Graspop Metal Meeting 2025: A Review

The arc of a purposeful and considered musical interest is a thing of intrigue. It is human interest manifest, revealing life’s timestamps against the wash of youth, the coming of age, elation and despair, prosperity and decline. It is the accompanying score to inbound friends and outbound enemies. It heightens the intimacies of love, and hate. It is gain and loss amongst the existential ebb and flow, reflecting changing tastes, and philosophies, and circumstance. It shepherds us across time and space, birth and death, carrying emotional memory like little else. It reveals the innate sense of adventure lies within, often defining that very course. It may also, quite simply, keep us clasped in the familiarity and comforts of mother’s warm bosom. It can channel personal change. Or coddle the complacent.

I am at Graspop Metal Meeting 2025 in Dussel, Belgium, in no small part thanks to one of the very journeys that music affords. Noise Rock Now sent me, first flashing its wares to expose the low-end thump of Chat Pile. I’ve since seen them twice. In turn, Chat Pile reintroduced Korn after 20 indifferent years. The latter are headlining and have lured me here, in part, for I am a 40-something-year-old convert who shunned them in his teenaged hubris. I am also here as a last hurrah with the advent of my second child. Live music will be deprioritised. This will be the first weekend festival I’ve attended since ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas in 2011. That was God-tier.

In operation since 1996, Graspop is a staple on the Western European festival circuit, and another feather in Live Nation’s monolithic cap. At its height this weekend, there will be 55,000 attendees wilting under the summer sun, largely dressed in black band merchandise and brand-new, heavily bedecked sleeveless denim jackets. It breeds a strange allegiance amongst its fans. At a guess, 20 percent of those here wear Graspop-branded merchandise. I will fail to understand why. Set amongst the bland landscape of a country once renowned for the beauty of its Renaissance art, the festival’s lineup is as uninspiring as the scenery. I signed up in haste. But, I am trying to remain optimistic that the remaining headliners will elevate the event beyond the horrific 1980s-inspired glam metal-style promotional headshots that almost every band has opted for on the corporate sponsor-footed website. Middle-aged men with dyed beards, makeup, and an 11-year-old’s dress sense will become a defining feature of the next few days – besides more serious concerns.

Arriving by car from coastal Essex, UK, parking costs us £20. We’ve already coughed up £330 each for the price of a festival ticket and camping fees. There is no shortage of luxury vehicles from which fellow revellers disembark with all manner of modern camping conveniences. Metal is comfort. No gas is permitted, though. Cooked meals will remain the preserve of festival organisers. Trekking 30 minutes to the gate, the festival site sits alongside the remnants of bygone industry decommissioned by European Union legislation. Upon entry, we’re tagged like slaughterhouse animals and corralled into a dry field for a spot of light argy-bargy with our Dutch and Flemish neighbours over tent positioning. Besides some Germans, next to no one has bothered travelling from further afield. I get the sense that it’s ‘our’ festival. The heat hammers from above and uppercuts from below.

Day 1:

In pitching our tents, we’ve narrowly missed Deafheaven and Fleshwater for their midday starts – two bands I would have willingly seen. There will be plenty to suffer through unwillingly. Finally sauntering to collect our primary wristband, it is QR-coded with featured advertising from multinational soft drink giant, Coca-Cola. This will allow us to survive for the weekend. Its first use case is loading up with Graspop’s virtual tokens – ‘skullies’. At €3.80 for 1 x token, something feels fundamentally jarring about being locked into a patently false economy. We’ll later learn that there are plenty of intentionally confusing decimals to play with in how food and drink are priced. Only recently has Brussels forced organisers to display the EUR equivalent alongside token pricing. The sleight of hand once made it easier to part with 4.7 skullies for a horse meat doner than the €19 reality. Now, the true monetary value of your chronic diarrhea doesn’t require a drunken conversion. The QR code’s next use case is being scanned through the sheep-dip-style venue gates. Let the festivities commence.

With little on the day’s hit list, we purchase a beer for 2 skullies (€7.60) and make our way to marvel at Beast in Black, Finland’s finest ‘power metal’. Here, we witness what will soon become a Graspop archetype – hilarious for five minutes, then excruciating. Beast in Black are near-middle-aged men too young to have enjoyed 1980s hair metal detritus firsthand. Adorned in a sad and bizarre approximation of that ridiculous moment in popular culture, it’s 30-something degrees Celsius and they’re wearing thick leather jackets cluttered with patches and illegible scrawl. Their bellies bulge from underneath. They also have on leather trousers covered in an absurd mix of zips, stitches, and slashes, while their buckled platform boots are of the type that acid casualties wore to trance parties at the turn of the century.

Having clearly spent time and energy choosing the ridiculous attire, I stand wondering how anyone with cohesive thoughts in their heads can find their look in good taste. The singer levels up with a black leather skirt. All are wearing some degree of mascara, but I’ll give the singer his due in having the dignity to shave whatever remains of the hairline that male pattern baldness has robbed him of. The rest of the band headbang their peroxided shoulder-length locks with bald spots glistening in the oppressive sun. Many of the punters cling to the final vestiges of their hairlines, too. I’m at a loss to describe how abysmal the music is. Tonally, it’s metal (Boss Metal Zone?), yet devoid of any character. It’s chugga-chugga riffing free of anything to connect with emotionally. The drumming is lacklustre. And the shrill pop wailing? Dear Lord. Schizophrenic range doesn’t mean you’re good a good vocalist, pal. Who, in their right mind, would listen to this in their free time? How does this represent rebellion or counterculture? Who would turn to a friend in good conscience and recommend this bombastic crap? How has this band been elevated beyond caricatures in a generic Helsinki ‘dive’ bar? WHY have I paid for this?

Appalled at the shocking quality of the music being showcased on the main stage, we make our way to the site’s smallest option to amuse ourselves at the expense of 2000s throwbacks, Alien Ant Farm. The walk presents an opportunity to observe God’s creatures. With the proportion of Graspop shills on the lower end of the scale, the balance of attendees are almost all in band-branded clothing, bombarding every line of sight with tacky designs and childish slogans. Plain clothing is heretical. The Low Countries’ tow truck drivers, bar keepers, and tattoo shop serfs have clearly received the memorandum, but one overarching visual consensus is ‘fuck you’. ‘Fuck you’ scrawled on clothing, accessories, and even tattooed. Fuck you, fuck the system, fuck Christina Aguilera, fuck mom and dad. Mature, considering the mean age hovers around the 45 mark. Equally, a lot of messaging celebrates ‘metal’ – a nebulous, abstract concept in this context when the low quality of what’s on offer sits outside my personal characterisation of the broader genre. It’s sweltering, and while many are in dorky shorts there are still jeans (and hoodies) peppered here and there. Most are in socks and shoes. Then there are the leather cowboy hats which are a feature, not a bug. They’re everywhere, adorned with more blue language, Graspop paraphernalia, kitsch patches, and sweat stains. They’re worn with either a cocky confidence or blissful lack of self-awareness. This, distilled, is the epitome of the high tastelessness of the average European metalhead. They’re not health fanatics either. Bloated, lumbering, and scarlet-faced, frites, ale, and a reliable social safety net have inflicted damage. To be fair, I have to note that they’re generally benign in character, idly milling around or thrusting their arms in the air to the music like the background NPCs in Street Fighter 2. If these were Brits, they’d be testing their boxing skills on one another already. I know, I’ve been to Download. All around, a chorus of equally benign music fills the air from the various stages, along with dust.

Alien Ant Farm is a three-song affair. Having only ever known that one inescapable song, the cloying Californian twang is too much. We’re not close enough to gauge how cruel the years have been but can clearly spot the secondary singer, tucked beside the drums, whose role it is to hit the high notes the main man can’t anymore. Between songs, the patter turns to the band’s successes a quarter of a century ago and the singer’s sobriety. He’s been cocaine-free for a decade, we’re told. Expecting American-style whooping in support, the crowd are apathetic. Tomorrow, the Graspop forum will light up with reports of widespread coke abuse. Retiring to the campsite to escape the heat and dirge, all we’re missing are overzealous keyboardists and choral crap that is crystal clear from a kilometre away. 

We return later for Dream Theater. Aware they’re renowned for the technical-yet-somehow-boring, bandana-toting drummer (he’s no Zach Hill or Gabe Serbian, is he?), the squealing singer detracts from a few interesting guitar parts. It’s old man metal and reaffirms the Metal Rule of Thumb: most metal bands are completely ruined by the vocalist. Back we head to the Jupiler Stage (of least consequence) to watch Yellowcard, a name I recall from my youth. It’s dreadful, made all the worse by the prancing violinist and saccharine frontman. We don’t last a full song. Is this where ’90s American pop-punk bands come to die – a field in Belgium, gawped at by drunken Germans? Deep regret is beginning to set in.

Looking to secure a spot for headliners, Iron Maiden, amongst the day’s elderly cohort, we do some more standing around while being entertained by Dutch ‘symphonic’ metal bores, Epica. As a result, a number of further issues are beginning to dawn. Have the organisers spunked the budget on headliners, leaving little in the kitty but cheap operatic dross? And, do the locals have an atrocious taste in music? The Epica-style template will now play out multiple times: weathered, middle-aged men in premium cowhide playing repetitive, sleep-inducing licks; a keyboardist (easily improved with an interesting synth) too high in the mix that leans on long, single notes; and a good-looking, much younger woman belting out incongruous opera. There is something a bit perverse about the grizzled older male guitarist/attractive younger frontwoman dynamic.

An hour of torture later and Maiden are on with great bass tone, solid guitar, and some fun imagery. The new drummer isn’t Nicko McBrain, but he just about squeaks it. ‘Happy 50th Birthday’ balloons do the rounds, but Bruce Dickinson couldn’t care less. Over, I guess it’s another notch on the ol’ belt, but I need a palate cleanser after a day of tripe. That happens to be Lagwagon, who I last saw in 2004. They’re moderately fun and very sarcastic, sore at being left until the end of a festival day that’s not particularly appropriate. Joey Cape’s voice is blown, but the rest of the band are decent. It can’t be easy earning a living like this in your mid-50s, playing to a poorly attended, unappreciative crowd – most of whom are only there out of drunken curiosity. Goofy EpiFat jams are an OK way to close the night.

Day 2:

The pervasive schlock now kicks into high gear with the influx of Slipknot day-trippers, as comical as the band they’ll spend the day waiting to see. First on today’s list is British Lion with a midday start. Featuring a number of the aging Maidens, the singer is the weak point. At the end of the day, it’s hard rock for geezers who have several expensive, un-played guitars hanging in their spare room. I enjoy listening to the bygone London accents that have disappeared from English public life. We shift to main stage number two for Pro-Pain. Introduced by a double act of English and Flemish-speaking compères who can’t be taken seriously, they’re needless hype men, dressed in the hallmarks of the older, more respectable European metalhead: the tight black muscle T-shirt and 90s hair. They feel like they’ve been added by committee, in between discussing last year’s dividends and the target ‘extraction value’ for each of this year’s attendees. Pro-Pain take the stage, named for the headache medicine. ’Ard chaps from New York, the old-school hardcore set is a collection of indistinguishable ballads. It’s entertaining for two or three songs, then mind-numbingly boring. I recently played on a lineup with an Essex hardcore band. Same DNA. This isn’t the place to come and discover new or interesting music. I knew that, somewhere deep down inside. 

We flick through the next few bands – all awful. Employed to Serve, from England, are a generic mix of screaming and singing – a formula I’ve never understood for the way in which the flat, featureless melodic choruses render the heavier parts impotent. Then it’s Knocked Loose, from U.S.A. – darlings of the modern hardcore scene. Flashes of something interesting are negated by the silly skirts and over-rehearsed posturing.

Back at the campsite for some respite, Jerry Cantrell croons in the distance. More dross. The ’90s may have given us grunge, but there’s not nearly enough admission that most of it was bad. Jerry was complicit. Napping off the hard-earned money spent on being here, it’s off to Eagles of Death Metal. What a pleasant surprise it turns out to be. Fun, energetic, and welcoming, Jesse Hughes’ catchy tunes and easy-on-the-eye backing band will become a highlight. He engages constantly with the crowd and makes a point of thanking security for keeping everyone safe. We all know why. Leaving the tent for refreshments on our way to catch a glimpse of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Epitaph Records’ Falling in Reverse is on the main stage. Made aware of his popularity and criminal history, the music is derivative garbage and a sad indictment of what constitutes contemporary punk music. ‘Trap’ metal is diabolical and should be proscribed. Gimmes, on the other hand, have John ‘Speedo’ Reis of Hot Snakes on guitar. I’ve seen Hot Snakes twice. (They curated the aforementioned ATP.) They are legendary, as is Drive Like Jehu. Gimmes are a stupid gimmick dressed in corny Americana. Small wonder I’ve not listened to them for 27 years. 

Time to eat, and with our campsite resources depleted, the only options are an array of homogenised stalls offering slop at premium prices. My choice of a burger, which retails for €17, is barely fit for human consumption. There is nothing available for less than €8 (an overcooked sausage in a stale roll), beside a €3 croquette. There are also Belgium’s finest moules on sale for nearly €30 – if you fancy questionable supply chain controls in the heat and subsequent food poisoning. In all possibility, it’s a better alternative to some of the bands. Every other meal we see passing by in the sweaty, drunken hands of revellers looks heavily padded with cheap carbohydrates. More illusions. Most of my revolting burger goes uneaten. You wouldn’t feed this stuff to your dog. Killing some time, we walk between stages and I’m struck by how slow-paced the middle order bands are. Everyone seems happy and content, though. We all have personal standards, I suppose.

Securing positions for tonight’s headliners, Slipknot, hard rockers Skillet help us while away the next hour. As bland and generic as you’d expect from American evangelicals, their on-stage commentary provides a unique USP amongst Graspop’s ubiquitous demonic imagery. Comprised of husband-and-wife dream team, John and Korey Cooper, and a lady with bright purple hair, John, in his early 50s, has dyed hair, a dyed, carefully manicured beard, and the prerequisite tattoo sleeves. John and Korey sing of ‘love and understanding’, according to the PR. Between songs, he assures us reprobates that we can “just say NO to anger, just say NO to depression, and just say NO to hate!” He repeats these same instructions multiple times. It’s so simple, when you’re simple. John and company use ‘metal’ as a vehicle to sermonise. It’s blunt, crude, and obvious. The only genuinely excited person I see in the crowd is a young boy. For any thinking man, it’s not far off Roman capital punishment. As with every other band that can, they spend an inordinate amount of time reminding us of their previous visits to Graspop. “This is our fifth time!” And, issuing toadying thanks to the senior management. Almost every single act this weekend will do the same, bar the headliners. Hairdressers don’t pay for themselves.  

When Slipknot takes to the stage, the crowd is tetchy. “Don’t let anyone tell you what to do”, Corey Taylor barks in his signature rasp, “…not even me. Now get your fuckin’ middle fingers in the air!” The free-thinking crowd obliges. They run through familiar crowd-pleasers, avoiding the poorer ballads that sully their catalogue. The new drummer is a beast and the guitarists shred. They’re a ridiculous spectacle, ultimately – middle-aged men who use “muthafucka” once a sentence, dressed as if due at a white-trash BDSM orgy, while channeling the angst of sexually frustrated 17-year-old headbangers the world over. It works, for the most part, but tonight does feel like they’re just going through the motions. Travelling and performing under various legal business entities across the UK and Europe, is it just another evening shift? If you’ve seen any videos of their shows from this year, you’ll recognise a lot of what’s said tonight, my friends. Even DJ guy’s ‘impromptu’ 15-minute-long scratching and remix wig-out will be repeated a few nights later in Germany. Interludes are drawn out, and it feels like there aren’t enough actual songs.

Day 3

It’s hot. Very hot. Paying €3.60 for the privilege of a shower, the heat is sapping the will to trudge the through dust, people, security checks and cholesterol-inducing cheesiness of it all. In the distance, Kittie kick start the afternoon and sound entertaining, if I could be arsed. Not only are they middle-aged women, but there’s angst to the music. It is angst that is a key component of any good, heavier band. It is angst, and menace, and threat that are all but missing from everything here. Graspop and its bands have been curated to be safe, sanitised and sellable. The acts lack diversity – in the musical sense – and are rooted in the worst of eras of the metal continuum. It is a time warp, in the poorest possible way. Of the 130 bands playing this weekend against the 90 bands playing Download 2025, only 29 play both. Is this indicative of the delta in Flemish vs. British tastes? I can’t see how this festival would survive if transported wholesale to Berkshire. 

Old man shouts at cloud. (He’s paid for.)

Consuming more by proxy from the relaxed confines of the campsite, there’s Skindred (I seem to recall them as the Friday night house band at Camden’s Electric Ballroom circa 2004?) – who’ve dated badly – and Eisbrecher, a German Rammstein rip-off, who might have been fun in person. Composed, we drag ourselves to Soulfly, but not before Poppy bemuses with roadmen-style masks and heavy autotune. In prime position for Max Cavalera and friends, including Zyon, his baby-faced son on drums, Max deserves respect for being a true believer. Who else has held on to the tribal tattoo aesthetic for 30 years with such resolve! Even with earplugs in – which have been worn from the moment I’ve entered the venue to muffle the pervasive cacophony of shite – Soulfly are extremely loud, far more than the masked businessmen of the night before. It is nothing short of a wall of noise. My internals quiver. Max looks like he has irregular bathing habits. The bassist has Beavis and Butt-Head tattooed on his calves. The young drummer looks out of place – but he’s solid. Watching drummers has long been my favourite part of any live experience. We last a few songs and then seek refuge in the shade, of which the organisers have arranged next-to-nothing. Last year saw torrential downpour. Mud would make for a fitting tribute to this holistic experience.

There is only one other band we see before the headliners for the evening – Dragonforce. Doubling down on gimmickry, they have super-sized arcade machines, neon props, balloons, epilepsy-inducing lighting, and more guitarists than can fit comfortably on stage. I didn’t know they were English. I didn’t know they were so dire. Twenty years ago, I knew guitarists who would fawn over Herman Li’s axemanship, his technical prowess, his solos etc. But, as with Mike Portnoy, I’ve never automatically translated technical skill as good music – in any interesting sense. It’s bereft of emotion and an annoyance more than anything, often hiding a lack of originality behind licks, chops and image. They’re only worth half a song. 

By the time Korn takes the stage, we’ve waded through thousands for a so-so vantage point. Discovering that there are few here with a sense of humour, I enjoy several disapproving looks for my ‘Quorn’ t-shirt. Grindcore fans know how to have a laugh. These ‘metal lovers’ don’t. I would have killed for some Grind these past three days. Korn leave me laughing with their ‘knick knack paddy whack’ song, which I imagine is mostly lost on the non-english crowd. I belt out the chorus to A.D.I.D.A.S. My high school-era self would have been ashamed. Oh, the words I’d have for him. Jonathan Davis has very little to say between songs, making for a refreshing change from the sycophantic grovelling, platitudes, and patronising that most of Graspop’s line-up has spewed all weekend long. With a few duds in the set, and the bass a little low in the mix, the hits are there – including Ball Tongue. The material does veer towards the newer stuff, but I’ve had fun. They end by cannoning the front rows with red and white streamers. Always finish strong.

There was one other factor in pulling the trigger on Graspop, and that was Nine Inch Nails. Aware of them for decades, I never paid attention to Trent Reznor’s work until Adam Curtis’ documentaries shone the light a decade ago. Those documentaries also turned me on to Pye Corner Audio, as it were. Much has been written of NIN’s Peel it Back tour, so if you know – or have been lucky enough to witness it firsthand this year – you know. The setlist, the musicianship, the on-stage camera work, and the fact that it’s made by a man of incredible talent, amongst all the regret here at Dessel, are the reasons this show will stay with me for weeks. Nine Inch Nails just about tips the scale, although I could have saved £500 and seen them in London instead. Hindsight, eh. Tomorrow we’ll leave on our return leg, foregoing the weakest day of the weekend (which isn’t saying much), stopping to take in the real culture of Ghent, and the beach made famous during Operation Dynamo. 

I’ll note a few positives from the weekend, although moot in the broader context. Graspop has been free from performative politics. Apart from the Christians with their moronic statements, there is no moralising, no hectoring, and no virtue signalling from the acts. The bands might not be to my taste, but the crowds are here to be entertained, not lectured to. Additionally, the woeful compères do at least one thing right – which the US and UK would do well to imitate – and that’s ask that the audience put their fucking phones away. Everything that is wrong with Western Civilization is embodied by the sea of screens at major events now. It is a blight and pestilence. Screens at home, screens at work, screens for children, screens for adults, and screens blocking us from living in the moment. Lastly, the toilets are kept relatively clean. That matters a lot, considering the on-site meals.

Before leaving, we’ll try to recoup the remaining credits on our dystopian wristbands, only to discover that there is a €3.50 charge to do so. Utterly shameless on the part of organisers, it’s a guaranteed win-win for Live Nation, who – from that initiative alone – will reap what some estimates put in the hundreds of thousands from a mix of unclaimed credit, refund charges, and last-minute purchases. It is morally reprehensible, but Live Nation are no strangers to controversy, destroying live music around the world with their malfeasance. This is a corporate affair, after all. It is the most accessible of the most accessible – a grotesquely capitalist endeavour selling the illusion that it’s representative of alternative culture.

And so, to that musical arc. Here, we’ve found an eddy – stagnant and spinning in its own filth, commercialised and retrograde. For many, it will be the highlight of the year along their own timelines. They don’t ask for much – only those familiar comforts. For me, it’s a cul-de-sac we should have driven past. It will soon be forgotten – a needless blip amongst the 30 years of music-oriented experiences that I feel fortunate to hold. Graspop, in my estimation, is definitely one to avoid.

Graspop Metal Meeting took place from 19 – 22 June, 2025, in Dessel, Belgium.