Kylesa and Windhand are both on the second wave for Desertfest Berlin, which runs from 14 to 16 May at Columbia Venues Berlin.
So are Brutus, the Belgian trio who return to stages in 2027 after a long absence, and The Well, and the Greek band 1000mods, and Colour Haze, who have been doing German heavy psychedelia since long before anybody called it that. Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol, Kanaan and Psychlona fill the rest of the wave, with more promised.
They join a bill that already had Melvins, A Place to Bury Strangers, Hallas and Bongripper on it, which was a strong weekend before any of this.
The numbers say what kind of demand this is. Blind Bird tickets, the cheap first tier, sold out in no time, and this wave arrives only three weeks after the first announcement. Two of the three days of the 2026 edition sold out completely. For a festival built on riffs played slowly, in a city with no shortage of competition for a May weekend, that is a remarkable position to be in seven months out.