Outbreak London 2025
This year marks the 13th edition of the UK’s long-running hardcore mecca, Outbreak Festival. For the first time, they’ve ventured south with Outbreak London - a scaled-down one-dayer held in parallel to the Manchester edition, and in collaboration with Victoria Park’s brand new LIDO Festival. While there are certain inevitable concessions to LIDO’s existing setup - the usual brand collabs, barriers preventing stage-diving, and most of the more punishing hardcore bands missing from the line-up - what they’ve put together is still seriously strong, and headlined by Baltimore hardcore kids turned alt-rock conquerors Turnstile.
The smaller tent is an absolute furnace at 3pm, but we brave the heat to catch Philly shoegazers They Are Gutting a Body of Water. (TAGABOW for the time-challenged, or those who just appreciate a good acronym.) Singer Doug Dulgarin is one of the most influential figures in the scene, both for his own band’s explosions of digital noise and his helmsmanship of the label Julia’s War who’ve released music from the likes of Glixen, Feeble Little Horse, and MJ Lenderman & Wednesday. The band play their set facing each other in a circle - either a charming expression of their tight friendship, or a modern update of the old shoegaze cliché of staring at your pedalboard for the entire gig, depending on how you see it. In truth I’m left a little cold by the whole affair, but resolve to catch them at their own show when the next opportunity arises.
Drug Church have steadily amassed an enviable catalogue of cast-iron anthems, and today they absolutely lay waste to the bigger tent. Singer Patrick Kindlon is a magnetic presence, meeting the moment head-on and orchestrating joyous circle pits. While not a hardcore band in the strictest sense, they fuse the scene’s undeniable spirit with ballistic hooks and shout-along choruses about wage slavery and self-improvement. Everyone spills out of the tent arm-in-arm with huge grins on their faces after closing song ‘Weed Pin’. The highlight of the day for me.
Back to the smaller tent for hyperpop hero Jane Remover, who emanates pure rockstar vibes for a predominantly zoomer audience going absolutely nuts from start to finish. It might not be much of a show - at least not for those who turn their nose up at backing tracks - but Jane and her DJ/hypeman both understand the assignment perfectly, whipping the crowd up and pushing the levels into the red as often as possible. Danny Brown turns up for his verse on ‘Psychoboost’ to kick the energy up another notch.
Model/Actriz singer Cole Haden gives the security team a proper workout by forging into the heart of the crowd on multiple occasions. The man is a born performer, striking poses at every opportunity, sporting arm-length gloves and a vest top displaying the band’s new album cover, and frequently pausing to take big glugs from an upended wine bottle. Their criminally short set is a triumph for their sticky, intoxicating industrial pop music.
Outbreak started booking rap artists a couple of years ago, and Danny Brown’s main stage performance feels like a perfect fit. The Detroit vet has come a long way since allegedly being passed on by G-Unit on account of his penchant for skinny jeans, and has now morphed into a comfortable third act characterised in part by his genre-agnostic collaborative spirit. Overcoming an initially hesitant crowd, he soon gets the mosh pits going, with moody cuts from last year’s Quaranta sliding easily alongside old school bangers like ‘Monopoly’ and ‘Grown Up’. One of Brown’s most endearing qualities has always been his passion for UK music, and he shows that off today by playing his Rustie collab and shouting out Lord of the Mics and D Double E.
The bigger tent is packed out for Knocked Loose, whose brutish metalcore rippers are the closest this lineup gets to feeling genuinely dangerous. I’m quickly won over despite nursing sore shins and a pounding headache by this late stage in the day. Their staging is wonderful - the huge neon tube cross from their new album cover, raised against a video montage of grainy, unnerving footage. I’ll admit to dipping before the hour is up, but that’s just a testament to how ridiculously hard this band goes, particularly drummer Kevin Kaine who is an absolute demon.
Turnstile’s set spans the gamut from spin-kicking hardcore to their divisive new album Never Enough, with plenty of beloved Glow On bangers in-between. Never Enough feels like it was written with big stages like this in mind - it’s easily their most approachable album, with plenty of songs that reach to the back of the crowd as well as the pits up front. Surely those who felt immune to its charms would admit that some of the new songs hit unexpectedly hard tonight. ‘Birds’ is a frenetic closer, while ‘Look Out for Me’ brings to mind The Hives of all people, but its huge riff causes chaos when it detonates.
It’s not a perfect show, even putting aside your mileage for the new material. Vocally this feels like an off-night for frontman Brendan Yates, a man who isn’t exactly blessed with a perfect singing voice. The momentum is a little rocky as well, not helped by early sound issues, a setlist that’s still being refined, and between-song breaks that frequently last for just a bit too long. All that said - the band absolutely bring it tonight, especially Yates with his mic stand acrobatics. The crowd responds in kind, and you can tell how much this reception means to them. Old favourites like ‘Fazed Out’ and ‘Holiday’ are treated with the appropriate energy, and the discourse seems to dissolve in a mass of crowdsurfers and flailing limbs. It’s unclear whether Outbreak London will continue in this format, but on this year’s evidence, it would be a very welcome fixture on the summer calendar.