s a community that starts with music. Radar Festival won the award of “Best New Festival 2022”.
What we say:
After attending Radar Festival 2023 I had some idea of what to expect, and, following on from a standout performance from metal heavyweights Sleep Token last year, this year’s festival had very big shoes to fill.
Luckily, the team who are behind organising Radar Festival never shy away from a challenge and were determined to give their now loyal fanbase (who travel from all across the world to be there, might I add) one hell of a weekend.
With headline sets from The Midnight, TesseracT and Leprous, this year’s lineup leaned more towards the DIY, electronic and experimental end of the alternative music spectrum. However, with 36 bands performing across the three day festival, there was something to suit every alternative music fan's specific interests from melodic metalcore moments to sets that felt like they'd come straight out of a video game.
Alongside the all-important live music sat the Music Market; a first-of-its-kind addition to a festival like this. Located up on the second floor of the venue, this marketplace was packed with everything a budding musician or gamer could want, including guitars and drum kits, computers and cards, and effects pedals and replacement strings. The scream booth also made a return this year, giving festival goers the chance to yell at the top of their cannon in exchange for a token for a grabber machine in the hopes of winning epic prizes. I was pretty chuffed with my 119 decibel scream - not so chuffed with my shite attempt at winning something on the grabber though.
Band of the Day - Day 1: Caskets
Ahead of Friday night headliners The Midnight, Leeds lads Caskets took over the second stage with their punch-packing alternative sound, stirring circle pits and swinging from the rafters. Singer Matt Flood flipped a seamless switch from clean falsettos to crispy, crunchy screams with his impressive vocal range and he has a stage presence that you just can’t help but be mesmorised by.
After whipping their audience into a frenzy, Matt gestured to the crowd to start a circle pit which we gladly obliged to. Taking us through their top tracks, including Glass Heart and Guiding Light, the boys charged through their whirlwind set, pausing to thank the audience from time to time, hyping them up again and keeping energy levels at an all time high.
Band of the Day - Day 2: Conjurer
Conjurer don’t take their reputation as an ‘extreme metal band’ lightly. In fact, on day two of the festival they wore it as a badge of honour, taking to the Sneak Energy stage with doom-stricken guitar solos, gutteral screams akin to that of an Aztec death whistle, and drum kicks like a war horse charging into battle whilst showing absolutely no mercy.
Lead guitarist Connor wasted no time in letting down his long locks and helicoptering his hair across the stage, enticing fans in the crowd to do the same back.
If there was ever an opportune moment to start a moshpit at Radar 2024 (does a bear shit in the woods? Of course there was moshpits at Radar 2024), it was going to be during this set from the Rugby foursome.
Band of the Day - Day 3: Holding Absence
Unlike my experience with the majority of bands on the bill this weekend, I wasn’t going in totally blind with Holding Absence. I’d previously heard a few of their tracks on Spotify DJ and instantly saved them to my ‘liked songs’ playlist, so I was really looking forward to seeing them live for the first time.
Taking to the main stage at 7pm, they wasted no time in taking the energy of the room and ramping it up to 11. Frontman Lucas Woodland jumped, kicked and pirouetted his way across the stage encouraging the crowd to jump along with him - no mean feat on a Sunday evening when most of your audience are nursing a two-day hangover.
The band from Cardiff worked the crowd for an hour, performing banger after banger from their discography including my personal favourites Gravity and Afterlife, thanking the crew at Radar for their hard work over the weekend. Watching this band do their thing on stage is a real pleasure; you can see just how passionate each member of this four-piece is about what they do. Their energy reverberates, it’s infectious, and you can’t help but get as psyched up as they do.
Impressed by their set, I headed straight over to the merch stand to buy a T-shirt afterwards. I’ve added the rest of their songs to my playlist, too.
To find out more and secure your tickets for 2025, head to RadarFestival.co.uk.
(Header image: Oli Duncanson)
Follow Harley Young on X @Harley__Young
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