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.