The big review: Electric Castle festival 2024

Everywhere exists all at once in Electric Castle – different foods, music, fashion, drinks, and people fill one tiny town in Romania to the brim. The four days roar to life with so much more than the eye can ever process as the sleepy locale of Bonțida essentially shuts down for an extended weekend, and the streets become alive with trucks, makeshift bars and music blaring from any speaker in the vicinity – reminiscent of those scenes in movies of New Orleans.

Step into the grounds of Bánffy Castle and it’s a kaleidoscopic ocean of hot air balloons, Ferris wheels, bungee jumping, and even a fully-stocked Lidl with its own DJ and disco balls. While a predominantly EDM festival, Electric Castle hosts a variety of genres spanning afrobeats, indie-pop, thrash metal and beyond.

It's all quite surreal and it's non-stop music for 24 hours a day, offering the maddest parties for night owls and early birds alike. Even with the chaotic Crowdstrike outage forcing several acts like WARGASM to pull out due to travel issues, the atmosphere is still, ahem, electric.

Take a look for yourself…

The sun has set, the air has cooled, and yet the Hangar Tent is spilling with hot and sweaty fans of the Brazilian metal legends. With the big screens raging with images of flames and corpses, doused in burning hot red lights, it feels like Cavalera have literally set the place on fire. Bringing that beloved OG Sepultura era to life in all its groove-laden thrashing glory, Max roars with all the might of a thousand-year-old soul, churning circle-pits into limb-flailing life. Amidst all the DJs and differing shades of EDM this weekend, leave it to the old-school metalheads to truly bring the party.

Fans are literally tripping over themselves as they run to the barricade for Bring Me The Horizon's headline set (if you can actually headline at a festival that never stops). It's a sight we've become accustomed to over the past 12 months, that universal experience of witnessing one of the best bands on the planet right now owning the biggest stages put in front of them.

The Sheffield titans have drawn the largest crowd so far, and it's easy to see why when their expertly-crafted show transports you to another realm for 90 minutes of chaos and bona fide modern metal anthems. Even in the midst of a massive festival run, Oli Sykes’ voice is pristine when he launches into DArkSide, with the band crashing and banging into life, as they cherrypick the very best cuts from their past five records.

Soaring through Empire (Let Them Sing), MANTRA and Teardrops, Oli urges the crowd for bigger and more brutal mosh-pits, as the respectful headbanging is simply not enough for the this riotous ringleader. Completely in his element, he bounds around the stage like a kid hopped up on sugar, but with access to explosive pyrotechnics and lasers.

Such high-intensity energy onstage pours into the audience, nourishing the faithful, eventually stirring up the mosh-pits the Steel City heavyweights crave – there's even a wall of death for good measure. Inviting a fan named Norbi onstage for a vicious Antivist – seriously, his screams are lethal – inspires the crowd to go even more berserk. And when the sensational triumvirate of Doomed, LosT and Throne hit for the final time, it's yet more proof that no-one can come close to Horizon in 2024. Simply unstoppable.

Providing a thoroughly moody set to an even moodier backdrop, rain hits for the first time and Massive Attack use that sigh of relief to their advantage. As the cool air coasts across the crowd, swaying from side to side, the Bristol trip-hop collective traverse their catalogue, offering up everything from Unfinished Sympathy to Girl I Love You to the timeless Teardrop. A perfectly orchestrated set for those late, sleepy festival nights after the sun has drained all your energy, it's just the right amount of chill to ease Electric Castle into the home straight.

Following a surprise unplugged set earlier in the afternoon, in what felt like stumbling across Palaye Royale's secret back garden, decked out with comfortable chairs and carpets, it's a very different kind of atmosphere as they bring Sunday night to a close in typical rowdy rock'n'roll fashion. Remington Leith’s energy is palpable – gut-wrenching vocals and all. Couple this with guitarist Sebastian Danzig leaving the stage to perch on top of the amps, observing his brother to demand a circle-pit (which he most certainly gets), there’s a chemistry between the trio that creates an incredible stage presence. Absorbing every ounce of passion bursting from the Romanian crowd, Palaye are truly a very special band.

Read this next:

• Bring Me The Horizon: “The way we’re doing stuff now, it feels like I’m making art again, for art’s sake”
• Palaye Royale: “This is the world we’ve created and the world that we get to live in – and it’s beautiful”
• Max Cavalera: The 10 songs that changed my life