“It was an incredible experience that was quality throughout – every detail accounted for, every nerve stimulated! Fantastic to spend an entire weekend talking about and listening to music with people who really love it too. And getting to tell the musicians how much you appreciated them was a real bonus. A life changing experience – never been more in love with music- THANK YOU! XXX” Audience feedback
We hope each year people go away from Supersonic having discovered a few gems, often the line up is made up of names that you might not recognise just yet! – but its worth being adventurous as the rewards are well worth it.
Here are some of the highlights from previous Supersonic Festivals including 2008’s immense performance by the incredible Harvey Milk featuring the mighty Joe Preston – these guys blew audiences away on the Saturday night – fists in the air, tears in the eyes!!! Supersonic were proud to bring these guys over to Europe for the first time after a few years of gentle persuasion. Other great performances were by Merzbow in collaboration with Keiji Haino as Kikuri, the Danish ensemble Efterklang, comic antics by Fucked Up and the blissful end performance by Krautrock legends Harmonia.
Harvey Milk 2008
2007 saw a unique collaboration by the Oxbow Duo with Stephen O’Malley, Justin Broadrick, Dave Cochrane & Chipper, the first European show for David Yows Qui, a near riot during Wolf Eyes and a co headline performance by Sunn0))) and Mogwai.
2007 report for Supersonic by BBC
2006 saw the thunderous High on Fire headline the outside stage whilst in the Factory club audiences went berserk for Zombi & Circle.
High On Fire 2006
Zombi 2006
Circle 2006
2005 was the infamous year of the bomb – when the whole of Birmingham city centre was evacuated due to a bomb scare including our festival – we all had to vacate the Digbeth area but not before having witnessed amazing sets by Battles, Dalek and Tunng amongst a host of others. The much anticipated collaboration by Stephen O’Malley and Merzbow had to be postponed as did a perfromance by PTV.
2005 Supersonic short film
In 2003, our very first Supersonic Festival took place over the water at the Custard Factory, with live performances by Coil and a very early live show by LCD Sound System. Happy days!
Coil Supersonic 2003
Let us know what your highlights have been…