THE BANDS ON A BUS EXPERIENCE

(Which is actually more of a Bands on a Bus Experiment)

We promised you Bands on a Bus, and now we deliver you Bands on a Bus!

Well, sort of.

It'll be more like a sightseeing tour of Rotterdam while a very modest version of a band plays on board. Still, it’ll be a lot of fun. There’ll be disco lights, a bar, and great views. What more could you ask for on an October afternoon?

But in all honesty, it’s also an experiment. Maybe there’s a good reason why the bus company has never had bands on their vehicles before. Maybe the sound will be horrible, and maybe the bus will get stuck in traffic on the very first trip. We really don’t know.

If it turns out to be a huge success, we’ll definitely be selling bus tickets next year. But considering the experimental nature of this whole endeavour, Bands on a Bus tickets will be free this year. Naturally , exclusively for Left of the Dial ticketholders.

Here’s what you should know:

If you’ve purchased a Left of the Dial ticket, you’ll receive an email on Friday 27 June. Please read this email carefully, as it will contain instructions on how to order your free Bands on a Bus ticket on Saturday 28 June.

Of course, all the other information you’ll need will be included in the email, but to give you a general idea of what’s going to happen:

- Bands on a Bus will be making 3 trips on Friday and 3 on Saturday 

- Each trip will take about 45 minutes depending on traffic

- The bus will depart on 13.00h, 14.00h and 15.00h each day

- Chances are we won’t be announcing the bus lineup until the very last minute 

- You’ll need to show both your bus ticket and your Left of the Dial wristband

There will be 70 free bus tickets available for each trip. It’s a first for us, so we’ve no idea whether you’ll need to act quickly to get one. And again, we really don’t know, maybe no one will be interested, but better be ready on Saturday, just in case!

Big love,
The free strippenkaarten of Left of the Dial

PISS - TRIGGER WARNING

No, we’re not trying to be funny, and we certainly don’t want to sound condescending either – we are well aware that you’re all adults and can think for yourselves. But after listening to Canadian band PISS, we feel the need to offer some well-meaning advice.

Their lyrics deal with extremely emotional subjects, and in particular when we played the song Blocking a Scene You Can’t, half of our staff were in tears. From what we understand, their live performances can be quite intense, to put it mildly. If you’re sensitive to these kind of things, prepare yourself mentally, or bring a friend who understands the possible distressed reaction you might have to the show.

If you’ve been lucky enough to prance through life happily and totally unscathed, you’re still more than welcome to see PISS; they also happen to be a killer band that any hardcore punk fan will love. Please, just show some respect for whatever emotions your fellow festivalgoer might experience and it all be good. 

Big love,
The well-meaners of Left of the Dial

NEWS FROM THE (WATER)FRONT

 If you were a concertgoer in Rotterdam in the early 2000s, chances are you regularly went to Waterfront.

It was a bunker-like venue under the big red bridge, just east of the city centre. Dark and gritty. But if you needed some fresh air, you could simply step outside, and from the quay you’d have one of the best views of Rotterdam by night. We saw so many great concerts there – it was just a really cool place for anyone into so-called alternative music.

But things don’t last forever, not in Rotterdam anyway, and in 2008 Waterfront closed it doors. 

In 2010, another organisation took over, and they really messed things up. They essentially scammed the local government (the owners of the building) and vanished abroad. After that, the concert hall remained empty.

For years, we’ve been trying to get Waterfront back in use – without success. Club Haug – a very cool comedy club – opened next door which sparked some hope, but apparently, there’s a leak in the roof of the actual concert hall that is – for technical reasons we don’t really understand – practically unfixable. Logically, the local government can’t allow new tenants into a leaking building, and so that’s where the story seemed to end.

Or so we thought.

A while ago, we decided to give it another try. We asked if we could use Waterfront only as a temporarily festival venue. There is a shortage of suitable concert halls in Rotterdam, especially during the Left of the Dial weekend and we could really use the extra room. We figured that if we had two weeks to tidy up the place, and brought in a few buckets just in case it rained, we could revive some of Waterfront’s historical glory – even if just for three days.

And much to our surprise our plan got green lighted!

We were over the moon when we got the news – but, as usual, it came with a whole new set of problems. Lots of logistical issues that we won’t bore you with, but our biggest concern was the venue being quite a walk from our other locations.

On the other hand, Waterfront is located at the pickup-point of Bands on a Boat, so our regular ticketholders know where to find it. We reckoned, if we’d add two more venues close by and set up a bus service to the area, it might still work. 

And that’s basically what we’ve been doing the past few weeks; creating a sort of new festival hub to show you more of our beautiful city and to accommodate more bands. 

 It took us long enough, but we found two just as legendary venues in the same area: The Cube (formerly known as Plan C - if you’ve studied in Rotterdam, you’ve gotten drunk there at least once) and the iconic Rotterdam Public Library (where we borrowed hundreds of books over the years). All near the cube houses and the market hall and, more in general, it’s just another amazing part of the city.

To cut a way too long story a little bit shorter: we’re really proud that Waterfront, The Cube/Plan C and Rotterdam Public Library will be part of Left of the Dial 2025, but we also feel it’s only fair to warn you:

The three venues are about a 20-minute walk from the ticket desk, and it’ll take another 25 minutes to get from Waterfront to the Perron/Roodkapje/Salsability/160K area. The bus service will be free for all ticketholders, but given Rotterdam’s traffic, sticking to a fixed schedule will be tricky. If not impossible.

We’ll do our best to make everything run as smooth as possible, but wearing comfortable shoes or bringing your own bike (or getting a rental) is strongly recommended.

Either way, it felt like too cool an opportunity to pass up – and with a bit of love and understanding from your side, we’ll make it work!

Big love,
The temporarily reopeners of Left of the Dial

VENUE UPDATE

The festival is only 132 days away – and more importantly – it’s not like we haven’t organised a festival before, so you’d think we could easily share all the Left of the Dial 2025 venues with you by now.

But we can’t. 

As it stands, there will be a total of 25 stages – that’s three more than last year. We’ve swapped some of the smaller venues for larger capacity rooms, which will hopefully lead to less queueing.

We specifically wanted to find more venues that are more accessible for our friends who use wheelchairs – and it’s quite embarrassing to say, but that turned out to be far more difficult than we initially expected. Apparently, being accessible AND having a licence for live music is a rare combination in Rotterdam.

We’ll update the venue overview on our website as soon as we can, but here are the first changes:

Last year, we used two rooms in TR8, but one of them was way too small. So we’re moving to Theatre Rotterdam, where we’ll be using the small room – though despite the name, it’s considerably larger than TR8. And it’s also fully accessible for wheelchair users.

We won’t be using Sahara (with the extremely steep steps) either. Instead, we’re moving next door to Annabel, where we’ll be using two rooms – though unfortunately only one will be wheelchair accessible.

Finally, we’re still waiting for confirmation on three other brand-new venues, but we don’t want to jinx anything by revealing them prematurely. So more on that later. 

We know some of you are perfectly capable of walking, but simply hate strolling more than ten minutes – and believe us:

If we could find 25 venues on the same street, with great sound, ample space, full accessibility and cheap beer, we absolutely would. But since we don’t live in a perfect world, we’ve got to make do with what we’re given. (And what we’re given is still pretty cool, we think!)

Big love,

The comfy shoes wearers of Left of the Dial

QUADRUPLE GIN AND TONICS

(a cautionary tale for alcohol drinking Brits)

Every year, we’re surprised by the large number of double gin and tonics, or double rum and cokes that are ordered in our backstage bar.

Don’t get us wrong, Left of the Dial artists work hard and they deserve to drink whatever they want, but still… why would you risk alcohol poisoning when you’re playing a festival?

A couple of days ago, we had somewhat of a small epiphany when we suddenly remembered that when you order a mixed drink in England, you’re always asked whether you want ‘a single or a double’.

And that if you order a single, you only get a thimbleful of alcohol, but that a double looks pretty much like the standard Dutch size.

So we finally realised that we've been giving unsuspecting bands quadruple mixed drinks for years, which explains a lot about the state some band members are in when they leave the backstage bar.

What can we say, you live, you learn and this year we’ll instruct our bar staff to always check if someone wants a British, or a Dutch double.

Big love,

The accidental enablers of Left of the Dial