UPS AND DOWNS

 So far, it has been a week with some ups and downs. 

By chance, we discovered that our ticket shop hadn’t been working properly for days. Most of you already got your tickets, so you rightfully couldn't care less, but we felt pretty lousy about disappointing the people who finally decided to join us this year.

And if we may say so ourselves, you really don’t want to miss out on Left of the Dial this year. Of course we’ll have the immense popular good old Band on a Boat, but our love of alliteration also made us want to do something else. 

And today we got one step closer to Bands on a Bus.

We spent weeks trying to find a bus company willing to drive around the city with a band playing on board. Today, we finally struck gold. Somewhere in the south, we found a parking lot filled with party busses and their owner loved the idea of Bands on a Bus. 

We still have to figure out some technical stuff, find a band who doesn’t get car sick and somehow make sure everyone will be safe while cruising the city, so we’re not there yet, but things are looking great. We might even say it has been the highlight of the week and we can only hope Bands on a Bus will also be one of the highlights of the festival. 

To let you in on our excitement, we made some phone videos which we'll post later on. A bit crappy, but hopefully you’ll get the general idea…

Big love,

The moody bus drivers of Left of the Dial

(Oh, and about the ticket shop: it’s more or less fixed, so ticketless people can queue up again. It’s mostly a pretty up week after all!)

SOMEHOW THINGS ARE ALWAYS EASIER IN OUR MINDS

We wanted to do things a bit differently this year, so we figured, let’s kick off our lineup announcements with the extra stuff you can do during Left of the Dial; The Extra Extras.

Of course, our musical lineup will always be the most important thing in the world, but a lot of people put a lot of effort into coming up with ways to entertain you on those scarce moments you’re not at a concert, and their efforts deserve some special attention too.

Always optimistic, we told everyone that the Extra Extras announcement would be on January 20th, so there would be no turning back. Okay, the festival was still months away so it might not be the most urgent issue for most, but we thought how hard can it be to gather a bunch of cool activities and put them on a website?

As it turns out, not as easy as we thought.

We wanted to do film screenings again (and we will!), but it’s way too early to select the perfect documentaries yet. Our former intern definitely wants to put together another art exhibition, but they informed us that ‘the creativity wasn’t currently flowing like it should’. And apparently it’s really hard to convince venues with wooden floors to host a roller disco.

Another thing we wanted to announce was The Closing Ceremony. We always have a Grand Opening, and we thought it would be cool to also end the festival with an official ritual. So far we’ve learned that we can’t burn stuff next to the Buttplug Gnome and a lightshow of 2,000 drones is ridiculously expensive, but we’re still working on some other options.

To cut a long story short: we said we were going to announce the Extra Extras on Monday and we still will, but probably only half of them. More will follow later.

We hope you still give just as much love to these Extra Extras as you give to our regular announcements, because however incomplete, we still tried our hardest. And even though they might not seem like much now, they will make Left of the Dial more fun, we promise!

Extra love,

The ever attempting Left of the Dial crew

VERA GRONINGEN

 It will be quite a few days before we’ve got news to share about Left of the Dial 2025, so we figured why not take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about one of our favourite Dutch venues: Vera Groningen.

It’s in Groningen, which is an almost 3-hour drive from Rotterdam, so we don’t go there nearly as often as we’d like to, but trust us, if you’re in a band, Vera should be on top of your want-to-play-list.

Vera is run by the friendliest people ever who all genuinely care about artists, which is reason enough to fall in love with the venue, but there’s one more thing that always makes us a tiny bit jealous when we spend an evening at Vera: their wall of fame.

They have this annual poll amongst their ticketholders to determine the best show of the year. Since 1981, every poll-winning band gets their name painted on the wall of fame and we can only say that it’s a VERY impressive list. Their ticketholders have an amazing taste in music, because so many incredible bands are on it, it’s really mind-blowing.

The most mind-blowing part is that last year, our dear friends Tramhaus were added to the wall of fame.

You can sell a million records, or play a hundred sold-out arena shows, to us the biggest achievement will always be getting your name of the wall of Vera.

If you’re ever in Groningen, go to Vera. They continuously put on the best bands, and they serve cold beer for a reasonable price. It’s nearly impossible to NOT have a great night in Vera.

Especially next Wednesday…

Vera kindly invited the Left of the Dial DJ team (that’s us) to spin some of our favourite records, alongside our aforementioned buddies of Tramhaus, the dazzling Vera Siemons, and the DJs of the coolest outdoor festival ever: Misty Fields. Pretty cool, right?

Hope to see you on Wednesday!

Big love to you and to Vera,

The parttime DJs of Left of the Dial

PS: If you hate dancing, just wait for us downstairs in the basement bar. We’ll come hang out with you after as soon as we’ve put on our last record!

SLIGHTLY CONTEMPLATIVE END OF YEAR POST

We came across this ad for SXSW in some 1989 Texan newspaper. The Austin based showcase festival started in 1987, so this would have been its third edition and it was already bigger than Left of the Dial. Which feels slightly discouraging, but then again, everything is always bigger in Texas.

We’ve attended SXSW many times, and in lots of ways it has been an undeniable inspiration for our festival. It was always so wonderful to walk the streets of a city that was buzzing with music loving people everywhere and we wanted nothing more than bring that vibe to Rotterdam. But the last few years we started to feel less and less at home there. Everything seemed about big brands promoting their stuff, about corporate meetups and making business deals. It simply didn’t feel like it was about the music anymore.

In a way, that was somewhat of an inspiration too. It made us decide that at Left of the Dial music always should come first. Sure, we need to sell tickets or find other funds to organise the festival and to pay the bands, but we promised ourselves that we’re never going to get involved with demanding sponsors and that we would always take care of our artists the best way we can.

It’s still our dream to turn Left of the Dial into the biggest showcase festival ever, for the simple reason that it would mean giving more bands a platform to promote their music. However, we don’t want to grow at any cost. Whether you buy a ticket, or if you’re on stage, Left of the Dial should always be about having the best time ever. And the same goes for us: the only reason we spend every waking hour on organising the festival, is because we have so much fun doing it. Putting fun first will probably never lead us to being the biggest showcase festival ever, but who cares? To quote one of our other favourite songs:

Never for money, always for love.

Stay safe and we wish you the best possible new year!

Lots of oliebollen-love from Left of the Dial 

PS 1: To all the bands that have been confirmed to play SXSW in 2025, don’t worry… you’re going to have a great time in Austin. The weather is usually lovely, the breakfast tacos are insanely delicious and you will meet lots of Americans who all tell you your music is amaaaaaaaazing. Just go, have fun and make us proud!

PS 2: As you may have noticed, Alex Chilton was on the SXSW lineup in 1989. Coincidentally, he did background vocals on Left of the Dial, the Replacements song we named our festival after. Of course, that doesn’t really mean anything, but when we saw this ad, we took it as a sign that Left of the Dial is on its way to greatness. But then again, we take everything as a positive sign…

A STORY WE’VE ALREADY TOLD A MILLION TIMES

(but this time with a new ending!) 

Left of the Dial is named after a 1985 Replacements song. It refers to where on the (American) radio you used to find smaller independent stations. You had to turn the dial all the way to the left to find these stations which would play best alternative music. 

It’s quite a romantic song. It’s about how the singer is dating a girl who’s playing in a successful band and how they’re always touring in different states, making it hard for them to be together. So, if he wants to feel close to her, he turns on the radio and tries to find her ‘left of the dial’. 

The song wasn’t a big hit, and even though The Replacements have some famous fans, they’re not considered a highly successful band. However, we love them and we’re forever grateful that they wrote a song that suits our festival so perfectly. 

Last year, our friends Deadletter recorded a pretty amazing cover of the song which you can still find on YouTube.

This year, we’ve asked someone else to perform their version of Left of the Dial at The Grand Opening of the festival, which could very well be the start of a new tradition; maybe from now on, we’re always going to open Left of the Dial (the festival) with Left of the Dial (the song). 

The song might not be widely known yet, but if we keep up with this tradition more and more people will get to know the song. And maybe, just maybe, in ten years time, hundreds of people will be singing the song at The Grand Opening. 

As a collective ode to the best alternative music. What a way to start a festival. 

If you want to be part of this tradition, you’d better start learning the lyrics.

Big love,

The sing-along-singers of Left of the Dial