Left a drizzly Rotterdam at midday Sunday for a short train ride to the city of Breda, NL in the south of the country.  Just one stop on the Eindhoven-bound Intercity operated by Nederlanse Spoorwegen.  The fare was 11.4 euros.  

The walk from Breda’s train station to the hotel took me through a beautiful public park with dozens of chickens running around.  I’m in Breda for just one night to see Remember Sports, the great Philly band on their first-ever European tour.  Their show last night on the closing day of Left of the Dial at Cultuurpodium Perron was excellent.  The band ended with Out Loud.  Each of the four members took turns singing on the number off the 2021 LP Like a Stone.  Lead singer Carmen Perry unwound her cord and walked back her mike to drummer Julian Fader so he could do the final vocal part.  It was a moment the crowd seemed to love.  

In that same venue earlier in the evening, the Welsh band The Bug Club brought in what appeared to me to be the Dial fest’s largest audience.  Bass player Tilly Harris observed the crowd size early in the set.   “It’s a bloody full room!” she said.  Their tune Flower in the Rain sounded incredible.  What’s unique about the song is that it’s one of five numbers recorded together in one take and released under the name Intelectuals.  A five in one.  

The card reader at Perron wouldn’t accept my plastic as I tried to buy a big cup of Grolsch.  Anxious patrons in line behind me grew impatient before a guy told the beertender he’d pick mine up.  I tried to pay him in cash but he wouldn’t take it.  

A long corridor leading from Perron’s entrance to the two-stage main room included hundreds of free lockers (with keys) which people were stuffing their jackets and things into.  Again, smart and forward-thinking but impossible to imagine at a US venue.  

On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at Foo (an ice cream shop doubling as a fest venue) to see the Leeds band Mush.  They were great.  Early Stones, Ultimate Painting sounds.  

Many of the escalators in Rotterdam’s busy public spaces don’t activate until one enters.  Smart.  I don’t think I saw a single member of law enforcement while circulating Rotterdam.  It appears whatever program(s) the city/country advances, it’s leading to at least the appearance of less than rampant scenes of suffering. 

After an afternoon nap Friday, the first order of business was to pick up my festival wristband from Left of the Dial staffers working in a shipping container on Eendrachtsplein.  The wristband gets you into all the gigs. 

I then headed to WORM, an impressive non-profit arts venue on the Boomgaardsstraat hosting fest lineups.  I saw the Vienna band My Ugly Clementine off admiration for their full-length release Vitamin C.  There was no mention from the stage acknowledging drummer/singer Kem Kolleritsch’s departure from the band.  Kolleritsch quit a few months ago to protest bandmates’ lack of solidarity (hostility, in fact) with Kem’s activism and energy as a trans person.  While the remaining members issued a statement via social media expressing regret about their role in the outcome, they’re continuing to perform under the original band name doing many of the songs made special by Kolleritsch.   

Like many of the venues hosting Left of the Dial programming, WORM has two adjacent stages.  After one band plays, another starts minutes later.  Organizers keep bands to the printed schedule down to the minute.  Forty-minute sets.  Sound checks happen in the ten to twenty minute gaps between performances.  When the sound guy realized the lead singer of the German band Die Verlieler was not present a few minutes prior to the 1900 local “go” time at WORM, he asked the door man to go look for him.  He pulled up a band photo on his phone to aid in the search.  The singer was located quickly and the doorman and sound guy exchanged big laughs when discussing where he was found.  That conversation was in Dutch, so my eavesdropping didn’t shed light.  

Later in the evening, I saw the Manchester, UK band Mewn at Roodkapte.  Singer Daniel Bluer said it was Mewn’s first performance outside England.  Their song “Swell” sounded great.  A smoke machine stage right actively puffed dense clouds into the space of guitarist Rachel Bell. 

I had dinner Friday night at a busy poke’ place between WORM and Roodkapte.  

Rotterdam’s Lewsberg isn’t on the fest sked this weekend but I did see the band’s bass player Shalita Dietrich at WORM.  I was too nervous to approach her.