HØSTSABBAT festival 2025 – Day 1
- Posted on 30-10-2025
Full photo gallery from Day 1 here:
Photos by Jonathan Mazin
Text Andrea Chirulescu
Late autumn in Oslo has already become home to the wonderful HØSTSABBAT festival, a two days-three scenes small festival, with a big big heart and who tries to keep the underground spirit alive. For the festival goers, some of the performing acts might be an artist in their top 10 or top 3, but for the rest of the world it’s usually a big ‘huh? Who is that?’. And that works just fine, given how lovely the small community has become and built up over the years.
It’s really a big joy to return to the church – since the main venue of the festival is located inside a church, and its secondary venue is located in the church’s basement and it’s called The Crypt. And it’s not a stage by any standards, it’s just an area of the floor where monitors and instruments and drums are placed. But it serves its purpose right, with the exception that only the first couple of rows get to actually see the people ‘on stage’ and with the caveat that you can’t jump nor throw your instruments too high in the air. The ceiling will not agree.
Located very central in Oslo, Kulturkirken Kacob is easy to reach from just about anywhere and it’s nicely surrounded by lot of eateries and cafes and bars where you can grab some food before the event. However, on Friday afternoon work was going a bit late for me so I couldn’t make any pre-festival socializing plans, but there were plenty of smiles at the venue as soon as I ran into familiar faces. There is a big tent area setup next to the church and there you have festival merch, band merch and a few graphic artists who get to sell their amazing works. There’s also a small food truck selling burgers and wraps and plenty of sitting spaces. This area also hosted a quiz on Saturday but I had no chance to attend that. Must have been fun. But instead I did my best to support some of the acts and artists and buy some merch. For Friday though, I think the biggest number of sold items were the gnome hats from the band Gnome (d’oh). So you basically had a Friday evening, in a church filled with people with pointy red hats. Yep, definitely my kind of Friday evening.
The visual artists also get to expose some of their works downstairs, around the Crypt stage and thus you can familiarize yourself with their work, read some more details and then go and chat with them in the merch area. The festival doesn’t offer a paid wardrobe, but there is an area where one can hang coats and drop their bags. I am not aware of any incidents, as again, I believe this small and lovely community is usually putting kindness and good behavior first. And that is easier to achieve at smaller events and usually at the underground ones. I even caught a glimpse of a dialogue next to me once and the guy stated ‘the heavier the music, the nicer the crowd’. I have not yet found any reasons to contradict that.
The main stage was opened by the cozy folk collaboration between two young Norwegian acts – Kanaan and Ævestaden, whose styles ended up a combination of psychedelic jazzy folk music, with harps, violins, groovy bass and drums and sweet vocal melodies. It surely was the perfect opening act and they sang songs ideal for the location. The only downside was that the soundcheck downstairs ended up disturbing the ‘silence’ and ruining the ending a bit. But I’m glad I got to witness this live.
Nagirčalmmiid played next in the Crypt and they are a duo delivering heavy riffs, deep guitars and a lot of passion while singing about everything from Sami mythology to own personal struggles. They take you, as stated on their page, to the “deepest depths of Rohttuáibmu”. The day presented some last minute cancellations, so Living Gate got upgraded to main stage. I had to look them up and make sure I suspect the bandmembers are who I thought they are. Indeed, it’s a cool project formed with members of YOB, AmenRa, Oathbreaker and they were super intense. They admitted they haven’t really gotten to rehearse properly and it was somehow funny that after the first song the vocalist had to kindly ask for the monitors to be turned on so that everything will be much better. And much better it was. They delivered nice quality death metal, quite old school at times but performed in an actual manner if that makes any sense. Really good and raw energy on stage.
A little parenthesis – the festival actually has three stages, the other one is called ‘Verkstedet’ and it’s inside a bar just across the street from the church. After many years of queuing at Roadburn and having to miss performances and plan my toilet visits so that I can attend gigs in small stages, I stopped doing that and I just don’t have it in me to try to figure out the logistics of this. So I dropped this stage completely, even if I heard very good things about the bands that performed there. And a second parenthesis regarding toilet visits. The security folk seem to prevent people from going down to the Crypt area if there are more than a certain amount of people. But, downstairs are also toilets and the wardrobe. I don’t know if anyone who really needs to use the toilet gets to skip the queue, but if this is an obstacle, maybe we can suggest them to have the security person prevent people from entering the concert area and let those who need to use toilets do so at their convenience.
Back to the concerts, and the Crypt, I finally get to witness Daufødt live. I have previously listened to some of the promos I received and it sounded like an intense punk rock act. And that’s what they also showed on stage. They are young and full of energy and vocalist Annika Linn Verdal Homme really is a cool contrast of extreme vocals and nice girl looks. It was a cool and entertaining performance.
As explained at the beginning of the review, the church was half filled with people wearing pointy red hats and most of them were now in front for GNOME. The Belgians surely know how to properly deliver their share of stoner rock for the evening and they have the crowd cheering and headbanging like wild gnomes in no time. I really like how their music is quite all over the place and unpredictable. And instrumental, so that you get easily carried away by the awesome riffs and heavy drumming.
One last trip down to the Crypt to witness the Danish sludge/doom trio KATLA, who have only released their debut album in March this year, but have plenty of live experience. And that was visible, even if, as far as I understand, their vocalist/bassist is a new member. They work very well together, play tight and heavy and delivered a massive show on the tiny ‘stage’. I think there’s more to come from these guys.
YOB needs little introduction and knowing I get to witness them again got me really excited, as they actually ended up headlining both days of Høstsabbat festival 2025. On Friday they performed their ATMA album in its entirety. An album from 2011 but somehow an ageless release. Some of its songs are always performed live when the band tours, so having all of them delivered to the loving crowd of Høstsabbat (some of it still wearing red pointy hats, which must have been quite the sight for YOB guys) was such a nice treat. When I relocated myself towards to back of the church, I also noticed how fantastic the light was, as it wasn’t only covering the stage but the whole surrounding area. And the music felt even heavier. I had to leave to catch a train, meaning I missed “Adrift in the Ocean”, but I was so thrilled by how Mike’s voice sounded and how well everything was working out. Even if a technician was running back and forth with impatience between the sound booth and the stage, but I didn’t really notice any obvious glitches. I just loved that I had the chance to attend this magnificent evening.