Roadburn Festival Closes, 2020 Dates Announced


The preeminent underground music festival in the world has come to a close. Roadburn was another smashing success in 2019, and the festival has sent out a missive to fans and press recapping the weekend and looking ahead. Roadburn 2020 will take place April 16-19, Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Artistic Director, Walter Hoeijmakers comments:

“As a festival that constantly seeks to raise the bar with ever more creative endeavours, we are beyond thrilled with how Roadburn 2019 unfolded. The level of collaboration, inspiration and artistic expression was beyond anything that I could have hoped for. There is still so much to get our heads around, but everybody is feeling so energised that our minds are already working towards Roadburn 2020.”

For the second year running, Roadburn played host to commissioned projects – this time there were three such performances across the weekend. On Thursday, a collaboration between former members of The Devil’s Blood and Astrosoniq united under the banner of Molasses to a rapturous reception. On Friday afternoon, Triptykon joined forces with the world-renowned Dutch Metropole Orkest to perform the Celtic Frost/ Triptykon Requiem to a spellbound audience. On Saturday the Patronaat venue hosted an assortment of Dutch black metal bands before the night culminated with an enormous collaborative project under the name Maalstroom.

Sleep, who themselves delivered two sets over the weekend. One setlist that focussed on the latest album The Sciences, and one that would zero in on the legendary Sleep’s Holy Mountain album – expectations were exceeded on both nights. Roadburn’s 2019 artist in residence, Thou, performed four times across the weekend; an acoustic show, a Magus-era set, a collaboration with Emma Ruth Rundle, and a barn-storming, late-night Misfits cover set at the Ladybird Skatepark where they were joined by an assortment of guests. Other impromptu skate park sets popped up throughout the weekend, including the likes of Mythic Sunship, Bismuth, Vile Creature, and Lingua Ignota.

Roadburn’s side programme events offered insight to the inner workings of Heilung, and Tom G. Warrior as well as multiple aspects of the music and creative arts industries. Kickstarter Games took over a corner of the festival to create a tabletop gaming enclave. Walter Hoeijmakers, other chats with artists, and films and much more.