Twisterella 2025 review – a rewarding potpourri of fresh talent

Image credit: Victoria Wai

Now in its 11th year, Middlesborough’s fabulous one-day festival continues to showcase a host of promising, forward-thinking talent from the North East and beyond. Highlights of this year’s edition include the country croon of Our Man In The Field and gilt-edged alt rock of Legss, but it’s Roller Disco Death Party that really get the place bouncing.

It’s just gone 8pm in the somewhat unglamorous surroundings of Teesside University’s Students’ Union and lead singer of local punk band IRKED Helen Walkinshaw is on the prowl, quite literally: she’s hopped over the barrier (the chivalrous offers of help from several men pointedly ignored), gone wandering through the crowd and started crawling somewhere near the back of the room, all whilst screaming into the mic. She’s dressed head to toe in a black sequined catsuit and she looks and sounds spectacularly angry. Her wanderings are made all the more impressively brave by the fact the room is half full, and the few punters in attendance awkwardly avoid eye contact and stand still, dumbstruck. Say what you like about IRKED’s music – a sort of Geordie take on Amyl and the Sniffers, only with more monotone screaming and fewer killer riffs – this was a thrilling violation of the usual performer/audience dynamic that most bands wouldn’t even consider, let alone pull off with such conviction.

Middlesborough’s Twisterella Festival launched in 2014, and has been a home for grassroots musical talent in this too-often overlooked gigging destination ever since. This year’s festival includes an impressive 28 artists packed into one day of scheduling, bookended by buzzy indie names Swim School and Adult DVD (this reviewer saw 12 acts, but sadly had to skip both of these bands). This year’s edition, split across three stages in the SU and one in the more atmospheric Town Hall crypt, is a treasure trove of talent with a real sense that at least one of the fledgling bands on the lineup is destined to go on to great things in the near future.

Indeed, Twisterella distinguished themselves in their inaugural year by including Sam Fender on the lineup, and the Geordie Springsteen’s influence remains alive and well in Hartlepool group Champ, who are certainly in no mood to terrorize the lacklustre crowd Helen Walkinshaw-style. In fact, they proudly announce this is their very first gig, and seem chuffed just to be there. It’s a surprising fact given the quality of their show. Jonny Bee’s soulful vocals are genuinely of Fender’s high calibre, as is his knack for anthemic melodies and soaring bridges. Never does this 30 minute set rise much above a tasteful Fender homage, but this is early days for Champ. Besides, perhaps there’s space for more than one Springsteen-esque rock act in the North East.

Legss are one or two steps further ahead in their career, and their recent debut album is already making waves in the London indie scene, but their slot on the smaller Terrace stage at the SU suits them – this is intensely dark, oppressive experimental rock music that feels apt for this muggy sardine can of a venue, only a six-inch high stage separating the crowd from Ned Green spewing oddly affecting slam poetry into the mic before retreating into his electric guitar in paroxysms of passion. Beside him Max Oliver looks even more rapt by the music, flinging his guitar and squirming around the stage whilst navigating the knotty guitar lines On Killing a Swan Blues or unleashing a wall of sound of slow burner Fester. He’s the standout player of perhaps the most daring band on this year’s lineup – Black Country, New Road levels of cult status would be richly deserved. Legss’ antithesis later comes with The Lake Poets‘ Martin Longstaff, who charms the low-key Lounge stage with his traditional and heartfelt guitar numbers, and remarkably gets the biggest applause from this Middlesborough crowd with a soaring ode to his hometown, Sunderland.

Rock is the dominant genre at this year’s festival, but by far from the only style of music on offer. Glasgow’s Roller Disco Death Party are a refreshing change of pace, and sound exactly like you would imagine Roller Disco Death Party to sound: irresistibly fun dance music with a vaguely sinister edge of harsh electronics and heavy percussion. Amelia Briggs Haldane is tireless in providing the latter, hammering away at the drums with the ruthlessness of a steam train at full pelt. Conjuring everything else via a control panel of knobs, dials and keyboards, Neal McHarg succeeds in not letting one moment of this tight set sag in energy. In the Town Hall crypt, Our Man In The Field is similarly refreshing. Alex Ellis’ mature americana-via-Teesside sound wins over the crowd with his songs, inspired variously by an ex-manager who blew £10,000 of his money on drugs and prostitutes, and hearing a messy breakup through the thin walls of his London apartment (“a terrible thing to hear… but great for writing songs!”). Like all great country crooners, Ellis’ voice is deliciously mellow, albeit buried in the mix when delving into his mumbly lower register, just like the inaudible electric cello beside him. It’s Matt Owens’ guitar that dominates the mix instead, which is no bad thing – his lyrical riffs frequently steal the show, his virtuosic solos always stopping just short of overindulgence.

It’s in the chocolate box nature of small music festivals like Twisterella that not all sets are going to go down quite so well as Ellis’. In fairness, London rock duo Scrounge had plenty of excuses: lead singer Lucy Alexander had battled her way north through train cancellations despite food poisoning and, as if to add insult to injury, her guitar completely cuts out mid-song halfway through her set at the Terrace. She nobly battles on, but it seems the crowd are not in a generous mood, and many songs are met with reluctant, half-hearted applause. The real problem is that, with only drummer Luke Carteledge to support Alexander and her guitar, there’s little to distinguish each song, and her bland strumming lacks the high octane riffage that usually powers rock duos such as this one. Following act Zander have similar difficulties with the crowd, and some game if ill-advised crowd work (pretending to introduce Sam Fender as a special guest, for instance) falls painfully flat. Back up on the larger Hub stage, a band simply called Y are wise to keep such antics to a minimum and stick to the music – in this case, enjoyably ragged and danceable indie that sounds unmistakably from the same Brixton ‘Windmill scene’ that spawned Fat Dog and black midi. Harry McHale wields his tenor saxophone like a weapon on one side of the stage but only really lets rip on closing number (naturally also titled Why), a throbbing dance tune that achieves the impressive feat of at last getting this stoic crowd moving and shaking.

Punchbag also manage to keep things moving with their set of sugary pop which closes the Terrace stage, powered by Clara Bach’s undimmable onstage charisma. No bother that the lyrics aren’t especially edifying (“if the world just sucks, then suck it,” Bach advises on ‘rebellious’ anthem Fuck It) – this set was all about the delivery, and the gleeful dancing of Bach and her brother Anders proved infectious, even for a gig-weary crowd of 60. I had just enough time to thank them and take one of the set lists before rushing off home, the sort of personal interaction with a headliner you just won’t get at any of the better-known UK festivals. Ultimately, that is what Twisterella is all about: an intimate connection with passionate musicians, and a vital tonic in a world of global superstars like Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter hogging much of the limelight and even more of the revenue. It’s difficult to be a touring small band in 2025, making next to no money to play to a largely disinterested crowd in Teesside SU. But the appeal of Twisterella for a punter isn’t just charity – the British grassroots music scene remains vibrant, exciting and inspiring, and also deeply undervalued in the face of widespread venue closures. Long may this haven of independent music keep up the good fight.