What it was like at the NCN Festival (Part 2/3)
In the first part, we took a deep dive into the NCN Festival, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. We took a look back at Friday: A kick-off full of energy and edgy electronics, with
Day 2 – Saturday, September 06, 2025
The day when everything vibrated
The sun is still hanging over the trees as the second day of the NCN dawns. A gentle wind blows through the grounds, the dust dances in golden rays, and you can already sense that this is going to be a day full of contrasts. Between devotion and aggression, romance and ruin.
Setting out with heart and soul
Wiegand open the Saturday – and do so with a sincerity that you don’t often hear. This music has no calculated edges, it feels like honest skin. It has something pure and honest about it. No posturing, no pathos – just emotion poured into electronic form. Everything sounds like a promise, like a memory that still resonates, that won’t let go. It’s not a loud opening – it’s an arrival, almost like a collective inhalation after Friday.
Art from sound
Pigeonholes don’t help here. Rotoskop are not a pure electro project, not a classic band – rather a dark river that crosses different currents. He calls it “dark mood pop” himself, and that sums it up surprisingly well: melancholic, deep, with moments that simultaneously drive and carry. The voice remains the center – warm, haunting, almost incantatory. A performance that doesn’t have to convince out loud because it shines from within.
Scandinavian shadows
Then another chill sets in. It’s For Us – post-punk with a glassy soul. Their sound is reduced, but not empty. Every chord sounds like a heartbeat under ice. Singer Emelie stands in the cone of light, almost motionless, her voice fragile like glass that is breaking, and strong at the same time. The forest holds its breath.
Theater of darkness
Circus of Fools storm the stage – an explosion of costumes, make-up and madness. They play with horror, humor and social criticism without tipping over into slapstick, and bring a lot of color into the blackness. The performance is loud, colorful, and yet: deep. Their show is excess with attitude, madness with understanding. They create a strange magic: grotesque, political, larger than life. You laugh, you marvel, you understand.
Romance in ruins
Grave of Love appear and suddenly let everything breathe. Their sound, a mixture of neofolk and industrial, is like a cold wind blowing through a Gothic cathedral – melancholy, melody and that certain something between beauty and pain. You don’t dance, you float.
Strings in the fog
Four women, four bows, no words. Eklipse transform the park into a dream theater – in velvety tones, without words, but with feeling in every movement. Melodies become new stories, carried by brilliance and seriousness. Delicacy reigns here. A brief moment of calm, a musical breath before the next storm comes.
Rain in the light
Principe Valiente bring vastness with them. They sound as if they are pouring reverb into longing. Guitar, echo, voice – everything floats. You can feel Sweden. Vastness. Loneliness. The guitars sound as if they want to embrace themselves. Between dream and trance, the audience finds a quiet space in the midst of the hustle and bustle. A performance like a glimpse into a memory that you never had, but miss.
Order and emotion
Angels & Agony bring structure back into the mix. Their EBM is precise, disciplined, tidy, but never mechanical or sterile. Every beat has attitude, every lyric weight. Frontman Reinier Kloss sings with calm determination, words like arrows, but made of velvet. The dancing is controlled, and yet everything is emotion.
Dancing melancholy
Machinista bring light into the black. Their synthpop is melodic, melancholic, but never flat. They have this ability to turn sadness into movement – bittersweet and honest. The place in front of the stage dances, but the eyes of the people say: we understand.
Pain as beauty
Rosegarden Funeral Party – what a performance. Leah Lane’s voice cuts through the fog, raw and holy at the same time. Her songs are wounds, her energy a revelation. You can sense that this is someone who doesn’t play, but lives. An American promise in black – and one that the scene understands.
Cold urbanity
Formalin carry Berlin in their sound: hard, technical, uncompromising. Industrial without sugar-coating – metallic, direct, brutally honest. You can feel the temperature rising even though the sun has long since set. Their industrial sound is merciless, precise, physical. No room for nostalgia – just bass, concrete, dirt and neon. It smells like the big city, and that’s exactly what the audience wants.
Knights of the Night
Chain mail, samples, incense – Heimatærde march on and bring their unique blend of medieval, sacred and EBM – and it works. It’s theatrical but real, exaggerated but convincing, exaggerated but honestly staged. You dance, you laugh, you lose yourself.
Shadows from Italy
When Ash Code play, the air changes. Their dark wave is dark and clear at the same time, every line a mantra. Gloomy, danceable, emotional – they combine wave with modern coldness. Their “Posthuman” hovers over heads, fog drifts, lights glow – and songs that sound like love letters to a broken world. A melancholy dance that never ends.
Irony with heart
A brief moment of amazement: Right Said Fred at the NCN. Two pop icons in the middle of the black scene – and it works surprisingly well. With disarming humor and honest joy of playing, they win over even the skeptics. “I’m Too Sexy” plays, the forest dances, and suddenly everything is easy. Not a foreign body, but a contrast that shows: Darkness can also laugh.
The poet among the rebels
ROME – is never just a concert, it is silence, gravity, truth. It is literature in sound. Jérôme Reuter stands there, without pathos and upright, his voice warm, resigned, full of dignity. He sings about war, humanity, hope in times of decay. His lyrics resemble a manifesto, his voice a confession. The crowd stands still. You can hear every word. A performance that will stay with you forever.
Catharsis in kerosene
Suicide Commando transform Deutzen into an inferno. Johan Van Roy stands there like a prophet of wrath. Stroboscope, smoke, beats, pain. No one stands still, no one remains untouched. It is powerful, intense, cathartic – just as you would expect, but experienced anew every time.
When music becomes light
First: silence. A synth chord floats across the stage while lasers aim at stars. Kite enter the light – almost unearthly. No screaming, no break. Just this sound that flows like water, that breathes. Nicklas Stenemo sings as if he were not performing, but confessing. Christian Berg lights up the synths until the whole area glows. It is not a concert. It is a revelation.
Dance as defiance
Finally, an unexpected, charming wink: Men Without Hats. “The Safety Dance” – a classic, a break, a stroke of liberation. After all the heaviness comes lightness, without embarrassment. A collective grin that flits across faces as the night descends.
Echo
Saturday ends hot, vibrant, perfect – in a feeling of exhaustion and ecstasy. You could say it was just music – but for many it was more. The next part is the grand finale between melancholy and departure – Hell Boulevard, Heldmaschine, She Past Away, Tanzwut, Camouflage.
Text & Photos: Thomas Friedel Fuhrmann – Let’s write until the words breathe.
