Tarbariitus 2026 reflections
What a weekend!
Tarbariitus 2026 is over, so time to reflect a bit. This year was once again filled with so many great memories that it always takes some time to let everything sink in and to think about the festival and the preceding weeks.
By the end of 2025, we were certain that we wanted to continue the festival because it felt that we finally got the hang of organizing it and knew how to avoid silly mistakes such as ordering and finishing everything in the last week. One of our readers, who also happens to be an organizer, told me that he doesn’t really share my sentiment of complaining about everything that went wrong last year. Because according to his opinion, it’s exactly these moments that make the organization so exciting. Well, I must disagree. Because there is a difference between badly organizing and running into unforeseen situations which need to be resolved. Of the latter, however, we had quite a few this year, where I also agree that these are the “interesting” parts of the organization. But we’ll come to that.
Let’s start with the location. When I tried to get the venue booked around November, I met some resistance, because apparently “it was too early to commit to anything”. I was a bit confused until I heard the rumours and then later received the confirmation that the whole building, which houses our two beloved clubs, has been bought up and the investor had some ideas that could have rendered any possible festival organization quite fruitless. Thus, it took until the end of January before we had the final confirmation that the festival could take place as foreseen.
But that was only a minor inconvenience compared to the fact that 3 people left the organizational team due to different reasons. Every organization has such rotations because the whole process of organizing takes so much time and energy, that it is the easiest to get rid of, when some expected or unexpected turns arrive in your life. That having said, there’s no bad blood between us, and it’s better that someone says such things well in advance than 1 month before the festival, but it of course means more work for the remaining team.
The timing was a bit unfortunate because there have been a couple of negative events in my private life and I could have needed rather good than bad news but it is what it is. To make things more interesting, there was one incident that put the cherry on top of the cake. One evening I sat together with my friends to have a cozy whiskey-tasting where we talked about this and that. I don’t know how we came to the topic but we talked about one common friend whom I haven’t met for a while and I just mentioned that it’s a shame we haven’t had that much contact as of late. In my head I was already making plans to text him the next day to arrange a meeting. However, my friend on the other side of the table just mentioned “yeah, he was a great guy.” I was already a bit surprised by this nuance, and answered “no, he IS a great guy”. “No, he was. He killed himself.”
If you know me, you might know that it really takes a lot to shock me. I mean, I have been to around 3 times more funerals than weddings, but this news has affected me more than I’d like to admit. To put the cherry on top, I found out that he ended his life the same day as Tarbariitus took place. And because social media was full of other things and I was head-to-toe deep in the past-event-mode, this information missed me entirely. The next couple of days and weeks I tried to check in on some friends who I knew were struggling mentally and I would like to remind everyone that such things can happen even to people you would not think it could, so make sure to take care of your friends.
Why is it connected to the festival, apart from that the dates overlap?
Well, when you think about Life and Death, this also applies to such events as festivals. It was quite clear to me that it will be the last time that the festival will take place in those legendary halls that have shaped the music life of many people in our town. It reminded me of my own life philosophy that we should always strive to do the best for what matters to us. Because everything will end. If not sooner, then later. And if it was really the last time you were able to write a song, organize a concert, write a book, whatever you do, you should always look back and be proud of it.
It was therefore of utmost importance that this last version of Tarbariitus at Rock & Roll should be worth remembering, an event where people look back and will say “remember that last Tarbariitus at Rock & Roll? That was fantastic!”. Who knows, maybe it will be the last Tarbariitus because location matters. Finding another suitable location with 2 stages is rather challenging and let’s see if it’ll be possible at all.
Thereby, these long thoughts reached a conclusion. The last Tarbariitus, be it the last at Rock & Roll or the last at all, needs to be worth remembering. Which brings me directly to the band selection because the remaining program has already developed a solid character of its own and can be built around the bands once they have been confirmed. The biggest question is, of course, who should be the headliner? Actually, is it REALLY the biggest question? I know too many festivals where all efforts and money go into finding that one headliner, and the rest of the lineup consists of 30-70% filler bands. Nah, let’s be brave and present a lineup with bands that are all above-average and yet so obscurely unknown, that even Gronn has not filmed them yet.
One of the first bands was quite swiftly found. With Ziegenhorn it was about time to bring for the third time a goat band to Tartu, also because it’s turned into a tradition to play only every 3 years with said band in Tartu. It is always an additional stress factor to organize and perform, especially when you want to make the gig something special. Yet, we ended up playing new songs for the first time with a guest appearance on the bass guitar, because why not?
With other bands such as Drengskapur, I was rather hoping that they’d be willing to come all the way to Estonia because I personally knew the main guy behind the band and people are more likely to perform at some obscure remote underground festival when there’s a personal connection and they know they can trust you. Probably you have already read the story about the Polish band Loathfinder but I want to reiterate that this was my biggest success story for the festival. I mean, just the thought of going to a Metal store in Krakow, listening to some local bands and not only randomly discovering such a fantastic album but also bringing them to our festival is what really fills me with joy! Other bands such as Fern Flower and Zieminieki I found randomly when they played live, which is also great because it shows you can still discover some local gems when attending concerts. H8blst is also a band that certainly no one had on their radar and it was really great to see this rarely performing, quite unique band in our halls. Another great sign is when some people return as it was the case with members from Unholy Obscurity and Moonstruck, it proves that their past experience probably has not been too bad. I’ll stop here but I could tell you a story about every single band and how or why we chose them. That’s exactly how the band selection should be, at least in my opinion.
From the visual side, I must also mention that Helbeard did his best work so far! In the end, the poster looked absolutely amazing and I heard from some people abroad that if they had known about this festival before, they would have attended it. It also came to my attention that this year’s lineup stood out in comparison to other festivals because when you look at fliers nowadays, you can mostly find the same bands just rotating at different festivals.
As every year, there were some changes and we tried some new things: For the beer selection we asked Käbliku Brewery to provide three different kinds of drinks, with one of them being a non-alcoholic Kali (Kvass) because I realized last year that there are a lot of people who do not drink alcohol due to various reasons. And then there was also Gronn’s fantastic idea to have a small exhibition of previous years’ photos he took at the festival. He definitely is the best metal concert photographer of our time.
This year’s band/volunteer keepsakes were also finalized on time and probably the best we have done so far. The only problem is that after that it will be very difficult to create anything on the same level because let’s admit it – it cannot get anymore metal than having your band name written on a bullet. Shoutout to Märt who spent weeks preparing the majority by hand! Despite all the prework, we still had to do some last-minute-activities during the week before the festival where the three of us engraved, drilled, and added the neck chain on a rainy Tuesday night.
We were incredibly lucky that Piret joined our team and took not only merch sales as her responsibility but also offered to bake some pirogi for the bands and volunteers. Since she didn’t have a suitable kitchen to prepare the food, she came by at 9:00 in the morning of the festival and started baking until around 14:00. And afterwards, she took care of all the merch at the venue, what a dedication! Needless to say that it was too much for one person but I just wanted to point out the dedication of the whole team that went into the event. Thus on Friday morning, it happened that there were 4 of us were busy with different preparations in my small apartment, which filled me with immense joy because it all felt like a community project where everyone did their part to make these 2 days possible.
I must also mention Danilo, who provided the much appreciated and delicious pizza to the bands and volunteers and hosted us the next morning, before the city tour, in his lovely restaurant La Dolce Vita. Many thanks!
Overall, the preparation went quite smoothly, but maybe there’s one thing I would like to mention so that some of you could reflect upon it. The last two days before the festival are the most stressful, because anything can happen and all sorts of last-minute-catastrophes can occur. But this year, 2 days before the festival I spent 90% of my time (at least so it felt) with people messaging me asking about themselves or some friend to be put on the +1/guest list. I don’t take it personal by no means and I understand that for a lot of people it has some meaning but consider this: If you happily pay the same ticket price for 1 band in Tallinn (Batuhska played 2 weeks before for the same price and didn’t announce anyone else until it was sold out) compared to 14 bands in Tartu, of which 11 were international, is the ticket price really too high for you to afford? If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend reading this post to gain some understanding of the guest list thematic.
Back to the festival!
When the doors opened, everything fell in place as it should be. There were some sound problems during the discussion panels that could have been avoided but it’s something that will go into the improvement list for the future. I heard some mixed but overall good feedback about the panels but I guess that’s normal. Not every topic is for everyone and you never know before the panel how the discussion will go because we put people together who often have not much experience with this sort of talk and sometimes do not even know each other. The important part is that people have some take-away, talk about it, agree or disagree and generally see it as an “intellectual” addition to the festival. What I enjoy the most about those discussions is that I see the people who participated in the panels continuing their discussion off-stage, sometimes also with listeners. For that alone it’s worth doing them.
Since we are already on the topic of feedback, we are always thankful when someone provides feedback so we know what to keep and what to improve. Some things stood out, such as the friendly volunteers (my biggest thanks to all of you who helped, you did a fantastic job!!), the atmosphere and band choice. One improvement point was providing some food or snacks but unfortunately that’s not as simple as it may sound. Sometimes we had to remind some people to keep their phones down but fortunately they were friendly enough to quickly let their phones disappear into their pockets again. It appears that was also seen by our visitors, as one person commented in the feedback:
The atmosphere is terrific! Thank you so much!! I also appreciate that making photos/videos was discouraged – finally a concert experience without screens!
By the end of Friday, I was exhausted as every year but at least knew that it was a really good start to the weekend. From all around me I could hear that all bands of the day were above-average and that day alone was worth participating in the whole festival. You should not have any favourites BUT I must mention that the live appearance by Burial Moon was really something from a different planet. When the faces disappeared in the fog and only the moving candle was visible, I felt like we reached a level of atmosphere you will not experience every day.
When Ziegenhorn played its last note, the urge for some company and some cold beverages had grown to a considerable desire. Fortunately, with Tuum Baar we have a really fantastic and suitable venue with a wonderful atmosphere and great drink selection for the afterparty and it’s always good to talk with the people afterwards to wind down a bit. Since we are anyways already on the topic of alcohol, there was some criticism that the festival beers were already gone during the first day. Well, beer must be ordered way in advance. When it was ordered, only 35 tickets were sold and the vast majority bought their tickets in the last 2 months before the festival. It is mightily difficult to estimate quantities when you don’t know exact numbers, so please forgive this mishap. 😉
On Saturday, we continued our small tradition of showing the bands around the town a bit and even though the lads from Unholy Obscurity had participated in last year’s tour already, they were still eager enough to join us for round number 2. That either means that the previous tour was really good or all of them have achieved a factory reset by consuming too many alcoholic beverages. Or both. In any case, the weather was perfect and so was the atmosphere. It’s one of those moments where you can finally get to know each other a bit better and have some words outside of the event turmoil. I believe even the experienced guide Simonas enjoyed it and did not have too many points of criticism as he only made 2 humorous remarks – I guess that’s a huge compliment!
Back at the venue, we discovered during the first band that the fog machine was out of order. Great, that’s how you start a day! Thus, we had to run constantly up-and-down to get some atmosphere into the shows. Apart from that, the day started off as strong as the previous. Tuisk performed their debut album show of “Samblasängi”, where they proved together with Fern Flower on the previous day that Estonia has a couple of really amazing fresh bands that will hopefully continue to deliver on this level and make Estonia known for their extreme music. Also one small remark regarding the Latvian band Zieminieki (which I finally managed to spell right): I had a discussion with another Latvian band that was quite surprised that I chose Zieminieki and not them to perform at Tarbariitus. Their message was “but they are barely known and really weird, not Black Metal at all!”. Yes, that’s exactly why they were chosen. When I saw them at Zobens Un Lemess, their unique, yet really interesting style fits perfectly to the festival! We want to find and have those obscure bands that might feel niche for some, but are positive discoveries for others.
The rest of the day went really well and the contrast between the two stages was a huge plus, at least so I felt. We tried almost 10 different versions of the setlist before we were satisfied that the bands in succession fit and also the bands that play downstairs do so as well, which I believe was the case. One such example was H8blst, where Kommander made perfect use of the stage that was all for his own and created a very haunting atmosphere suiting the music. The whole weekend had a fantastic sound, which is thanks to Hendrik and Siim. I should also mention our light guys Kusti and Sander who ensured that the visual aspects have been covered properly!
As the last riffs from Odium Humani Generis faded out, it was finally time to lay back and relax a bit. Well, of course only temporarily because one band was assigned a wrong hotel room, so I had to run at 1AM to the hotel to find some solution. Yes, even when you think it’s finally over, it’s not. When we returned the next day to pack up everything, a weird mood was befalling me. On one hand, it’s very sad to see the legendary halls of Rock & Roll for (maybe?) the last time. On the other hand, maybe it’s time for something new, for someone else to create a new place for rock and metal concerts. At least I hope that there will be something. If there is no dedicated venue to have metal concerts, the scene might slowly fade out because local bands won’t have the possibility to perform, and if the local metal heads don’t meet at the concerts, where else should they? Tuum Baar has shown that it’s possible to open something new, even after Underground has ceased to exist. Thus, let us hope the same will happen again and Tartu will remain a place known for extreme music.
During and after the festival there were many people who were asking where and if we will continue next year. Well, originally my plan was to take a break and focus a bit more on my own bands because it is darn difficult to organize a festival and also have an active band life. But after talking to some people, I understood that it might not be the best idea. Firstly, when you pause a year, people might lose the habit of attending the event. Secondly, the organizing team has finally gained some experience where I felt that everyone knew what needs to be done, worked independently and everything was much smoother than it used to be.
There is of course the danger that the momentum will fade out and it will become extremely difficult to start over again. The biggest challenge lies of course in finding a new location that is suitable so we can have two stages and also the same vibe as we had in Rock & Roll. Maybe we should consider inviting fewer bands (e.g. 12 max) because we received the feedback that Saturday was a bit too hectic, band after band with almost no break in between. Anyways, let’s first find a suitable location and take it from there. And if it was really the last Tarbariitus, at least we can be satisfied with the result. When on Sunday we were standing in the empty halls gazing back at all the memories connected to this place and the festival and were thinking if Tarbariitus will ever take place, Dea picked some very suitable words:
“If you don’t do it yourself, no one will.”
(Finally) coming to an end, I would like to thank everyone who made this third edition happen! Without all you volunteers and supporters, this festival would not have been possible! The flame of the Underground is burning brightly, savour it!
Hail to the Rite!
by Krux – the organizer
