Festival season gets hectic. Each weekend seems to bring about another scattering of events that all promise to be the best of the summer, mostly all dragging out the same lineup and the same food trucks and the same general experience. But really, the gem of it all in 2025 was an outsider – Left of the Dial, a festival held in October.

Don’t get me wrong, when I landed in Rotterdam amidst a storm, I was worried. But it turns out that actually, if you drink enough beer, being battered by high-speed winds basically just acts as a dizzying shot, rattling your head. It also turns out that at this cultishly beloved independent festival, literally everything and everyone seems to be working all for the mission of a good time.

Well looked after bands led to a general air of joy that permeated every set, with highlights from Big Long Sun and Curser. However, the thing that makes Left Of The Dial so special is simply their commitment to total silliness.

I went to some amazing gigs this year, but no matter the stadium show or the summer sun, absolutely none of them could ever beat watching Yaang attempt to stay upright as they played on a moving bus. Falling over at every turn and speed bump, cry-laughing along with the crowd of us also trying to stay on our feet, it was one of those perfectly ridiculous moments that reminds you that all of this is supposed to be fun. Music is for good times, and Left Of The Dial know that well and served it up better than anyone else.

It takes a lot for any artist to make any stadium-rock event feel like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There are far too many times when people talk about whatever city they’re playing in is the best in the world, but how many times do people actually get to feel that they’re actually being sincere. Most people would shrug that off the minute that they hear it, but there’s a certain joy that comes with any gig Oasis played this year.

Liam was sounding as good as he ever did, Noel was every bit the leader that he was back in the day, and every single moment they embraced onstage was enough to fill anyone’s heart with joy. Other bands may have had stronger messages to bring across, and others may have had better theatrics, but the feeling of seeing Oasis is the kind of euphoria that no one realised was gone until we were reminded all over again. Maybe we all thought we lost that when we grew up, but it doesn’t have to fade away over time.

A total, centrifugal collision of art pop and synth swagger smacked London’s Moth Club hard back in February. Treated to a co-headlining double whammy of Los Angeles’ Riki and Geneva Jacuzzi, a fierce reminder of just how electric synthpop can be was cast over the small Hackney club that evening, the live stage serving as the perfect foil for their arresting electronic theatre.

Riki was electric, all ritualistic skulk to her captivating blend of Black Celebration style dramatic pop shroud. Treating the crowd to the mammoth ‘Pulser’ ahead of release, Riki plunged the room in a shadowy surge of zapping, Teutonic post-punk, evoking the very best of the alternative 1980s without sounding derivative.~

Following Riki was Geneva Jacuzzi. Promoting her exceptional Triple Fire album, Jacuzzi raided the Dada, Ubu Roi dressing-up box for an unforgettable clash of futurist stage show and new wave flaunt, flashing elongated limbs and coned headpieces, backed with two committed dancers to serve the conceptual extravaganza. There was little doubt when walking out of OTCH Club after the art-pop flash bang that something essential and gloriously kaleidoscopic had been witnessed by all in the crowd.

I don’t mind being honest with you: When I was asked to go to Montreux Jazz Festival, I went to go and see Pulp. They’re my favourite band, and one that, despite seeing live plenty of times before, I became obsessed with potentially witnessing on Lake Geneva. That being said, what kind of music journalist would I be if I only covered one artist the entire time that I was at such a prestigious festival?

I went down the night before, and FKA Twigs happened to be playing. I liked her music, so figured I’d enjoy it and it’d be a solid warmup for the show that I was actually there for, but what I ended up seeing was my favourite gig of 2025… maybe my favourite gig ever. 

To call it a gig feels as though I’m doing FKA Twigs and her whole entourage a disservice. It’s more operatic in the way it’s delivered, if the opera was set in Bergheim. Playing songs from her stellar newest album EUSEXUA, it wasn’t just how good she sounded, but how well it all fell into place.

This wasn’t a performance where every song was planned out, but every single second. Not a syllable, nor a footstep, a pirouette or vocal inflexion hadn’t been painstakingly planned, and it showed in the highest quality show I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. Montreux: go for Pulp, stay for Twigs. During a time when pop music is having one of its biggest highs in years, the EUSEXUA singer set the bar higher than it’s ever been.

I’m painfully aware that picking a gig at sea off the coast of the Faroe Islands could be construed as elitist, but in fairness, it was so good that I did seek the help of a psychologist to make sense of it afterwards. “Yes, it’s possible for an extraordinary concert to temporarily ‘spoil’ future ones,” I was told. “When we experience peak emotion, intense euphoria, connection, or awe – the brain encodes it as a reference point.”

My new reference point was an avant-garde chansonnier-cum-rapper and a neo-classical duo floating in the North Atlantic, accompanied by the ambient bustle of jostling boats. I had been ferried to that spot under the proviso that a secret excursion was taking place. None of the lucky invitees at G Festival knew what was in store for them. We simply sailed through the fog towards the unknown, until you could hear music coming from a stationary ship, anchored in the ocean.

There stood Silvurdrongur in some sort of woolen net / dress hybrid, singing songs, largely in his native Faroese about capitalist incursion, pollution, and more. Life can be stilted in the guarded, algorithmic modern age, and this show typified the importance of getting out there and searching for something new.

Blistered feet, dusty sinuses, and a forehead of blistering sunburn; none of that could have prevented me from enjoying what was, in hindsight, the definitive moment of my entire year.

With all the speculation surrounding this year’s secret sets at Glastonbury, I had almost lost hope of it being anybody that I’d be interested in, but when flight cases marked ‘Pulp’ were wheeled through the crowd during Kaiser Chiefs earlier in the day, I forgot any notion of trekking up to the Park Stage to see Gary Numan (sorry, Gary).

Hot from the release of their masterful More album, the band put on the stand-out set of the weekend and, having been near the front for John Fogerty, I was right in the epicentre of that magical moment, mere metres away from Jarvis Cocker feeding off the energy of the masses. The setlist was, of course, incredible – old favourites and modern masterpieces alike – but, in all honesty, they could have played anything; the mere feeling of being in that moment was enough to carry the entire set.

Of all the gigs I have been to in 2025, nothing has come close to replicating the feeling of utter euphoria that I experienced when dispersing from that Pyramid crowd, with tears stinging my sunburnt cheeks.

Growing up with two older brothers in a bleak small town amid the buzz of the indie boom, I spent a lot of time frantically trying to find a band that felt like my own. The Maccabees, arriving with short, sharp bursts of indie dancefloor delight, gilded with enough romantic poetics and roguish bops to rattle my still-developing brain, became that band. I saw them more than a dozen times in the space of two years, finding new friends and lifelong running mates as I bundled into the back of cars equipped with pilfered bottles of wine on my way to the next adventure. So, when The Maccabees announced a headline performance at 2025’s APE, I couldn’t have been more in.

So, with many of those same friends, and a few more new ones to boot, I made my way to APE, ignored its history of over-priced booze and terrible sound, to have a life-affirming moment I had been waiting over a decade to gain. As well as a supremely stellar support that seemed geared towards the VAST number of over-30s in the audience, The Maccabees delivered the kind of show that not only made me wistful for a time gone by but somehow provided closure on it, confirming a youth misspent as time well spent.

Incredible songs, insane sing-a-longs and the kind of atmosphere that makes you feel a little bit more hopeful about humanity.

MJ Lenderman has had a strange year. Officially breaking from Karly Hartzman-fronted band Wednesday, he set off on tour in most corners of the globe, and then, surprisingly, joined the new Waxahatchee-fronted band, Snocaps.

His best moment? Taking the stage at Green Man festival in the dead of summer, the sun a bright halo above him. His band, The Wind, crept and crooned through the best of his discography for a soaring 90-minute set that included a dazzling cover of This Is Lorelei’s tune ‘Dancing in the Club’.

The formidable outfit took to the Mountain Stage in the Welsh countryside, like a matchbox protruding out of the world, and proved that alt-country and slacker-rock really are alive and kicking. Sunglasses on, laughing at the lad banter and jeers of the crowd, the Asheville musician was on the very top of his game. Everything ended as it must with MJ on his knees, reaching up to the microphone like his lifeline, gasping, growling, grumbling the addictive lines, “It tastes just like it cost”.

Ever since I gave The Clearing my first-ever five-star review at Far Out back in August, I knew Wolf Alice were on to something special. But it took seeing the band blaze in all their glory on stage at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, as part of their first arena tour, to realise that they are going to shoot to the stratosphere.

To be clear, there’s no pyrotechnics or elaborate staging needed to make this a masterpiece of a show. It just takes a turntable, an aptly Christmassy tinsel curtain, and frontwoman Ellie Rowsell in a catsuit to absolutely command your attention. Who knew the simple addition of a wind machine could make it feel so electric?

Wolf Alice have every right to sell out stadiums in the next few years. As my friend, who confessed beforehand to only knowing the big hits, turned to me at the end and said, “That’s genuinely one of the best gigs I’ve been to in my life,” there’s no more explanation needed.

I first met my best friend at a Fat White Family gig in Leeds’ Belgrave Music Hall and Canteen a few years ago. We’d danced and jumped around together, brushing off the sweat (and God knows what else) from lead vocalist Lias Saoudi, who was throwing his almost fully-naked body around the crowd. From that moment on, we were bonded.

Back in October, several years on from our first meeting in that room, we were now able to witness Saoudi charging through the crowd again, but it wasn’t quite a deja vu moment. Instead of the musician leading his notorious clan of noisemakers as the Fat Whites, he was fronting Decius, his gloriously sleazy electronic project that has even performed at Berghain. While Belgrave wasn’t exactly Berghain, it was easily the most fun I’ve had at a gig all year.

I didn’t bother trying to wipe any of the sweat off me this time as I bounced around the crowd with several friends, a constantly moving current of bodies colliding together as every song seamlessly transitioned into the next. Saoudi remained in the middle the whole time like some electronic leather-clad god, screeching and moving his body without a hint of restraint.

There’s a case to be made that modern music festivals no longer host these moments. Sanitised and commercialised, glimpses of genuine authenticity are often feigned for a brand. But despite what you may want to believe, Glastonbury can still play host to special human moments. Often in the depths of their smaller stages, amidst the various rabbit holes of stimulation, but this time it was back where it belonged; on one of its biggest stages.

Amyl And The Sniffers are a must-watch band on any given day, let alone on a scorching hot Glastonbury Saturday. I knew their music would be the tonic to my hungover woes, but I hadn’t fully prepared for Amy Taylor’s stoicism.

In a year when artists were being silenced, we needed a true revolutionary voice. Taylor provided it with a two-barrelled assault on geopolitics that struck to the heart of music fans and beyond. When she said, “I was gonna say something more poetic, and it’s not perfect. But I think it’s better to say something than say nothing at all right now”, I swiftly realised how proud I was to be a part of this industry.

Sometimes, it’s important to recognise that you don’t necessarily have to understand everything that’s happening before your ears and eyes to realise that you’re witnessing greatness. If hearing Mexico City-based experimental outfit Titanic’s second album, Hagen, wasn’t already enough of a jarring experience on its own, hearing the duo of cellist Mabe Fratti and guitarist Héctor Tosta (i la Católica) perform to a completely transfixed audience is going to take you even further into being utterly speechless.

You don’t have to speak Spanish to understand the beauty of songs like ‘La dueña’, or to find yourself bouncing along to the quirked-out art pop brilliance ‘Libra’, but the way in which Fratti and Tosta bounce off each other with a seemingly boundless assortment of ideas of how to mutate genres into something truly unique is something that doesn’t seem to lose its potency for the hour-long duration of their live performance.

With baritone sax and drums bolstering their sound, already extravagant compositions gain an even greater potency, and the limitless adventurousness on display becomes something you can’t help but sink further into the charm of.

Sure, Fontaines DC’s actual headline slot at Finsbury Park was incredible. The band tore through their hits and a selection of fan-favourite B-sides while the spanning crowd ate up every single moment, singing it back till our throats were all sore and soothing it again with more beer.

But mostly, the power of that summer day was the fact that it hit at the height of a moment. After the release of Romance, Fontaines DC’s power for the last year or so has only been growing, and by the start of July 2025, it was at its peak. The people had been waiting for it, and from the moment this huge show was announced, it already felt prophesied that it would be a best of the year.

Then, when they announced the rest of the lineup, it only got stronger. From the rising stars of Blondshell and Cardinals to a performance from Amyl and the Sniffers so good you could have gone home after that and still have been satisfied, it was simply a perfect day. Perfect weather, perfect vibes, perfectly adequate beers that gig the job, perfect tunes.