IDLES are Coming to D FEST and Here’s Everything You Need to Know
On June 28th, IDLES headline D Festival 2026, their first-ever show in Macedonia. For a band that has spent the last decade climbing from Bristol basements to commanding some of the biggest stages at Glastonbury, to have them touch down here, this is the kind of booking that doesn’t come around often. So before you show up not knowing what hit you, here’s the homework.
Who Are IDLES and Why Do They Matter
IDLES formed in Bristol in 2009. Their debut album Brutalism (2017) was a raw, visceral statement that caught the attention of critics and helped define a new era of British post-punk. Just over a year later came Joy as an Act of Resistance, the breakthrough record that catapulted IDLES from the underground to global acclaim, earning them Mercury Prize and BRIT Award nominations.
Since then, they’ve sold out venues worldwide and performed at major festivals including Glastonbury and Lollapalooza. At Glastonbury 2024, they were the final act performing on the Other Stage, and at one point during the performance they were joined on stage by Danny Brown. During their 2025 Bristol homecoming shows at Queen Square, they played two sold-out hometown nights that Joe Talbot himself described as feeling like “the end of an era.”
The contradiction at the heart of the band is what makes them addictive: they look like they’re starting a riot, but half their songs are about love, grief, vulnerability, and the quiet courage it takes to hold your friends together. They are an angry band made of soft people, and that tension is why their live shows are unlike anything else in modern rock.
The Live Show
Calling an IDLES show “legendary” undersells it. The guitarists spend a large percentage of the time crowdsurfing. They have been known to hand-pick a fan from the audience and have the entire crowd crowdsurf them for an entire song. And somehow, despite all the chaos, the pit is famously one of the most welcoming, gender-neutral, female-friendly spaces in rock — intense but protective. When someone falls, people form a circle around them until they can get up.
That’s the IDLES crowd culture. Fierce and tender in exactly the same breath as the music.
Joe Talbot as a frontman is a phenomenon of his own — one of modern rock’s most recognizable voices, known as much for his between-song speeches about masculinity, grief, community, and empathy as he is for the actual songs. Watching him work a crowd is genuinely unlike watching anyone else right now.
TANGK and Where They Are Now
Their latest album TANGK (2024), co-produced by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) and Kenny Beats, explores love as only Joe Talbot can — loud, raw, and almost sermon-like. Love, for Talbot, is both weapon and salvation, while the band wraps his words in warmer, more melodic tones, crafting their most tender yet most ambitious record to date. TANGK earned them four Grammy nominations.
It’s their biggest left turn yet — stranger, warmer, and unexpectedly romantic compared to the blunt-force assault of Brutalism or Ultra Mono. Songs like “Gift Horse” and “Dancer” show a band that has made peace with being moved by things, not just enraged by them. LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Nancy Whang contribute guest vocals to “Dancer.” It’s that kind of album — collaborative, open, reaching outward.
Beyond TANGK, the band collaborated with composer Rob Simonsen on the score for Darren Aronofsky’s 2025 feature film Caught Stealing, while also contributing original songs to the soundtrack. For a post-punk band from Bristol, they have quietly become one of the most in-demand creative forces in British music, full stop.
“Levitator” — The New One
And then, just as their summer tour kicked off, something new arrived. IDLES have been opening every show on this current run with a blistering new song called “Levitator.” It’s a taster of what’s shaping up to be album six — and from the sounds of it, they’re going back to something rawer and more driven. Mark Bowen described the new material as probably the most exciting IDLES album yet, with the band going back to five members in a room thrashing it out on instruments. “Lots of arguments,” he said, which experienced musicians know, that means it’s good.
The band’s next album is currently taking shape, but if D Festival is anything to go by, you might hear it being road-tested in real time right in front of you in Štip!
Essential Songs to Know Before June 28th
If you’re coming in fresh, here’s your crash course:
Start here: “Danny Nedelko,” “Never Fight A Man With A Perm,” “Samaritans,” “Mother”
Go deeper: “Colossus,” “Grounds,” “The Beachland Ballroom”
From TANGK: “Gift Horse,” “Dancer,” “Gratitude”
Don’t just put them on in the background. Listen properly. Then show up to Štip ready.
June 28th, Štip. Don’t sleep on it.
