ICYMI: A Look Back on Caterwaul 2025
Deaf Club on the last day of Caterwaul 2025. Photos by Todd Wardrope
Caterwaul is both a music festival and a community gathering. Driven by the tongue-in-cheek slogan “Loud bands play terrible music,” this weekend-long extravaganza of noise rock returns to Minneapolis on June 5–7, 2026.
Caterwaul began in 2022, created by Conan Neutron and Rainer Fronz. Neutron says the team “wanted to showcase the kind of music we loved and make a place for folks to hang out and have a good time. If you just came to ONE show that year you would feel like you got you’re money’s worth.We wanted to showcase the kind of music we loved and make a place for folks to hang out and have a good time. If you just came to ONE show that year you would feel like you got you’re money’s worth.”
Caterwaul 2025 spanned four venues over the course of nearly 48 total hours of music. Over 40 bands took part in the marathon of morphic music. I had been aware from Caterwaul since the beginning, but last year was the first time I was able to take the plunge and dedicate the amount of attention it deserves. Even so, I was only able to attend a fraction of the total performances. What I did attend was energizing, ecstatic, and at times inspiring. Seeing the breadth of talents gathered was empowering in a way I didn’t expect to feel. While the ages of the bands represented a spectrum as wide as that of the crowd, the generative verve of indie rock was undeniable.
May 23, 2025
Featuring: Something Is Waiting, Eye Flys, Pinko, Violenteer, Wipes
The first night of Caterwaul 2025 unspooled at Mortimer’s in South Minneapolis. Mort’s often hosts bands, and its “cozy” stage trades performance space for crowd capacity, something a few of the bands struggled with during setup. Regardless, the night started off with the right energy, and it didn’t take long for me to feel the vibes.
May 24, 2025
Featuring: Fotocrime, Kowloon Walled City, Young Widows, In Lieu, ¿WATCHES?, NAW
Outdoor rock festivals with daytime performances have considerable challenges to getting into the correct headspace most of the time. Daylight tends to rob the atmosphere of some of the drama and mystery that transform a concert into an experience. In the case of Caterwaul, daylight was a natural force to be defied if nothing else. The Saturday bands brought their own night and sources of distant light despite their scheduled set time. The bands I saw thoroughly shook the stage and asphalt behind the 331 Club. I was blown away by the consistent sonic fury that was unleashed from a relatively modest sound system. Spontaneous mosh pits broke out occasionally, and the crowd was locked in from one set to the next. Even those on the fringes were giving the acts most of their attention. Nothing onstage was being taken for granted.
The second half of the daylong marathon required a short trek on over to Zhora Darling. Caterwaul at the 331 was testing the noise ordinances as it was, so the nighttime purveyors of noise finished the day off in the cozy and moody performance space that Zhora offers.
While the 331 had a bit of second-stage festival vibe (this is a compliment), Zhora felt more like a basement show, albeit with cleaner floors and much better sound. The bands here made the most of it and offered a more intimate and up-close experience than I had seen at the other venues. Gender diversity was more present here as well—not sure whether it was programming or chance, but it was very welcome.
May 26, 2025
Featuring: Uniform, Deaf Club
I had to take a rock-and-roll break, so I missed the solid lineup for the May 25th shows at the 331. Those bands were expertly covered elsewhere—I recommend the coverage by John Oakes and UnderCurrentMPLS, as I was bumping into them in the pit at the rest of Caterwaul ’25.
Monday brought me back to the 331 for a final bombastic blowout of unbridled outdoor mayhem. You might think the crowd and the bands might be a bit worn down after three days of high volume and high emotion, but this was very much not the case. Monday’s lineup was an exclamation point at the end of a long sentence written in pent-up-ameter.
I will not opine on who may have rocked the rockiest or who had the tightest set, which I think is especially foolish for a showcase festival like Caterwaul. There are so many different voices and styles to be experienced that trying to grade them against each other is kind of missing the point.
Even so, the thing I will remember the most is getting walloped by Justin Pearson of Deaf Club as he leapt off the stage to mingle among the crowd. Not the first time I’ve been walloped at a show, not the first time I’ve clung to my camera for dear life, but it was the first time a front man has taken this photographer as just another body in the “pit.” Neither of us missed a beat, and overall this collision of matter, energy, and fury was a perfect note in the storm of rampaging electric sweat that was Caterwaul 2025.
Caterwaul Music Gathering 2026 runs June 5–7, 2026, at Zhora Darling. Visit Caterwaul.org for lineup and tickets.
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About the Author
Todd Wardrope
Todd has been a passionate fan of the Twin Cities music scene since Hüsker Dü was still playing together as a band. While we are a long way off from the all-ages exuberance of the late-’80s punk scene, he is dedicated to capturing and telling the stories of the vibrant music scene of today.
