All Them Witches – Live Rock In Bourlon 2019

Setting the Stage in Northern France

On June 28, 2019, Nashville’s heavy-psychedelic mainstays All Them Witches brought their hypnotic live show to the village of Bourlon in the north of France. The performance took place at Rock In Bourlon, a free open-air festival known for fostering underground rock and metal in a communal setting. Surrounded by summer air and a receptive crowd, the band leaned into the expansiveness of the outdoors, stretching their sound across the field with slow-burning intensity and sudden, muscular surges.

Soundworld: Heavy Psychedelia with Southern Grain

All Them Witches occupy a distinctive space where desert blues, stoner rock, and shadowy psychedelia intersect. Their approach in Bourlon relied on patient build-ups, minimalist vocal delivery, and a deep-pocket rhythm section that turns repetition into momentum. Guitars alternated between raunchy fuzz and glassy, reverb-dipped clarity, while bass lines carried an earthy, percussive weight. Drums locked into cyclical patterns that could simmer for minutes before cracking open into cathartic climaxes. Occasional keys and textural electronics, when present, accented the edges rather than crowding the center, letting negative space speak as loudly as volume.

The band’s dynamic control is central to their identity. They pivot from near-silence to storm with the kind of internal chemistry that only comes from relentless touring and a shared language in improvisation. In Bourlon, that language was unmistakable: slow coils of melody unraveled into fuzz-drenched codas, and meditative passages slipped into distorted, head-nodding riffs that felt both ancient and immediate.

The Performance: Tension, Release, and Long Shadows

Across the set, All Them Witches favored long-form development over quick hooks. They opened with spacious phrasing, establishing a low-lit mood before tightening the screws into heavier sequences. The push and pull of tension and release defined the evening. Quiet verses carried a bluesy melancholy, then gave way to stormier riffs that rode the border between control and abandon. The band’s use of dynamics added narrative shape to the set, guiding the audience from reflective valleys to explosive peaks without ever breaking the trance.

Rhythms stayed malleable, often lingering on a figure just long enough to become hypnotic, then shifting underfoot to rewire the pulse. Guitar leads favored thematic motifs over flash, circling back with subtle variations, while bass and drums drew thick lines through the haze. The result felt intimate despite the open-air setting, as if the band were playing to the inner rooms of the listener’s mind.

Instrumentation and Tonal Choices

Guitars: A dialogue between grit and glow. Fuzz pedals pushed amps to a warm roar, while delay and tremolo carved out psych-tinged hinterlands. Riffs landed with blunt force, but the edges were often sanded by ambience.
Bass: Present and physical, with lines that functioned as both melody and anchor. The instrument’s rich midrange provided the glue for extended jams.
Drums: Rolling tom figures and unwavering kick patterns were pivotal, crafting circular grooves that could lilt or stampede as needed. Cymbals added vapor, never crowding the frequencies.
Keys and Textures: Sparing use of organ-toned swells and atmospheric layers deepened the soundstage when employed, enhancing the ritual feeling without diluting the band’s raw core.

Atmosphere and Audience Connection

Rock In Bourlon’s open, accessible format tends to invite a broad cross-section of listeners, from diehard riff loyalists to curious passersby. That inclusivity worked in the band’s favor. All Them Witches thrive on immersion, and the audience in Bourlon leaned into the trance. Heads nodded in rhythm, pockets of the crowd cheered at every crescendo, and the natural acoustics of an outdoor space allowed the music to breathe without losing intensity. The interplay between stage and field felt unforced and organic, sustained by the band’s patience and the festival’s welcoming spirit.

Filming and Sound: Craft and Clarity

This performance was caught with an eye for musical detail and an ear for dynamics. Multiple camera angles tracked the conversation between instruments, lingering where the drama resided: on the pick hand during a break, the snare head before a fill, the silent count before a drop. The mix captured the weight of the low end without obscuring cymbal air or the decay of a guitar note hanging over the crowd. For a live outdoor document, it strikes a careful balance between fidelity and the grain of the moment, preserving the space around the band as part of the performance’s character.

Context and Continuum

By 2019, All Them Witches had established themselves as a live-first proposition. Their studio releases map out a terrain of psych blues and desert-worn riffcraft, but it is on stage where their ideas fully sprawl and harden. The Bourlon set sits comfortably in that lineage: a snapshot of a group adept at steering long-form songs through weather changes, letting grooves find their own logic, and making each night feel singular without losing their identity. In an era where the term “psychedelic” can be a catchall, the band remains a reminder that the heart of it lies in time, patience, and trust in the riff.

Event Details

Artist: All Them Witches (Nashville, Tennessee)
Event: Rock In Bourlon, free open-air festival
Location: Bourlon, North of France
Date: June 28, 2019

Production Credits

Technical Director (Video): Locufier Maxime
Audiovisual Director: Aymes Adrien
Sound Recording and Mix: Florin Quentin
Camera Operators: Anaïs Pogoda, Titouan Holder, Florian le Garrec, Samuel Riquoir, Joseph Bruniaux

As a document of All Them Witches in full stride, Live at Rock In Bourlon 2019 captures the band’s essential strengths: spacious songwriting, disciplined escalation, and the rare ability to make a festival field feel like a candlelit room. It is a worthy entry in the ongoing chronicle of a group that treats each stage as a laboratory, and each audience as co-conspirators in the experiment.