Noizze
August 8, 2025

2000 Trees Festival 2025 – Friday: The Review

As the weekend peaked on Friday, 2000 Trees welcomed legends old and the new generation of talent to site to blow the leaves off everyone’s branches. Check out what we saw here. Words by Cece Lawless, Emily Simister & Will Marshall

Mallavora – Main Stage

It’s already the hottest day of the festival, but Mallavora are determined to warm people up even more with their slot opening the main stage. The alt metallers get much heavier live, blistering riffs and winding vocal melodies snaking their way through scorched eardrums. Gen of Gen & the Degenerates joins them onstage for ‘Smile’, a brand-new track due out later this year, lending punk snarl to its off kilter groove. “We’re here to prove disabled artists belong on bigger stages,” they declare before a pummelling final song – they’re absolutely right, and are themselves starting to blaze that trail. – WM

Kaonashi – The Cave

Midway through their ‘Real Deal Tesco Meal Deal’ tour, Kaonashi make their highly anticipated 2000 Trees debut with an early afternoon set on The Cave stage. Gaining internet virality in early 2024 with their song ‘I Hate the Sound of Car Keys’, the band have been followed by a buzz within the UK ever since, adding a new dynamic to their niche, established following. With a couple of minutes to spare, the crowd starts filling out, building to a respectable size. The Cave spins with unceasing bedlam as Kaonashi grasp the crowd in a vice grip, delivering an overwhelming sonic wall that twists and warps from progressive, razor-sharp musicianship into serrated brutality. Defiantly off-kilter, Kaonashi’s live performance showcases their ability to marry the unexpected with masterful precision as they pepper their set with samples from TV show references to fucking-with-the-teacher-in-music-class DJ buttons. – ES

Coilguns – The Cave

This genre bending band but slowly filled up the tent as they made the stage their own. Lead singer Louis Jucker barked their way through the lyrics and when the drums halted every so often from delivering solid, pounding beats they would politely urge the audience to “come closer, nobody’s gonna get hurt” in their gentle Swiss accent. Triumphantly declaring “this music celebrates being weird” Coilguns perform for those who feel like outcasts and the people who want to delve a little deeper emotionally when seeing a band. And despite the band hitting dancier beats, the audience prefers to take in the performance in a more demure fashion. During the set, there was a small technical break and the vocalist filled the musical silence. Being handed a beer by an audience member Jucker opened a conversation with the audience, handing the mic around. This could have been a risky move, but it was well received as a fan began a “Free Palestine” chant that rang out within the tent, the audience joining in. Coaxing the audience to dance and ensuring everyone’s safety? This may have been the politest band to play 2000 Trees. – CL

Hevenshe – Forest Sessions

Jenna McDougall might’ve made her name with Tonight Alive, but since then she’s ventured out on her own under the Hevenshe moniker, swapping pop punk for more alt- and Americana leaning pop rock. It’s a fitting soundtrack for driving down highways or coming of age movies, or a shaded set amongst the trees of Forest Sessions. She’s clearly grateful to be here, thanking the fans for helping her achieve a dream of playing the festival under the Hevenshe guise. It’s much heavier on vibes than the kind of pop punk she was known for, instead echoing spacious worship music at times in the guitar parts that act as the backdrop to her voice rather than a specific part on their own. She often talks of manifesting, and of getting signs or feelings steering both herself and the crowd to the stage, echoing a kind of communal spirituality that seemingly permeates her fan base. On a day like today, soft pop rock fits the vibe like a glove. – WM

Coheed And Cambria – Main Stage

If you’ve ventured into the merch tent today, you’ll have seen the nerdiest piece of merch on sale all weekend, and we’re including the 2000 Trees Magic the Gathering card in that. It is, of course, a series of comic books by Claudio Sanchez in the world of the Amory Wars, the fictional universe created through Coheed and Cambria’s music over the past couple of decades. Opening with the anthemic ‘Goodbye Sunshine’, Coheed have the crowd firmly in the palms of their hands from the get-go. It’s followed by the equally massive ‘Shoulders’ as thousands of throats sing along to the earworm hooks. The prog/emo wizards are on electrifying form, bounding round the stage, tearing through their stacked catalogue over the course of an hour and change. There’s even a detour into Danzig’s ‘Mother’ after ‘Searching For Tomorrow’; odd bedfellows to be sure, but somehow they make it work. Delving into their back catalogue for the likes of ‘A Favor House Atlantic’ shows just how much the band have evolved, incorporating ever poppier structures and moments without losing the progressive sensibilities that made them so beloved in the first place. While they wryly admit to having always been a “left of centre” band, forging their own idiosyncratic path – including those graphic novels – they’re here at a left of centre festival and have if not all their own fans in front of them, then still a crowd that eagerly embraces that off-piste approach and the bands that take it, and they play their hearts out. – WM

Million Dead – The Axiom

This vintage band attracted a massive crowd for their long awaited return. Fronted by Frank Turner, they played the fan favourites from a back catalogue that had not been dusted off for decades. Ever anthemic and powerful, this post hardcore band felt right at home despite the long hiatus from performing as a unit. People in fancy dress (a tiger, Peter Pan and Shrek, notably) crowd-surfed and danced along to the nostalgia as Turner held the crowd in his own inimitable style. The strange mixed with the romantic as the group settled into some softer melodies just as the sun set over the festival, casting a golden glow inside the Axiom tent. The band thanked the organisers for booking them and for putting on an incredible festival thus far. Stalwart fans would agree that Million Dead have still got it. – CL

Heriot – The Cave

Heriot’s last stop here was early on the main stage, throwing out inflatable swords to the crowd. Tonight they’re returning, on the Cave as headliners, and it’s nothing short of triumphant. Accompanied by stacks of Marshall amps, frenetic lighting and a crowd up for a mosh, the opening salvo that includes ‘Enter the Flesh’ and ‘Siege Lord’ is a blistering statement of intent. The latter sees them joined by a guest that incites the first wall of death. Following it with ‘Near Vision’ ensures it isn’t the last, a pit constantly swirling without prompting. Demure sounds evil, it’s chugging, heaving riff demolishing all the pit doesn’t swallow, one in which a particularly brave punter carries someone round at speed. The band have grown in their stage presence too; drummer Julian Gage is imposing, brutalising his kit and guitarist Erhan Alman looks murderous, while guitarist/vocalist Debbie Gough and bassist/vocalist Jake Packer take turns inciting the crowd further and striding across the stage when not uttering guttural roars or shrieks. They might clash with Taking Back Sunday, and have a somewhat inconsistent mix that dampens their heaviness occasionally, but the quartet draws a sizeable crowd who have a hankering for visceral extremity, and deliver on all fronts, more than proving their worth to continue rising up the stages and slots at festivals around the country. – WM

Taking Back Sunday – Main Stage

Taking Back Sunday make their long-awaited 2000 Trees debut, headlining the main stage with the confidence of a band that knows exactly why they’re held dear by generations. As the sun dips below the horizon, a diverse crowd fills the field, many clearly craving a nostalgic return to the emo glory days of the early 2000s. The atmosphere buzzes with anticipation for a cathartic sing along. With a career spanning over two decades, Taking Back Sunday curate a set list that blends newer material with fan favourites. They open with ‘A Decade Under the Influence’, launching into ‘What’s It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?’ sparking a surge of movement; less moshing, more frenzied jumping with a healthy stream of crowd surfers overhead. Frontman Adam Lazzara beams throughout, bounding across the stage with his signature mic swings. The whole band radiates a genuine excitement to be there, something always refreshing to see from a group this far into their career. The crowd’s energy holds consistent throughout, but, as expected, it erupts at the first few drawn-out notes of ‘Cute Without the ‘E”, before they close the night on a high with the triumphantly nostalgic ‘MakeDamnSure.’ – ES.