It’s a wrap! Believe it or not but my first festival of 2026 has already been a success! As a last minute surprise, I got invited to join my colleagues to this year’s edition of Eurosonic/Noorderslag, the infamous showcase festival hosted by the Dutch city of Groningen featuring many talented bands and artists from all over Europe. Whereas I would usually meticulously plan a perfect schedule for myself, I hadn’t checked out a single band off of this year’s line-up until the evening before I left. This improvised approach meant my planning was still pretty empty as I arrived but I had carefully crafted somewhat of a schedule for myself so that I at least could visit some of my personal favourites from the bill. Truth be told, I only knew one singular act as I made my way to Groningen: multicultural rockers Calva Louise, who were easily my highlight of the Thursday (we skipped the festival’s opening day on Wednesday). Further interesting acts on this day included Estonian metalcore act Pridian and the experimental Slovakian outfit Vojdi, though the latter’s avant garde tunes weren’t really going down all too well for me at 1 AM being twelve beers deep. One day later, I found myself only having checked out two acts: Múr, an Icelandic prog/post-metal band, and my personal winner of this year’s ESNS in Bucket, an incredibly chaotic Irish noise band absolutely tearing down the roof off of Groningen’s alternative venue VERA. Bucket’s young dogs Cian Dahdouh (vocals, guitar), Emmet McNamee (bass), and Josh Dorrell (drums) earned their victory by having the wildest energy and most relentless sound you will find in the alternative rock scene this year. Their noisy hodgepodge gets strengthened by an impressively skilled tightness and throughout their 40-minute or so set, it proved to be impossible to not join the madness. Seeing them at 1:30 in the very early morning, Bucket proved why Eurosonic is still a festival worth considering for the alternative music enjoyer. This will be one of my favourite acts of 2026 for sure.

Tomorrow, I will highlight my favourite act of Noorderslag, Eurosonic’s day featuring Dutch bands only.