Twisterella Festival 2025 • Festivals • DIY Magazine

It may feel as though we’ve well and truly seen oﬀ festival season for this year, but the eleventh edition of Middlesbrough’s Twisterella has other ideas. Taking place annually across multiple venues in the town, the award-winning event has a knack for picking up on the most special artists ahead of the curve, with its stages having showcased names such as Prima Queen, The Royston Club, and Sam Fender in previous years.

This time around, Scottish trailblazers swim school kick things oﬀ on the main stage at Teesside University’s Students’ Union, setting the tone with an indelible afternoon set. Ahead of their eagerly awaited debut album later this month, Edinburgh’s hottest guitar band integrate their freshest material with older favourites, seamlessly blending the instrumental sensibilities of shoegaze with deep-cutting songwriting. Launching into recent single ‘Alone With You’, the group’s Twisterella set is a prime example of how they blend their famed raucous stage presence with the intricately-crafted sonic space they occupy, creating a live sound that sits somewhere between the whirring indie rock of recent years and the grunge and garage rock scenes of the ‘90s.

Up next is a band that most certainly deserves to be on any gig-goer’s radar: Champ. Playing what is technically their first ever gig, the Hartlepool-based, Springsteen-esque indie quartet present their small but mighty releases in a fresh live setting, with a diverse sound spanning from introspective songwriting and feel-good energy (debut single ‘Taste To Run’), to tracks that nod towards more murky soundscapes (‘Future’).

Heading downstairs to the building’s most intimate venue, The Lounge, the North East’s latest folk outfit - before close - take over for a 30 minute set of wall-to-wall cosiness. The eclectic collision of songwriting powerhouses Jodie Nicholson and Joe Ramsey - both Twisterella veterans - the duo briefly turn the festival into peak Autumnal comfort, channelling an idyllic world of firesides and pumpkin spiced lattes. “This is our first time playing live together as a duo,” notes Nicholson, before easing into recent debut single ‘thank god’. Sonically, there are clear nods towards the work of acclaimed indie-folk pros Daughter and Laura Marling, with the duo layering warm vocal harmonies and soft, lilting acoustic guitar. It’s intimate, homemade, raw, and deeply human, and is met with rapturous applause from an audience stunned to silence.

Diversifying the day’s range of genres evermore, Middlesborough’s own indie-pop diva Loren Heat takes to the main stage. As comments about her recent graduation are met with congratulatory applause, Heat launches into a tour de force of a performance, translating her homemade queer-pop into a cutting-edge domination of her old stomping ground. Flanked by her expressive live band, she seamlessly channels everything that pop music should be: a euphoric, danceable experience. Amidst undulating anthems of desperation and yearning (‘Be Ur Baby’), Heat has the crowd in the palm of her hand: “Are you ready?”, she beams as she beckons for attendees to clap along to debut single ‘Curiosity’.

Her set ends all too soon, but almost instantly an immense and wildly entranced crowd gathers at The Terrace, the third of the venues inside the Students’ Union. They’re here to see the noise/grunge/all-round-genre-defying four-piece PISS - a band who turn out to be anything but. Hailing from Vancouver, the group combine their music with spoken word poetry, visual art, and experimental performance, putting on a show that blurs the lines between wildly complex interpersonal and political themes, with a beautifully human feel to it. It’s feminist, it’s NSFW, and it’s very punk.

Heading into the evening, it’s time for noisy, progressive chaos akin to the sound of recent stars Fat Dog, Home Counties, and Getdown Services. Enter: London-based band Y (apologies in advance for the challenging Google search). With live sets composed of brain-scratching guitar stabs, loopy synth lines, and wobbly saxophone melodies, the quintet deliver an unrivalled level of energy, making the festival’s main stage completely their own.

Bringing Twisterella 2025 to a close - and playing their second festival of the day, following a mammoth drive from Glasgow - Leeds’ liveliest lads Adult DVD prove well worth sticking around all day for. Armed with their usual high-octane energy, they transform the room into Twisterella’s very own disco, the stage a smorgasbord of synthesiser equipment and obscure guitar pedals. Their music bridges the space between digital and analogue; every little complex sound is crafted live onstage, right in front of a crowd clinging onto every word. Over the course of the set, we're treated to the catchiest of hooks and singalongs (‘Dogs In the Sun’), gargantuan synth programming (‘Because I Like It’), and funk-inspired guitar breakdowns (‘Doomsday Prepper’). Adult DVD are festival pros, and it won’t be long until they’re headlining bigger stages with even more of their noisy, chaos-fuelled madness.

Find out more about Twisterella at twisterella.co.uk.

Tags: Adult DVD, before close, Champ, Loren Heat, PISS, swim school, Y, Twisterella, Festivals, Reviews, Live Reviews