In partnership with Open’er Festival
Words: Ali Shutler and Mark Beaumont
Open’er Festival 2026 has something for everything. The Polish festival has already seen performances from main pop girl Zara Larsson, political rave-rockers Kneecap and art-pop king David Byrne, with Florence & The Machine, The xx, Calvin Harris and more adding to the eclectic, inclusive party atmosphere.
Later today (July 4), Open’er will be transformed into a pop paradise with Jennie, Jade, Addison Rae and PinkPantheress all due to perform. But Friday’s line-up was a celebration of brooding goth rock as The Cure returned to Poland for the first time in four years. And they weren’t alone in bringing delectable emo to the masses either, with Slowdive, Just Mustard and Ethel Cain turning heartache into something more euphoric with the help of thousands of excitable fans. Not your thing? How about Martin Garrix’s pyro-fuelled EDM or a disco launch party for Madonna’s ‘Confessions II’. Here’s everything that went down on day three of Open’er Festival.
The Cure remain the kings of majestic misery
Review Cliches To Avoid #1: festival bands cannot change the weather. The sun has never specifically come out for ‘T-Shirt Weather’ by Circa Waves, nor does the thermometer bend to the will of Glass Animals’ ‘Heat Waves’. If they could, The Cure would play in perpetual mist. But even Robert Smith had to wonder, when the heavens opened over Open’er Festival. “I knew we shouldn’t have done ‘Prayers For Rain’,” he said with a smirk, as the downpour added a touch more drama to the sunshine emo of ‘Boys Don’t Cry’.
A soggy ending, however, couldn’t sink the dark joys of the previous two hours. Of late, The Cure have been bookending their main set with lengthy atmospheric cuts from recent album ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ but for Open’er, they instead chose ‘Disintegration’ tracks. A glorious, glacial ‘Plainsong’ opened the set in a cascade of melancholy glory – as it should for every set by every band ever – and ‘Disintegration’ closed it, the ultimate example of The Cure’s big squeal-rock beasts. In between came not so much songs as movements. ‘Pictures Of You’, ‘High’ and ‘Lovesong’ set things off in a stratospheric bliss state. ‘Burn’, ‘Fascination Street’ and ‘Alt.end’ formed an intense funk goth interlude. ‘Push’, ‘In Between Days’ and ‘Just Like Heaven’ some mid-set light relief and ‘Charlotte Sometimes’, ‘Play For Today’ and ‘A Forest’ a throwback to the band’s proto-gothic era.
Every Cure gig is unique, of course, and this one boasted a rare trip back to 1996’s ‘Wild Mood Swings’ album in the shape of a haunting ‘Treasure’ and a scorching ‘Want’. But the regular hit-heavy encore, even as the rains descended, was the night’s true delight, as ‘Lullaby’ crept in with pincers out, Smith shimmied through the vampish disco of ‘The Walk’ while ‘The Lovecats’ and ‘Friday I’m In Love’ brought the sun out – inside, at least.
Ethel Cain wielded alt-pop like a weapon
Since the release of her 2022 debut ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, Ethel Cain has been the world’s most-unlikely popstar. That record, a twisting concept album about faith, betrayal and liberation, made her the first transgender artist to reach the top ten in the Billboard 200 chart and earned her a passionate fanbase who connected intimately with a fantastical gothic tale that was rooted in painful reality. However, Ethel Cain real name Hayden Anhedönia) said she “struggled” with the success. Last year, she released experimental 90-minute EP ‘Perverts’ that was full of dark ambient soundscapes and oppressive drone music that felt like she was trying to shake-off her more casual fans while second album (and ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ prequel) ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’ is reportedly the end of this era for Ethel Cain.
At no point during her joyous, hour-long set at Open’er Festival did Anhedönia look uncomfortable with the screaming fans that had packed out the huge Tent Stage. “Are you ready?” she asked before launching into breakout hit ‘American Teenager’, a shimmering, ‘80s synth-pop coming-of-age anthem. Later, she held the mic out to amplify the already deafening sing-along and encouraged the crowd to jump together.
From there, she gave a warm introduction to the knotted world of Ethel Cain. The sprawling ‘Perverts’ was cut back to a sleek mash-up of the title track, ‘Punish (Demo II)’ and ‘Thatorchia’ that felt experimental but never exclusionary, while the one-two of ‘Willough Tucker’ cuts ‘Nettles’ and ‘Dust Bowl’ offered delicate, dreamy escapism alongside devastating heartache.
She still does things her own, defiant way though. The ominous ‘Ptolemaea’ saw the stage bathed in blood-red light while the video screens captured Anhedönia screaming “make it stop” through multiple phone cameras, making pop adoration look like a found-footage horror. But there was nothing but euphoria for the closing run of ‘Gibson Girl’, ‘A House In Nebraska’ (“One of my favourites – if you know it, sing along”), ‘Crush’ and ‘Thoroughfare’, as both Anhedönia and the crowd found hope and togetherness in those pained alt-rock songs. If this is the slow-burning funeral of Ethel Cain, she’s going out on a high.
Slowdive were out of this world
Had a storm in heaven grounded flights out of Stansted? Was their tour bus stuck getting out of the ghost dimension? Were there celestial bodies somewhere refusing to align, no matter how hard the roadies hit them? The shoegazers of Gdynia had time to ponder the aching absence of Slowdive before a wormhole finally opened in the stage-wide screen and spewed forth Reading’s waftiest – sighing and scorching in equal measure, fractals up the wazoo. With Rachel Goswell resplendent in a feather crown and guitarist Neil Halstead making excuses about “things falling off the stage”, the resurgent shoegaze icons wasted no time in tearing space-time a new one.
‘Catch The Breeze’ poured from the PA, first as a gothic space echo, then a fire in limbo. ‘Crazy For You’ – essentially ‘Magma On The Dancefloor’ – swept in like a diving angel spilling dance beats from burning wings. ‘Souvlaki Space Station’ chimed back at us meagre humanoids from some deep space grooveathon. And the strongest intoxicant taken by anyone involved in this review by this point was the pizza baguette van’s hydrochloric hot sauce.
Music’s modern aura has undoubtedly come around to Slowdive’s way of melting these days, and it’s wonderful to see a band once maligned as pretentious and indulgent by Mega City Four fans become accepted as iconic dream-pop architects thirty years (and one reunion) on. ‘Sugar For The Pill’, from 2017’s self-titled comeback album, sounded today like the perfect Netflix sync track, with its gorgeous gliding guitar lines and xx-like spaciousness. ‘Kisses’ had enough goth pop groove to warrant authentic mention alongside today’s headliners The Cure. And ‘When The Sun Hits’ was welcomed as a genuine classic: a melodic ice storm that, for a few moments of its intense noise maelstrom, made you wonder if organisers had mistakenly opened Open’er’s disused runway to air traffic again.
Just Mustard triumph at Polish debut
There’s always been a delicious tension to Just Mustard’s experimental noise rock. On their 2018 debut ‘Wednesday’, the Irish five-piece toyed with the extremes of loud and quiet shoegaze, while their 2022 follow-up ‘Heart Under’ was a snarling, menacing affair that resisted the overwhelming black hole of total misery.
New album ‘We Were Just Here’ is a desperate search for joy, influenced by playing huge shows with The Cure. “They made us want to write more songs for people to dance and sing along to – to have a discernible melodic core,” singer Katie Ball told NME last year.
That new, upbeat outlook was obvious when the band took to Open’er Festival’s ‘Flow Stage’. The kicked off their first ever show in Poland with ‘Seven’, a searing, emotionally-charged blitz of poetry and pulsating rhythm that sounded like The Smiths covering Nine Inch Nails. A string of older tracks followed – ‘I Am You’, ‘Deaf’ and ‘Frank’ – that saw the band comfortable with their musical extremes, Ball’s haunting vocals cutting a path through angular guitars and ferocious post-rock drums.
The closing trio of ‘We Were Just Here’ songs was Just Mustard at their very best though. ‘Dandelion’ featured Ball and guitarist David Noonan trading optimistic lyrics over euphoric beats, ‘Pollyanna’s bewitching vocals and twitching groove did battle with droning guitar slashes and the album’s title track took the crowd through urgent dance, shimmering electro-pop and aggy post-punk before finishing with a chaotic, cathartic instrumental breakdown.
It was an electric 40-minute set, with all the jagged pieces of Just Mustard’s sound coming together to create something abrasively beautiful. It’s little wonder The Cure loves them, but now Just Mustard can add the crowds of Open’er Festival to their growing list of adoring fans.
