Providing a new festival space for all things a little off, very weird and wholly loud, WRONG Festival brought a debut year like no other festival can. 

With a mixture of bands creating loud noises and experimentations in three locations, our team (who also arrived late) spent time walking round the three venues to gather a sense of what WRONG was. It was a place where the weirder people can enjoy their music without any sort of judgement, and by our mark, WRONG is a very needed format for that. 

The first band we saw in full, the great Elevant who brought all their power as usual. Like we proclaimed in our Threshold review, Elevant are the titans of noise in our fair city and certainly prove it on every occasion, especially with today’s flawless set. The best part about it, WRONG Festival is the offspring of frontman Michael Edward‘s madness and he definitely showed his joy throughout. 

Always a rarity to see, the infamous champion noisemakers Part Chimp return to create a black hole of echoing noise rock. The band create a set that will forever be remembered by WRONG attendees for it’s speed, power and sheer doom. With their albums, Part Chimp are a brilliant band however live they’re a force to be reckoned with. 

The Wytches head up next, they open with a crowd pleasing intro, like a grander band would do. The Wytches have grew since we saw them last, their second album took them into the spotlight as one of the loudest bands you should know. 

Their set, filled with a dark almost light-less stage, was far more aggressive and tighter than their last effort here, the latest batch of songs simply kill the audience who very quickly grow to love them, they have that effect anyway. 

After a while, we’re treated to the brilliant Japanese rockers Bo Ningen headlining and how great it was. Opening with frontman Taigen Kawabe saying how great it was to be back and saying it again in Japanese with the final word echoing to start, this is a band who lives off the theatrical ways. 

The attires worn, the hair-flicks, Bo Ningen not only provides the music but their image is something cooler, different to their sound.

The band blasted through their very loud doom psych sounds, with the crowd in awe of their grand ways. It’s a set like no other, tight and crazy, perfect headlining material. 

To end, Bo Ningen pull a new trick out of their bag, a new WRONG Festival exclusive debut song that eventually clocked out at 27 minutes. The progressive, gloomy psych soundscapes along with the sheer madness left us either diving in every direction or in awe. Ending with a stage diving attendee, or Taigen sending his live bass into the crowd with the lights at their best, it all created an atmosphere that no festival ever has for us. 

It’s dark, it’s quite crazy but you feel at home mostly, I think that’s what WRONG will always aspire to do, be a home for the musically strange and the fans who love it. 

Words by Jack Cinnamond, photography by guest contributor Mark Holmes of SparkTrap Photography.