Get Ready to Rock: Roosendaal Open Air 2024 Unleashes the Fury with Pjöt

When we went to March of the Black Horse at the beginning of this year, we were immediately invited by one of the board members of the Alternative Music Foundation to visit big brother later in the year. Nothing is sooner said than done, and so yesterday we decided to cross the border again to visit Roosendaal Open Air, but unfortunately this time we had to go without the organizer who had invited us at the time. Pieter Verpaalen, former singer of Textures, among others, was one of the driving forces behind organizing the festival for many years. A few weeks ago he unfortunately lost his battle against cancer. Despite this tragic loss, the rest of the organization remained unhappy. They had thrown their weight behind the festival, divided their comrade duties among themselves and named the usually nameless main stage after their deceased friend: the Pjöt Stage. So he was still there, while they presented a big metal festival to the city of West Brabant, but also to Pjöt.

We started the day with Death march. And not the walking hell that was just the completely insane key for it, but with a band that brought a heavy dose of hard sludge doom from, in their own words, to the most serious depths of the Netherlands. We can agree with that description, because the music that the group performed yesterday afternoon was far from suitable for sweet children’s parties. Heavy guitar lines and drum bursts flew in early and the band played very strongly. Still, it wasn’t enough to really get the crowd moving. No, an effort like the walking event of the same name was hard to come by and, apart from a few applauses and moving feelings, the audience didn’t move for a moment.

Fortunately, the same audience joined Temptations for the Weak much more lively and we even saw the first mosh pit arise among our compatriots. The band held up well and was in full form in no time. The sounds similar to In Flames had a hammering effect on our eardrums and the group managed to create a climax early in the day. Also Bladecrusher held up well and delivered an excellent set. The presenter had already indicated before the performance that it would be terrifying with an unparalleled groove and that was not a lie. The band kept the audience bouncing as they played hard and were not afraid of anything or anyone with songs like “Obey the Reaper” and “Justification”. A solid show, that’s for sure.

Like every year, this edition also saw a gravel band visit the Roosendaal festival. Oh Brutal sphincter the festival had booked a group that is not averse to producing a gravel pit of sound. And that’s exactly what we got for thirty minutes yesterday afternoon. With a set list full of adolescent titles about various body piercings, the Liège ensemble tore goregrind across the Pjöt stage, but at times the wall of sound didn’t come to its head. Nice to take once, but I would happily and happily skip another ride.

This year, for the first time, Roosendaal Open Air had a small stage where there was a lot of entertainment to be seen during the day. Rubbish there was a nice hillbilly show full of banjos, violins and a rather badly tuned guitar, but with a high dose of humor and fun. The three members beamed and didn’t take themselves too seriously, characterized mainly by the fact that the front woman sang about her genitalia for four minutes to the lyric of Bökker’s unknown live hit “Cowboy met een Dikke Lul”. It was a relief to watch. No guidelines or rules, but a show whose main aim was to entertain the audience. He did the latter Dead Elvis and his One Man Grave right, although the best man has to do it alone. With a guitar in his hands and an improvised drum kit at his feet, he tackled the smallest stage full of bravado and made the spectators, who had come in quite a large number, dance to his music easily playful.

Between the shows on the small stage, it was allowed Vanaheim go on the main stage. The band didn’t really convince us, although the hearts of some in the audience overflowed when the songs about giants, strange peoples and fantasy stories came over. For us it was all a bit too cheesy, a bit too attic-like and many times too far over the top. When the frontman walked across the stage with a candle holder and performed songs that could easily fit into Efteling in terms of theme, we felt a sense of vicarious shame welling up within us. Oh well, the members of Vanaheim certainly had a good time on stage and probably a few would have enjoyed it too, but not for us at all.

He therefore proved that they are not the hardest at the festival Asagram had some problems during the audio test. Groningen’s black metal formation was running out of time. while the technology was not doing what it was supposed to do. The festival solution: delay the fifteen minute set and still give them the full fifty five minutes. A nice idea from the organization, but due to the long wait and slow build-up, the band lost full concentration among many spectators. However, that soon came into play once the guitars flew in full force. What followed was a set full of intensity in the form of “Geddi Haul Du”, “Tân Impure” and the devastating closing track “Where I Am, Death Comes”. Asagraum kept a good house and had a blast at sunset. Maybe we should also put body paint on our cheeks, just like the members, because they were completely bruised by the force of the performance.

While the rest of the bands could prepare in peace for their performance at Roosendaal Open Air, finally it was distant a different story unfortunately. The band are in the middle of a busy tour schedule and played to a packed venue in south Berlin last Friday. That’s not so bad, after all, the crew are used to traveling for long periods of time due to their recent tour with Lorna Shore across the USA, but on returning to their bus it became clear that a number of strangers were so enthusiastic . for the contents, that they decided to break a window and take whatever they could get. With little sleep or physical preparation, the group traveled towards Roosendaal. However, there didn’t seem to be any fatigue at all, Distant performed very well from the first moments of the performance.

By ten o’clock the audience were finally ready to go all out and they bopped energetically to the tired tones. Distant turned into a party and proved why Will Ramos, one of the greats of the genre, is so fond of the Rotterdam/Slovakia formation. The eternal grinds of frontman Alan Grnja, the layered guitars of Yetgin and Maurits, and the hard, but especially tight drums of René Gerbrandy, ensured that the room was completely demolished. While the group mainly performed work from their breakthrough album Inheritancethere was also time in the middle of the set for some unreleased work. The song had a successful tour and seemed to become a permanent fixture in the set list due to the force of the hurricane. If some opinions in the audience are to be believed, the band will be announcing new material very soon. And if that album is as strong as the so far untitled track, then we think Distant could grow into something much bigger than it already is.

After one last shout from the singer, the crew said goodbye to the stage and the place emptied. We took another look at the stage, on the Pjöt Stage, and made a toast to the name one last time with our plastic cup. You are doing well, Pieter.