Icebreaker Festival 2025: A veritable music-lovers' mecca

Van Gosh at The Loft, Southsea, as part of Icebreaker Festival on February 1, 2025. Picture by Lorna Leahy Photography

As Funeral Witch Blues take the honour of being the first band of the day at this year’s Icebreaker Festival – The Deco’s stage kicks off an hour before the others – the stoner-rock trio play to what is already a pleasingly busy pub.

Icebreaker, now in its 11th year, runs eight stages with about 80 acts playing over the course of a single day.

And from the metal-oriented Deco at one end to the more indie-focused Wedgewood Rooms at the other with a wide range of genres covered en route, there is a continuous buzz and packed venues all day long. Some are having to operate one-in, one-out systems by mid-afternoon, they’re so popular.

The festival is for new and unsigned acts, mainly from PO postcodes, but also brings in bands from along the coast.

Funeral Witch Blues kick off Icebreaker Festival at The Deco. Picture by Tony Palmer Photo, @shot_by_tony

One such act, Wrex, from Brighton, put on a blistering set of punkish nu-metal with shades of electronica in The Loft. Featuring dual vocalists, Mae Seaton and George Donoghue, by the end of the set the former is on a table spitting out fierce lyrics. Excellent.

In total contrast they are followed by Van Gosh – a rock band with a fondness for wigs, daft props and now featuring two drummers, because why not? Frontman Rich Keam starts the set from inside a ‘chrysalis’ to emerge as a butterfly mid-song, and by the end is dressed as a zebra with an enormous model head. Brilliantly barmy.

It’s an inevitable fact of a day like this that there will be clashes between bands you wanted to see, but if you go with the flow, there’s so much to absorb.

Other personal highlights include Body Crisis at The Deco, creating a ferocious noise for a duo, and NOMAD (None Of My Actions Detected) cranking out the hip-hop beats and deft rhymes at The Loft.

The Vaults’ headliner is Fast Trains, who played their first ever live set on the same stage back in 2020. It has been a joy to see them progress, and the set is packed with what, in a just world, would be potential hit singles. Their finely crafted indie-pop is a perfect end to the day.

For local music lovers, Icebreaker is a mid-winter mecca, a veritable must. If you can’t find something here to enjoy during the day, you can’t really call yourself a music fan.

Full credit, too, to the organisers for running a tight ship and keeping everything on track – no mean feat.

Icebreaker Festival 2025: A veritable music-lovers' mecca | Review