In partnership with Open’er Festival
Words: Jordan Bassett and Kyann-Sian Williams
There’s nothing like a big rock show. We love a sweaty gig in a tiny venue just as much, but there’s something special those days that build towards the event, as you dig out your old band tee, text mates about your setlist dreams and prepare to get silly to your favourite tunes.
Day four at Poland’s Open’er Festival was all about that energy. This was thanks to Linkin Park’s headline set, the excitement for which was palpable hours before the band took to the main stage. Perhaps they weren’t not entirely responsible for the fact that the field felt busier than usual (the colossal line-up also featured world-beating rap, pop and art-rock), but the huge amount of LP T-shirts on display showed what a draw the Cali metal titans are.
It was fitting farewell, then, to a truly magnificent festival. Here’s how we said do widzenia to Open’er 2025… (JB)
From the moment she rose above the stage – standing on a mossy platform like a supernatural bayou deity – you knew you were stepping into Doechii’s world. The Tampa-born rapper turned Open’er into a lush, fog-drenched fantasy: tangled green foliage, misty visuals, and her voice cracking like a whip through the humid night.
She honoured the golden age of hip-hop with reverence and a sly wink, paying homage to its fundamentals: DJing, raw rapping, and fashion that flexes both power and play (oversized hat, corset, baggy pants). At one point, her DJ shouted, “We bringing real hip-hop shit to Poland tonight!” – a promise Doechii kept in full.
Her set played like a feverish, genre-warping mixtape: flipping hip-hop classics like Nas’ ‘Oochie Wally’ and ‘The World Is Yours’, incorporating the leaned-out drawl of Underground Kings, slipping into her viral Beyoncé cover (‘America Has a Problem’), and sampling ballroom house before she duck-walked and vogued down the runway to ‘Alter Ego’ – where she gleefully rapped JT’s verse and danced deep into the crowd.
2000 && fx == 1) {
$('.footer-post').css({'position': 'absolute',})
}
});