Text by Rene Rosierse
The second day of Vestrock 2025 starts with unapologetically loud and rocking Dutch outfit Ramkot who opened the mainstage. Their audience, still with tired eyes from the day before, were rudely awakened by the band and their first couple of heavily riffing tracks. Ramkot certainly set the tone for the rest of the day and for all the guitar bands to follow. We were looking at a nice day of sunny weather ahead and the festival field was filled with a warm and welcoming atmosphere.
Good news for fans of Sleaford Mods and The Streets; they’ll still be able to carry on performing until they’re in their seventies; Vestrock Saturday’s Pete & Bas proved that. Both over seventy and dressed in classic rap attire including gold chains and wonky hats, the two demanded the attention of the entire Nexus stage with their bars and beats! Watching the two march across the stage was an experience like no other.
Half of the age of Pete & Bas were the members of indie rock outfit Getdown Services, not entirely as fun as the aforementioned, but they did know how to sway most of their audience. After a fun dance party we continued on to see British indie outfit The Royston Club who delivered on a deliciously slick Oasis meets The Lathums-inspired set of solid up-tempo bangers. Kind and engaging, they scooped us up and made us fans.
Kensington are back! After a hiatus of over two years, the Dutch anthemic stadium band returned to Vestrock with their new singer. The rock outfit sold out Ziggo Dome time and time again and already performed at the Vestrock main stage twice. Last weekend it was the band’s time to show their audience that they made the right decision in getting Jason Dowd over from The Status to be their new front man. Kensington were the first to perform in front of a packed festival field and proved they’d made the right decision in not throwing in the towel. Their soaring indie anthems got the crowd going and showed their worthiness of a headline act.
Most of the crowd kept their place in the field while waiting for the main act of the evening; another band who’d already played the festival before in 2022, gothic metal band Within Temptation. Their stunning heavy rock compositions were amplified by the signature voice of singer Sharon Den Adel, a voice we could never get enough of. They opened their set masked and dressed appropriately with ‘We Go to War’, played ‘Lost’ which they haven’t played live since 2012, and ended their extravagant and captivating live set with the classic ‘Mother Earth’. An enthusiastic crowd made for an even better end of our Vestrock Day 2!
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