Mike Futcher

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Journey Into the Childerswald: Tyler Childers Live in London

November 23, 2025 / / 2 Comments

Saturday 15th November 2025

O2 Arena, London, England

schilderwald (noun)

a “forest of signs”, a place overwhelmed by directions and signs competing for attention

Heading south on a train out of Manchester once again, I pass the now-familiar sight of the Jodrell Bank observatory, its 250-foot white dish trained at the gloomy stormswept sky. The iconic radio telescope has become a familiar sign on my increasingly frequent journeys to London; as a casual science buff it’s a welcome early treat as the rail takes me to the capital, and on my return journeys it becomes my very own Angel of the North, a sign that I will soon arrive at the comforts of home.

The train passes the great white dish slower than usual, a speed limit imposed as a consequence of delays and damage to the railway line by Storm Claudia sweeping over the country. Its ear cupped skywards, the radio telescope has long been used to observe stars and pulsars and further our understanding of the universe. It has searched for signs of extra-terrestrial life. At the dawn of the Space Age, it diligently tracked Sputnik in its flight. But soon the train trundles past, and all this passes from my mind. For today my thoughts are trained London-wards, my ears directed towards a rather different star.

Because, like it or not, Tyler Childers is a ‘star’ now. Some fans are disappointed by this; they are pushed away or leave, disenchanted, for various reasons. But other ones take their place. The fanbase grows, the faces change; even the face of Tyler, with his youthful and clean-shaven look tonight a commendable change from the grungy, bearded hellraiser of what many consider his ‘peak’ years. From the stage of the O2 Arena tonight – capacity 20,000 – he remarks that the first time he played in London, not a great many years ago, it was to eight people – “including my road manager” – in the Slaughtered Lamb pub.

To my surprise, at the end of the night I leave the gig in an odd state of mind, unsure of how I have felt about it all. It has been a warm, energetic performance, and Tyler and his band really put on a show. And yet, something about it, or at least my experience of it, has felt a tad hollow. I would fully encourage those reading this review to listen to this artist, and to see this powerful act live, but I think a review merely glazing the arena-level Tyler Childers experience would have little worth. The more interesting thing for me, in writing this review, is in exploring this unexpected feeling of hollowness after seeing one of my favourite contemporary artists.

As a disclaimer, I should say this is not a hit piece, and it’s certainly not political. Tyler Childers has come in for some criticism for political stances over the years, but I’m personally indifferent to it all. Long Violent History didn’t do anything for me, but it didn’t do anything against me either. I find his rationale on refusing to perform ‘Feathered Indians’ a bit silly, but nothing to get heated about, even if I would love to hear the song live. I didn’t like ‘In Your Love’, but that wasn’t because of any gay miner video, but because I find the song itself consciously safe and mainstream, a worrying sign of an authentic artist trending more hollow than holler. I’ve written my thoughts on artists getting political in numerous other reviews, seeing neither a need for fans to get angry about it nor a need for artists to burnish themselves with it. My thoughts on that are probably not worth the bytes they’re coded on, and besides, there’s nothing political about tonight.

Rather, I think what disconcerts me is the polish. This is very much a “show” tonight, and not exactly what you’d expect when a bunch of country boys show up with guitars and pedal steel. Everything is curated, everything is smooth and prepared. Large screen projects fantastic coloured videos tailored to each song; a visual feast, and something I’d seen done to great effect by Paul McCartney in Manchester last year. But Paul McCartney is the most famous musician in the world and has played his songs a million times over. You know you’re going to get ‘Hey Jude’, ‘Blackbird’, ‘Live and Let Die’. With Tyler Childers only 34 and – with respect – only one truly, truly great album in his catalogue (Purgatory), the tailored visuals betray the fact that there’ll be no spontaneity tonight. Everything is pre-planned and everyone is going to stick to the script; you know what you’re going to get. Tonight we’re watching an artist at their peak in terms of commercial success, an independent artist who has drawn a crowd of 20,000 to an arena in a foreign country. But we’re not watching an artist at their peak, creatively. A week earlier I saw the Red Clay Strays set the night on fire in Birmingham through sheer talent and upwards momentum. Tyler and his band should still be in that same thrilling moment. An artist of this level of talent should set the nearby Thames on fire. But theirs is a flame that is carefully stoked rather than set loose.

Perhaps this hollowness then is merely sadness on my part, or even ingratitude. The common objection I’ve seen to criticisms of Tyler Childers, particularly after his odd, dissonant Snipe Hunter album released earlier this year, is that an artist is free to go where they will, and “if you don’t like it, don’t listen to it”. Fair enough, and certainly I’m not one of those who crudely retort that “he was better when he was on the drugs”, even though at that time he seemed a force of chaotic genius, deeply soulful and firing off incredible songs in such number that, years later, there are still unreleased gems that fans are desperate to hear as proper studio recordings.

I live clean myself, and have never liked the ‘tortured artist’ trope. I remember the first time I really saw Van Gogh’s famous ‘Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear’ – I mean, really saw it and understood its power. A self-portrait is an artist sitting down and, stroke by stroke, analysing themselves. Van Gogh faced what he had done to himself in his self-mutilation and painted it and admitted it to himself. I realised then that Van Gogh wasn’t a great artist because he was crazy. He was a great artist in spite of being crazy. Who knows what greater wonders that poor man could have done without that horrible burden. And while of course Tyler Childers is not on that level of creative genius, the same logic applies. Everything that Tyler did “when he was on the drugs” was done in spite of them, not because of them, and getting sober is one of his most admirable achievements.

And yet, something has been lost. A spontaneity, an exuberance. The night’s far from joyless: there’s a great energy and quality of song, and Tyler himself beams with smiles and a verbose – though clearly rehearsed – humour when talking to the crowd. He sells it well, but I’m reluctant to lionise salesmen. The beard has been shaved, and the rough edges shaved off with it. The upstart Kentucky boy who wrote killer songs in his head while working odd jobs, producing more dynamite than you’d find in the local coal mines, is now actively angling for Grammys and mainstream acceptance. The breath of fresh air from the Appalachian hills has now been bottled for mass consumption. The thing that made us sit upright when we heard ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ or ‘Lady May’ or ‘Shake the Frost’ for the first time is now much harder to find. And the fans who became fans because of that special quality, well, they drift away – or, like me, arrive in the O2 in the hope of catching a remnant of it. But nothing halts that spit-in-your-eye alternative momentum than showing that you want to be accepted by the mainstream after all.

In attempting to find the right words for this peculiar feeling of unease, of disquiet, even when I have thoroughly enjoyed the night, I come across the German word schilderwald. Coined for the bewildering array of competing traffic signs and signals at busy intersections, it literally means “forest of signs”. I seize on it gratefully to explain my unknown feeling. In the O2 Arena tonight we’re in the Childerswald. There are many competing signs, many directions to go, and no one path is any clearer than another. As thousands of phones light up around the arena for people to record ‘In Your Love’ for their TikTok feeds, many raised high to show themselves singing along or crying performatively, I find myself thinking that many of these people wouldn’t be caught dead in places like The Slaughtered Lamb. Which isn’t to imply in any way that I’m a better fan; only that I’m one who has perhaps been left a few steps behind on the path Tyler has chosen to go down. These are Tyler’s people now. To use the corporate phrase his management team may well deploy as they chart his future course, they are his ‘target audience’.

For better or for worse, Tyler Childers has become an artist known as much for his left-turns and divided fanbase as for his undoubted quality as both a singer and a songwriter. This is evident in the live experience; the night at the O2 is opened by Omni of Halos, a Swedish alternative grunge-rock band whose sound is a heavy and distorted one. For people who like this kind of music, it’s the kind of music they’ll like. But even though the band have a pedal steel player, it’s an incongruous sound for a night of country music. The Swedes are followed by The Magic Numbers, a British indie rock band who are closer to the vibe we’re looking for with their melodic ‘Love’s a Game’ and the slight dissonance on ‘Sweet Divide’. They get deservedly warm applause from the crowd, but fans are still having to work to forge a path through the Childerswald to get back from where Tyler, in his latest left-turn, has sent us.

But it’s in the main set that the bewildering array of signs and lights competing in this forest become more evident tonight, even if the power of Tyler and his band do much to bring us through. Tonight is part of a tour to promote Snipe Hunter, Tyler’s latest album, which has drawn mixed reactions from his fanbase. I place myself firmly and unapologetically in the ranks of those whose reaction was ‘mixed’. I expected more from the production (particularly as the producer once made one of my favourite albums, Tom Petty’s Wildflowers). It was needlessly sloppy and dissonant, with naïve experimentation that criminally distorted the vocals of one of modern music’s most characterful singers. Even more disquieting was that half the songs on the album were instantly forgettable, which is quite alarming for such a talented songwriter. Recognise that Snipe was the latest addition to an album release run that comprises 2023’s lightweight Rustin’ in the Rain, 2022’s bloated, indulgent Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? and 2020’s irrelevant fiddle instrumental Long Violent History, and it becomes easier to understand the frustration of long-time fans.

These concerns – or admissions of disappointment – can be scoffed at by the vigilant stans who man the keyboards in Tyler’s defence, or drowned out by the off-key singing of the TikTok day-trippers and drunken cosplay cowboys who now flock to his shows, but their validity is proven somewhat by the fact that when the Snipe Hunter songs are played tonight, they’re actually pretty good.

‘Nose on the Grindstone’ is of course a fan favourite that was unsullied long before it was attached to the album, and it gets a fine reception tonight in the middle of Tyler’s mini acoustic set. Rather, it’s other songs which blossom when freed from the consequences of Snipe Hunter‘s bad decisions; the throwaway ‘Down Under’ becomes a bit more agreeable, and ‘Watch Out’ proves itself to be a good song underneath – not a beloved ‘Purgatory’ or ‘Country Squire’-level song, but maybe a ‘Creeker’.

Without the distortion of the album cut, which makes it pretty much unlistenable, the titular ‘Snipe Hunt’ emerges as a rather pleasant rocker when played straight by Tyler and his band. The opening one-two punch of ‘Eatin’ Big Time’ and ‘Dirty Ought Trill’ are good enough on the record but really show their worth live, setting us up for a rewarding night. But even so, that note of disquiet and hollowness which I keep returning to is there from this very first song. The artist who once wrote and sang compassionately – and does so again tonight – of the grandmother sitting in the corner in ‘Follow You to Virgie’ now sings of “blowing a thousand fucking dollars” on a Weiss wristwatch he’s now “flexing”.

But the hollowness I refer to is not solely attributable to Snipe Hunter. After all, ‘Bitin’ List’, another new song from the album, is already a crowd favourite and gets a roar of recognition from the London crowd as Tyler introduces it. He clearly loves it too, barking manically during the coda. If ‘Bitin’ List’ does seem a bit of a novelty song, there’s no harm at all in revelling in it while it still remains, for the moment, fresh and fun.

Instead, the hollowness resounds at some surprising moments. An early rendition of ‘I Swear (to God)’ is slightly pedestrian, a far cry from the energy with which I heard it live in London a few years ago, where it was one of the best songs on the night. ‘Jersey Giant’, which has become something of a country standard despite Tyler having not recorded a studio version of it, is capably done and yet rather bloodless, lacking the magic of his old lo-fi version that circulates among more devoted fans. Once Tyler’s found the right way he wants to do the song, I’ve no doubt he can revive its understated, wistful charm. But charming understatement is not the tone Tyler and his Weiss watch have been looking to strike in recent years; it’s not the path he’s chosen through the Childerswald. Tonight ‘Jersey Giant’ feels routine and out of place, as though Tyler feels obligated to sing it and reclaim it following its success with other artists.

The swarm of brightly-lit phones raised high to greet ‘In Your Love’, played just before ‘Jersey Giant’, are more accurate signage on this forest path. Aside from one good line (“some men search for ages…”), I’ve never been able to really like ‘In Your Love’, and Lord knows I’ve tried. It feels written to order, a sanitised ‘Feathered Indians’ replacement targeted to pull in casual, mainstream listeners with its generic lyrics and clichéd sentiment. What’s more, two of the more recent releases from Tyler are sweeping, romantic songs that hit all the marks that ‘In Your Love’ cloyingly smothers. Neither get an airing tonight: ‘Oneida’ remains on Snipe Hunter, a tidy number among a collection of red-headed stepchildren, while ‘A Song While You’re Away’ – a real gem, and proof that Tyler can still be produced well – languishes in, of all places, last year’s Twisters soundtrack.

Happily, however, the good thing about the Childerswald is that even if one route predominates and defines this current moment of Tyler’s career, there is still an array of glittering signs to transfix those of us who are disenchanted, and who would want those paths to be taken instead.

One such path is Tyler’s acoustic set in the middle – both literally and figuratively. After ‘Watch Out’ in the middle of tonight’s set, Tyler leaves the band on the stage and hustles along a pre-planned route through the crowd, towards a smaller lighted stage in the middle of the pit. Here, he straps on an acoustic guitar and sings, solo, the fan favourite ‘Lady May’. His bandmates C.J. Cain and Jesse Wells then join him, on guitar and fiddle respectively, for the afore-mentioned ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ and ‘Follow You to Virgie’.

This is the authentic, earthy Tyler we thirst for. During ‘Lady May’, which was the first song of Tyler’s I ever heard, I pull my attention away from the red-headed figure beneath the lights and back towards the main stage, now dark. The large screens remain on, projecting the image from the camera that zooms in on Tyler. He looks young, innocent and vulnerable; his eyes impossibly bright. For all the artistic left-turns he’s taken through the Childerswald, I am at least glad that the path he’s taken has been one of sobriety. By the time of the third and final song of this mini set, ‘Follow You to Virgie’, I find myself thinking that I could happily listen to a full acoustic set from Tyler, without the bells and whistles of the newly corporatised, mainstream Tyler, without the bloat and circus of a large touring band (Tyler’s added a second keys player since I last saw them live). Here, in ‘Virgie’, I can see him through the pines. Perhaps the hollowness I identify later is not from anything negative, any smoothed-over, sanitised experience or Snipe Hunter hangover, but from this pristine moment, from knowing with sadness that, at his best, Tyler Childers can be this good.

The magic remains in Tyler Childers elsewhere in the set, back on the main stage with his band around him. Early on, an energetic ‘Rustin’ in the Rain’ is described as “not a love song, but a rut song”,and its chaser, the classic ‘All Your’n’, is delivered with a beaming smile from its creator, relaxed and gesturing from the stage with a jar of water in his hand.

Later on, ‘Whitehouse Road’ proves a hit with the crowd; its return to Tyler’s setlists in recent years encouraging. The crowd had roared in vain for the song the first time I saw Tyler live in London in 2023, drawing only a curt “nope” from the man on stage, but tonight’s now the second time I’ve heard it live. It shows Tyler’s not averse to rehabilitating songs he’s previously exiled, and as he evolves he is making peace with the older, more jagged parts of himself. It doesn’t mean we’ll hear ‘Feathered Indians’, an even more beloved song, any time soon, and certainly not by the time he returns to England in just a few months. But it does suggest that those left-turns aren’t necessarily done by an artist looking to alienate his fans, even if some of them have that effect. They are turns from an artist still learning how to navigate his way through the bewildering forest of lights and signs.

As we reach the end of the night, Tyler and his band have kindled a significant flame in the crowd, with ‘Honky Tonk Flame’ and a funky ‘Way of the Triune God’ setting us up well for a big finish. ‘Universal Sound’ is not only one of Tyler’s best songs but also one of the best songs of the night. The vast colourful screens have been something of an ill-fitting distraction for what is still, at its best, country music, but they now prove their worth, projecting animated images of the cosmos to complement Tyler’s metaphysical lyrics. A glitter ball gently scatters shards of warm light across the rest of the darkened arena like stars across the void. The big arena screens then catch light for ‘House Fire’, turning the room an intense red and orange for tonight’s final number. It’s a crowd-pleasing foot-stomper that sugars the pill of knowing there will be no encore.

Encores are a strange thing; at their best, they are spontaneous eruptions of joy from a crowd wanting to show an artist how much they are loved by demanding more. But many artists clearly plan for an encore and see it as part of a normal set, with everyone buying in to the odd pantomime of an artist leaving stage and then coming back again. Some, I’ve noticed, even leave for the encore hit songs that it would have been inconceivable for them not to play.

Encores, then, are far from spontaneous, though we never mind the pantomime of this. In contrast, when Tyler notified us earlier in the night that they will not be doing an encore, and sticks to this at the end of the night, it does show the lack of spontaneity more starkly than any pre-planned encore. The night will never be allowed to become special enough to make an encore a necessity. I realise afterwards that Tyler’s never done an encore when I’ve seen him live, although I admit that is a small sample size.

The Tyler Childers show, then, is tightly defined, smoothed-down; a night of a well-drilled band following their drill, the animated videos on the screens reflecting the songs at every step. It’s large, it’s colourful, it’s a damn fine show; but I do find myself thirsting more for a band and an artist who rock up with momentum, and plug into their amps looking to generate a natural wave among the crowd rather than bringing a fully pre-configured wave machine. It’s such things that make a night visceral, and the moments that I remember most fondly from the live gigs I’ve attended over the years, the ones that I wish I could bottle up and experience the sensation of once again, have always been the ones that just happened, the ones on the edge, the ones that felt like they happened only on that night and never would again and you really did just have to be there.

Tonight, in contrast, has been more on the rails; a rollercoaster, to be sure, but a rollercoaster is something with manufactured thrills, and people remember their best nights of live music far longer than they do their ride on a rollercoaster. We are fans and the Childerswald is an exhilarating place to roam, but the course has been carefully plotted, those flashing lights not competing now but pre-determined signals on an optimised route.

The following morning my experience remains on the rails, with the delayed train wending me home. Better on the rails than completely off the rails, I find myself thinking, looking back on the night. Tyler is sober and clean and making music, and I am perhaps too harsh in choosing to be fascinated by that small kernel of hollowness rather than by all the good Tyler and his band have given London. His left-turns can be odd, showing that drugs are not the only way an ex-junkie can self-harm. His live experience is now just a tad too slick, but there are yet heights he is capable of scaling. He is the conductor of his train; he can guide it where he wants, and perhaps if it had gone differently for him and badly he wouldn’t even be here anymore to do any of it. If this odd, slightly indulged iteration is the only Tyler Childers we get, then I remain thankful to have it. The better parts of what he’s done in the past remain salvageable, and they are at hand to pick up again and bring along if Tyler wishes it.

The train passes Jodrell Bank; an exit sign from the colour and lights of the Childerswald. I will soon arrive at the comforts of home, where I will be restored and no doubt find myself willing to return to this forest again.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Snipe Hunter and written by Tyler Childers, unless noted)

  1. Eatin’ Big Time
  2. Dirty Ought Trill
  3. I Swear (to God) (from Purgatory)
  4. Trudy (Charlie Daniels) (unreleased)
  5. Rustin’ in the Rain (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  6. All Your’n (from Country Squire)
  7. In Your Love (Childers/Geno Seale) (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  8. Jersey Giant (unreleased)
  9. Bitin’ List
  10. Watch Out
  11. Lady May (from Purgatory)
  12. Nose on the Grindstone
  13. Follow You to Virgie (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  14. Old Country Church (J. W. Vaughn) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  15. Whitehouse Road (from Purgatory)
  16. Down Under
  17. Honky Tonk Flame (from Purgatory)
  18. Way of the Triune God (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  19. Snipe Hunt
  20. Universal Sound (from Purgatory)
  21. House Fire (from Country Squire)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Our Cup Runneth Over: The Red Clay Strays Live in Birmingham

November 12, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Thursday 6th November 2025

O2 Academy, Birmingham, England

If rock and roll is anything, it’s in evidence tonight. The Red Clay Strays take to the stage and tear straight into ‘Ramblin”, clearly determined to give the three thousand fans who have sold out the O2 Academy in Birmingham their money’s worth. It’s the start of what proves to be an impeccably delivered set on a truly special night for everyone who’s lucky enough to be here.

It’s a special night for Robbie Prevete, the band’s bespectacled, curly-haired guitar tech who joins the Strays on stage for three songs of their encore. Frontman Brandon Coleman, an amused smile on his lips, is at pains to point out that “there’s nothing wrong with Robbie. He’s a completely normal person.” His presence on the stage, strumming Brandon’s guitar, is not part of any “Make-a-Wish” pledge, but because “he’s actually the most talented guitarist standing on stage right now.” Drew Nix and Zach Rishel, who have both played incredibly tonight, do not object. Goodwill flows from this band like a cup runneth over.

It’s a special night for the Strays’ fellow Alabaman Early James, who opens with a set that would be worth the entry fee alone – and perhaps even worth the two-and-a-half-hour journey I have made down from Manchester tonight, and will make back again in the early hours. Slapping his guitar like an old bluesman and singing with an enthralling Tom Waits-esque rasp, he provides a darkly glittering litany of songs including ‘Tumbleweed’, ‘Taste of Sin’, ‘Mama Can Be My Valentine’ and ‘I Could Just Die Right Now’. The song which put him on my radar – the ‘Real Low Down Lonesome’ duet with Sierra Ferrell – isn’t present in his setlist tonight, but he does invite his girlfriend Cammie Windley on stage to sing, June Carter-esque, on the John Prine duet ‘In Spite of Ourselves’. He even gets the Strays’ drummer John Hall to come out early to provide a beat for the best damn twisted cover of Hank Williams’ ‘Hey Good Lookin” I’ve ever heard.

It’s a special night for the Strays themselves, playing for the first time in Birmingham, England and a long way from their days as a bar band in Mobile, Alabama. At that time – remarkably, just a few years ago – even the state’s city of Birmingham (“we pronounce it Birming-HAM”, Early James says) must have seemed a distant goal, let alone playing Birmingham (pronounced Birmin-GUM) as part of a sellout tour on the other side of the Atlantic, with a rowdy English crowd signing your own songs back to you.

But most of all, it’s a special night for 24-year-old Ellen Ratcliffe. Two-thirds of the way through their set, the Red Clay Strays begin playing those distinctive chords of ‘Wondering Why’ and Brandon Coleman sings the viral opening lyrics. Thousands of phones light up as hands train them on the stage, but one man has other plans. Amongst the throng of the crowd, he gets down on one knee and asks Ellen to marry him.

The man has timing that John Hall would be proud of. Brandon smiles and points towards them. “Looks like she said yes,” he announces mid-verse, with genuine warmth in his voice. The crowd erupt into cheers that rival any tonight. After the song ends he passes his congratulations to the newly-engaged couple, along with some advice. “I tell ya, don’t listen to anybody that says ‘Do not get married’. Because getting married and being married is one of the coolest things ever. I heard somebody say one time: ‘I’ve never seen two selfless people get a divorce.’ So as long as you’re watching out for each other, put one another above yourselves, you’ll be together forever.”

This is the power of the Red Clay Strays. For a band that are heirs-apparent to the Rolling Stones, they are unashamedly Christian, moral and straightlaced. They are wise beyond their years and, as both their song lyrics and Brandon’s mike will show tonight, are willing to tackle subjects such as depression and mental health without ever once appearing insincere, cloying or virtue-signalling. They can do all this and yet remain effortlessly cool, whether that is the lean, suited retro Fifties look Brandon cultivates or the more laid-back raglan shirt and cowboy hat look of guitarist Drew Nix.

And, beneath it all, there is of course the music. This is not “Christian rock”, but pure, fresh-cut rock and roll that just happens to be made by a group of young Christians not abashed to express their moral beliefs in a culture that has long since commodified rebellion, degeneracy and apathy and called it ‘cool’. Theirs is a generation that drinks less, indulges less; exercises more, talks more. Rock and roll wasn’t dead, but it had been hollowed out by excess and insincerity. The Red Clay Strays have seized the mantle of becoming this generation’s great rock and roll hope and given it new life and purpose, while still remaining plugged directly into the raw and raucous power that the music pulsed with in its prime.

Nowhere is that more apparent than with the song that immediately follows ‘Wondering Why’ and the proposal in the crowd. Brandon introduces it as an old song from when the band “first started leaving home and being on the road”. ‘Till Things Get Right’ remains unreleased, but it’s a truly fantastic song. No wonder this current tour is named the ‘Get Right’ tour, for the song takes pride of place. It would be the sweetest release of music even without the marriage proposal we’ve just witnessed, but hearing it tonight, knowing something so wonderful and memorable has just happened to two people in the crowd and feeling genuinely happy for them, makes the song’s message even more true, as though the lyrics have been laced with gold.

We only have to hang in till things get right, as they surely will, as they have for two young people tonight. The song starts with a simple, timeless riff, before Brandon’s soulful singing begins and the crowd sings along at the perfect moment (“and money’s always tight – tight-tight-tight-tight!”). It’s everything that rock and roll should be: a sense of hope, of boundless freedom, of recognising that good things can happen and the world is better for rock and roll being played. You don’t have to believe in divine righteousness to believe in righteousness, and wherever you stand in life this song just hits right. For all but two of us in the room it’s merely a blissful moment of pure rock and roll straight out of a Seventies road trip, but for the newly-engaged couple it’s the perfect song to begin their new journey on.

If ‘Wondering Why’ and ‘Till Things Get Right’ soundtrack the finest moment of the night, they are not alone in thrilling the crowd. The whole night has been finely sculpted by the band, a night of moments that together become a powerful, exhilarating experience of the sort that only a generational rock and roll band can provide. The Red Clay Strays might have caught a break when the Western AF version of ‘Wondering Why’ went viral, but behind that viral punch there was a great weight of follow-through.

This is proven as early as the band’s second song tonight. ‘Moment of Truth’ isn’t one of the Strays’ best-known songs, but it’s an early introduction to their on-stage force. “Why do I do all these things that I do?” Brandon sings, teasing out every iamb and stressing it with soul. It’s one of those songs that’s slept on, but you can easily see it becoming a deep-cut that people rediscover in years to come.

The band follow it with ‘Stone’s Throw’, another from that fateful Western AF session that draws an early frisson of recognition among the crowd as Andrew Bishop’s bass guitar begins the song’s riff. The bassist is clearly having fun; during the following number, ‘Disaster’, he takes a swig from Drew Nix’s drink after the guitarist stalks across the stage to trade licks with Zach Rishel. He grins impishly as the returning Nix gives him a playful kick.

The band then show their range with the mature, intelligent ‘Forgive’ and the chunky blues-rocker ‘Good Godly Woman’ on either side of the catchy, soulful ‘Do Me Wrong’, which garners a swaying singalong from the Birmingham crowd. The Strays follow with ‘People Hatin”, their recent message song about “calling out hatred, no matter what side you’re on”. I confess I struggled to like this song on first listen, considering it a bit too on-the-nose and disliking message songs in general, but ‘People Hatin” is delivered well tonight – a song I suspect will always find an extra dimension when played live.

From here, our cup truly does runneth over, as a band that have been impeccable so far tonight begin to show us just how good they can be. They are soulful and thoughtful in the timeless ‘Moments’, raw and cathartic on ‘Drowning’. ‘Devil in My Ear’ sounds dark and foreboding, ‘Ghosts’ funky and danceable. In between, Brandon takes a seat at the keys next to Sevans Henderson and sings the uplifting ‘Sunshine’, a “song about being hopeless but trusting in Jesus anyway”. No sunrise ever sounded so hard-won.

It’s after ‘Ghosts’ that Brandon returns to guitar and we’re treated to that special experience of ‘Wondering Why’ and ‘Till Things Get Right’. If that wasn’t enough, they chase it with ‘I’m Still Fine’, one of their most exquisite, world-weary slices of Southern soul, and end the set with the wild church-fire of ‘On My Knees’, Brandon dancing frantically in place to bring the crowd to fever pitch.

“We’re fully aware that not everybody believes in God,” Brandon says after ‘I’m Still Fine’, “and everyone has their own opinions on God. That doesn’t matter to us: if you like our music, we’re happy to have ya. We’re not trying to be anybody’s preachers or shove it down anybody’s throat or be anybody’s spiritual leaders. We are not perfect people, I promise you.”

He looks to John Hall. “John, he drinks a lot of beer,” Brandon says with mock sincerity, drawing laughs. The drummer had been central to my last review of the Red Clay Strays live, when they came to Manchester a year ago. Tonight he’s been largely obscured from my view, though he’s certainly made himself heard.

“None of us have any business being behind a pulpit. We just make music about our life and God’s a big part of our life, so He’s in our music. It’s as simple as that.

“And we make music that we’re proud of, something we’ll be proud to be behind when we’re gone. Because music is medicine and helps people. And I think one thing I’d want somebody to take away from us is: Have some hope. It’s not over. You’re still alive and you’re still breathing and it’s gonna be OK. Just have some hope.”

These are men who were drowning, who were going nowhere, who now stand on a stage together in front of a cheering crowd as the next great rock and roll band. And they did it by staying true to themselves and their convictions.

“All you have to do is persevere, and then one day you’ll be looking back on whatever it is you thought was going to kill you and take you out. You’ll be that much stronger of a person and your faith will be that much stronger. And you’ll be rejoicing and be thankful.”

Regardless of where you stand on the particulars of the Christian faith, it’s hard not to rejoice tonight. To see people doing the right thing in the right way, sticking to their creed while still pushing themselves out into new terrain, is a wonderful thing to witness. It’s not only that the Red Clay Strays play fantastic rock and roll, and have seized this opportunity to bring their art into the world. It’s that alongside art, we sometimes sense that there is also an art to life; a way of living that is the best way of treating others, of experiencing moments, and of making this vale of tears our home.

The Strays would no doubt call this living right under God, but it doesn’t have to be seen that way if that’s too unpalatable for some. The Strays might not be anybody’s preacher, but a good night of music is anybody’s preacher; it is powerful, communal and deeper than rationality or sense. There is an art to life and not only the Strays but anyone who goes out to experience nights like this is practicing it. We’re all made by these moments.

And that art of living can only be practiced with appropriate care when we realise that it’s finite. In its most serious terms, it’s finite in that the people hatin’ the Strays have spoken against leads to death and violence, as it did with the Charlie Kirk assassination which prompted the song’s premature release (I wrote more about Kirk here.)

But in happier terms, it’s finite in the sense that you never know again when you’ll experience such a moment as the one you’re in right now. The Red Clay Strays are destined for larger stages – indeed, the day after this Birmingham gig they announce they’ll be headlining Madison Square Garden next year. And who knows when they’ll return to the UK, and when they do, if I’ll be able to stand as close to the stage as I do tonight at the O2 Academy. Maybe one day the grown-up children of Ellen Ratcliffe and her fiancé will groan at the competition for tickets at a Red Clay Strays stadium concert the same way we baulk at those of the Rolling Stones. But because their parents had been practicing the art of life they will be able to smile and say that they saw the band when they were on the way up, in front of just a few thousand people.

But even though we realise it’s all finite, that doesn’t mean it has to end just yet. After long shouts for an encore – long enough, in fact, that I almost begin to doubt the band are coming back out – the Strays return to the stage. With Robbie Prevete playing his guitar, Brandon delivers a powerful, devotional rendition of ‘Will the Lord Remember Me?’, before taking his acoustic guitar for the restful ‘God Does’.

Zach Rishel bends the notes that introduce ‘Wanna Be Loved’, prompting cheers of recognition from the crowd. The band are having fun, Brandon walking to the lip of the stage as Robbie plays his guitar. He then rushes towards Andrew Bishop to chase him away from his spot, the bassist grinning boyishly. Brandon then sits on the edge of the stage, singing to the crowd. The band are in their element, riding a wave of their own creation.

The ease in which they ride this wave, a wave of genuine power, is evident in the final song of the encore, the glorious, triumphant rocker ‘No One Else Like Me’. For all that you can draw analogues for the band – their sound pulls the best from Sixties and Seventies rock, along with classic soul and country – the Strays are their own force, heirs to the throne rather than retro pretenders. Brandon says he wrote the song as a “funny little response to everybody that likes to compare me to Elvis. And Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and anybody else like that” and while you can draw such comparisons from both his look and his sound tonight – that soulful voice as true a successor to Ray Charles and Otis Redding as you could wish – he is very much his own man as he takes a bow and leaves the stage.

The band continue to play, bringing ‘No One Else Like Me’ to its frenetic conclusion. Robbie and Zach play together. Drew walks to the lip of the stage, his eyes focused on his frets. Behind him, Andrew jumps off the stage and walks along the front row, still playing. He stands up on the rail in front of me before jumping back up on stage and heading to John’s thrashing drums. As the song ends, John throws his sticks up into the air. Zach throws his pick into the crowd.

The Red Clay Strays may be fired by a holier Spirit, but there’s no doubting what has made the night so special for the few thousand in the Academy hall in Birmingham tonight. This is the spirit of rock and roll brought to full flame.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Made By These Moments, unless noted)

  1. Ramblin’ (The Red Clay Strays/Dave Cobb)
  2. Moment of Truth (Matthew Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  3. Stone’s Throw (Drew Nix/Eric Erdman) (from Moment of Truth)
  4. Disaster (M. Coleman)
  5. Forgive (M. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  6. Do Me Wrong (Nix) (from Moment of Truth)
  7. Good Godly Woman (Brandon Coleman/Nix/Brandon Rickman) (single)
  8. People Hatin’ (B. Coleman/M. Coleman/Cobb/Andrew Bishop/Zach Rishel/John Hall) (single)
  9. Moments (B. Coleman/M. Coleman/Nix/Anderson East)
  10. Drowning (Nix)
  11. Devil in My Ear (Nix)
  12. Sunshine (M. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  13. Ghosts (Nix) (from Moment of Truth)
  14. Wondering Why (B. Coleman/Nix/Dan Couch) (from Moment of Truth)
  15. Till Things Get Right (Nix) (unreleased)
  16. I’m Still Fine (M. Coleman)
  17. On My Knees (The Red Clay Strays/Cobb)
  18. Encore: Will the Lord Remember Me? (E. M. Bartlett) (single)
  19. Encore: God Does (Nix)
  20. Encore: Wanna Be Loved (M. Coleman/Dakota Coleman)
  21. Encore: No One Else Like Me (B. Coleman/M. Coleman)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

In the Court of the King of Instruments: Roger Sayer Performs Interstellar Live at Blackburn Cathedral

November 2, 2025 /

Friday 24th October 2025

Blackburn Cathedral, Blackburn, England

Déjà vu is usually a feeling that strikes you unawares, and often in inexplicable moments. The uncanny sense that you’ve been here before, that your brain has just delivered to you vividly but without the corresponding file pulled from the vaults of memory to provide context. Sometimes it can be unsettling; other times it can be comforting. It is not known for sure why it happens, but we consider it a harmless glitch or misfire in the brain as it goes about its many plastic tasks.

As I park my car and walk towards Blackburn Cathedral in the dark, the trees along the path not yet shed for the autumn, I don’t know if there is a supplementary word to attach to déjà vu to describe what I feel now. Perhaps this feeling is what the brain is reaching for when it misfires for that uncanny sensation: a legitimate recognition, a knowingness, a familiarity as I enter and scan my ticket and a graceful usher guides me to my seat.

There is no need to do so. I know the way, though I do not tell her this. Because this is the very same concert I attended almost exactly a year ago, with an identically serene night-lit approach to the very same welcoming church, and the same almost imperceptible drizzling of rain pattering against the Anglican stone. As the usher smiles pleasantly and takes her leave, I imagine I could almost be a ghost or a mind caught within a dream, performing a perpetually renewed cycle and welcomed now back to the fold.

It is as though the never-ending note that Roger Sayer referred to when I saw him perform here last year has indeed continued to play, carrying on into an annual return. The Q&A session which marks the halfway point of tonight’s concert is shorter and less in-depth than it was for the 10th anniversary of Interstellar last year, but Roger, the organist who played on Hans Zimmer’s original score, still communicates to the crowd some of the interesting features of that music. Not least that it begins and ends on that same, never-ending note – a mark of travelling and space-faring, of thematic harmony, of eternity in an empty space.

It is this remarkable depth to the music of Interstellar which ensures its continued popularity, beyond the exquisite ingenuity of its motifs. As thrilling as it is to hear some of those well-known themes from the film from the pipes of the cathedral’s organ tonight, it is not solely for this reason that Blackburn Cathedral drew a sell-out crowd tonight. We are drawn here because, like that mysterious feeling of déjà vu, the unknowable plasticity of our brain recognises something in the music to be heard tonight. While on a conscious level we can appreciate the majesty, the harmony and the epic quality of this grand music, our subconscious brain pulls towards some deeper correlation. This recognition manifests itself as reverence, the harmony between the unknown that Christianity seeks to explain and the awesome unknown of space into which Interstellar quested. It just seems right that if you hear this music you hear it from the organ of an impressive stone church, a metallic crown of thorns hanging above the altar.

It must be this deep, almost metaphysical reverence which drew me here again tonight, because I knew in advance it would be the same music I heard last year. Indeed, my review here could do no better than repeat last year’s narration of the experience of the music (for brevity’s sake, I’ll suffice with a link instead); a repeat performance of Roger Sayer’s carefully curated suite of Interstellar music, which condenses the expansive, three-hour Hans Zimmer score down to forty minutes while still hitting all the major themes.

There are some differences between the two nights I have heard this live from Blackburn Cathedral. Some are small: the seat the usher leads me to is a premium seat near the front – I learned my lesson and booked early this time. From this vantage point the music proves more resounding, the Q&A responses clearer. Another change is that this iteration of the music of Interstellar is “under Gaia”; a vast model of the Earth hangs in the nave, replacing last year’s installation of the Moon. (During the Q&A, someone asks Roger which he prefers, and he diplomatically chooses the current installation. I preferred the Moon.)

Other changes from last year are more notable. Last year the suite of music prior to Interstellar comprised of the Strauss music best known for its use in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’, which contains motifs that later inspired John Williams for Star Wars. This time round, Roger Sayer calls a spade a spade and plays the music from science-fiction films directly. John Williams’ various Star Wars themes are prominent, and are joined by the uplifting childlike wonder of his ‘Flying Theme’ from E.T., while the night begins with the Thunderbirds theme by Barry Gray, who was born here in Blackburn and once studied at this cathedral.

The most notable piece in this opening suite is a theme composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, used centuries later as the soundtrack for the science-fiction film Solaris. This is the only piece in the opening suite which was written specifically for the organ. The rest, Roger tells us, are transcriptions; the figuration usually done by violins and now moved by him onto the various stops and keys of the organ. The difference is marked; while all the themes are performed well, the Solaris theme is a clear standout. Like Interstellar later in the night – also composed specifically for the organ – it is quite at home.

Of the music of Interstellar as it is performed tonight, I actually have little to say. Even if I hadn’t already contributed some remarks on the music in my review last year, it would be hard for me to write any further this time. One of the main reasons I write reviews of the concerts I attend is to remember the blow-by-blow of the night: how close the room felt, which songs garnered the loudest cheer, whether it rained outside. But a blow-by-blow account is impossible when the main piece is a single forty-minute movement – Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar. A return visit, one year after the first, is therefore an unprecedented opportunity for my brain to sink the groove of memory it founded last year a little deeper. And this is not a wasted event: who wouldn’t want to relive some of the best concert experiences they have had?

When we recall special days we find our brains have filed them away mostly in moments and feelings rather than in their entirety. When I think back to the astonishing Nick Cave gig I attended last year, for example, it’s not the whole night which comes to mind, nor any one particular song, but the broad swell of raw, unadulterated bliss that he and the Bad Seeds evoked. Memories of other nights are anchored in certain moments: Kassi Valazza picking the guitar notes of ‘From Newman Street’ as the bells of the Old Church at St. Pancras gently tolled outside, or 40,000 hands waving from side to side as Bruce Springsteen sang ‘Bobby Jean’ in Manchester.

My memory of the music of Interstellar at Blackburn Cathedral this time round is cemented by meeting Roger Sayer after the concert; shaking his hand, buying a copy of his music. I spoke to him briefly of my recent visit to Temple Church, where he is based. On a business trip to London, I had been able to duck out of my office on my lunch break and walk a short distance into the calm and gentle temple courtyard. Considering it’s only a stone’s throw away from the hustle and bustle of Fleet Street, the church built by the Knights Templar is remarkably silent and serene.

Another recent memory, still vivid in its every blow, is of hearing Billy Strings at the Royal Albert Hall in London just a couple of weeks ago, a place where Roger Sayer has also performed the music he plays tonight. When I was there, I had looked around at the vast dome and recalled the famous Beatles lyric about “Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire… Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.” In rather cosmic symmetry, I now find myself two weeks later in Blackburn, Lancashire, listening to the sound of Interstellar erupt from four thousand holes atop the four thousand pipes of the cathedral’s Walker organ.

It is a magnificent sound, and a humbling one. The pipes are threaded into the walls, the church itself the instrument’s resonance chamber; tonight is the awesome noise of a building itself being played. Not for nothing does Roger relate during the Q&A that the organ is considered the “king of instruments”, a phrase often attributed to Mozart (who knew a thing or two about good music). While Roger deservedly takes the applause after each movement of music and greets members of the audience afterwards, he is aware that he’s not the star of the show. The vast organ itself is the star, as it rises in sound and mass and bursts with aural supernova, delivering the tailor-made music that we’ve gathered in reverence to hear.

And it’s with striking humility that Roger Sayer answers a question during tonight’s Q&A – an answer worthy of recording for posterity and therefore validating my attempt at a review. Having just performed the suite of music including Star Wars, E.T. and Solaris, Roger is asked by a member of the audience whether he does “not get sick of film music?”

The question is asked politely and honestly; Roger’s response is measured, emphasising his love for movie soundtracks, not just Interstellar. He mentions how the film received some criticism for how the music would sometimes overpower the dialogue, and reveals that this was a deliberate artistic decision on the part of Zimmer and Christopher Nolan, the film’s director. The music is there to help tell the story just as much as the dialogue is, he says, and in certain moments “music carries on when the words fail,” the swell of organ music telling the story better than any incidental line filling a gap in the screenplay ever could. Roger concludes by rhapsodising the “wonderful synergy” between music and film epitomised by the triumph of Interstellar. “Together,” he says, “they’re the most powerful thing we’ve got.”

In the cold light of day, we can still recognise the truth of that response. Think of a film without its music and you think of a bird without its wings. But in the court of the king of instruments, on the interregnum between the music, the great organ rests silently as it is said. Its own answer will come in the second set, as Roger takes his seat at the keys with his back to the audience and the king fills its vast lungs with an intake of breath and begins its reign anew.

Setlist:

  1. The Thunderbirds March (from Thunderbirds) (Barry Gray)
  2. Flying Theme (from E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial) (John Williams)
  3. The Imperial March (from Star Wars) (Williams)
  4. Princess Leia’s Theme (from Star Wars) (Williams)
  5. March from Things to Come (from Things to Come) (Arthur Bliss)
  6. Choral Prelude (from Solaris) (Johann Sebastian Bach)
  7. The Throne Room and End Titles (from Star Wars) (Williams)
  8. Q&A and Intermission
  9. Interstellar (Hans Zimmer)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My science-fiction writing can be found here.

Watch With Us the Minutes of This Night: Toria Wooff Live in Chester

October 26, 2025 /

Sunday 19th October 2025

St. Mary’s Creative Space, Chester, England

“Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us.

Therefore I have entreated him along

With us to watch the minutes of this night,

That if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes and speak to it.”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET, ACT 1, SCENE 1, 23-29

So says the sentinel Marcellus in the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as he brings Horatio to the battlements of Elsinore to verify the sighting of the Ghost in armour which is shortly to appear. His fellow guard Barnardo supports him in the face of Horatio’s scepticism, imploring the lord to “sit down awhile, And let us once again assail your ears” with what they have these last two nights seen.

An odd way to begin a review of a live gig in 2025, to be sure, but as I exit my dew-drenched car on an appropriately ghostly and silent night and walk across the courtyard to the top of St. Mary’s Hill, just within the city walls of Chester, I know that I am at risk of merely repeating myself if I were to relate only a stolid narrative of this night of music. It is the fourth time I’ve seen Toria Wooff live in just five months and, having written reviews of those previous concerts in Manchester, Liverpool and Bury, I know exactly what to expect from where I see the church tower manifest in the autumn dark. As I pass under the welcoming porchlight of the church of St. Mary, I know I’ll be once again hearing the remarkable music of Toria Wooff and Polly Virr. What I write, therefore, is less a review than an imploration for others to follow me in doing the same.

In many ways, Toria Wooff under the arches of the church tonight provides the quintessential experience of her music; a distillation of everything that I have found appealing in her sound since first hearing her album in May and then hearing it again live from a basement in Manchester just a couple of weeks later. I knew then what has been confirmed in the live experiences since; that this was a singer-songwriter of real talent, able to back up a singing voice that is alternately haunting, tender and powerful with songwriting of real originality, dexterity and craft.

And tonight the setlist (which Toria autographs for me at the end – a genuine friendliness when meeting fans being another hallmark of her live shows) is the strongest I’ve seen. She plays all but one of the songs from her self-titled debut album, which is an excellent record, but also provides six unreleased songs which – I would imagine – will be there on the second album. When that album comes – Toria says tonight it is currently in the tracking stage – it will be, if tonight’s performances are any confirmation, as successful an artistic expression as the first.

Indeed, the first song Toria plays tonight when she takes the stage is one of those unreleased numbers. ‘The Bargain’ is a subtle song that cleverly recasts the plight of a woman who risks being controlled by a charming man into something akin to a deal made with the Devil – who, of course, always approaches with fair words and appearance that hides his true self.

The church is the finest setting in which to hear the song. While St. Mary’s on the Hill hasn’t been used for worship in more than fifty years, it still retains deep in its stones that grandeur and quiet communal awe that all old churches possess. After I enter, I take a look around the nave before finding an empty seat in the front row. We’re surrounded by black curtains along the arcades and in front of the apse, but I can sit back and look up to see striking carved bosses in the camber beam roof. The building itself is older than the words of the Bard that I quoted at the start of this review, and the three witches supposedly buried in the grounds would perhaps be pleased to find a kinswoman standing confidently in the chancel tonight. Toria Wooff is a self-professed Goth, and tonight she’s dressed in a long black dress, with black boots and black hair and blood-red lips, a Taylor acoustic guitar resting across her body. Polly Virr, who takes a seat beside her and rests her cello against her neck, is also dressed all in black.

In fact, the only performer who doesn’t bedeck themselves in black tonight is opening act Sam Moss, who steps out in troubadour colours of olive and weathered grey. He delivers a fine acoustic set in a soft, soulful voice, the Boston-based musician’s songs sounding like Walden set to chords. After delivering seven songs he departs for another gig he has across town.

He’s succeeded by David Gorman, Toria’s regular opener on this autumn tour, who is dressed all in black in gothic solidarity with his headliner. He provides a slightly longer and even more successful set, including his latest single ‘Darlin’ and two new songs, ‘Hourglass’ and ‘Morning’. (“Although I appreciate all my songs are new to you,” he says to the audience.) Alongside an incongruous but successful cover of Blink-182’s ‘All the Small Things’, there are the apposite songs ‘Curses’, ‘La Mort’ and ‘Another Midnight’ – all of which ensure I’ll be looking into this musician further. That is, if we all make it: both Sam and David sing lyrics tonight that make reference to apocalypse or the end of the world, and I find myself thinking that perhaps they know something we don’t, and that I should take the opportunity to make things right with the Lord before I leave this church.

But if there’s rapture tonight, it’s Toria who’s causing it. After ‘The Bargain’ I already know I made the right decision in coming here. I had been at a crossroads of my own, knowing that in driving to Chester to make the gig I would be missing most of Manchester United’s visit to Anfield – the Red Devils being one form of devil worship that’s socially acceptable. In the event it’s a historic 2-1 win (not that you care, of course), but even though I miss it I don’t regret my decision. It’s Toria’s set which provides the best 90 minutes tonight.

Having played the first song solo, Toria is now joined by Polly Virr for the remainder of the night. Polly is Toria’s not-so-secret weapon; a cello is one of the most exquisite sounds you could ever hope to hear and Polly plays it expertly. She adds a gorgeous texture to Toria’s already-compelling songs, complementing her soaring voice well. She applies deft touches and moments of sweeping power, whether that’s a pensive delicacy on ‘Sweet William’, deep-toned plucking on ‘The Flood’, the drive behind ‘The Waltz of Winter Hey’, or the cathartic release of ‘See Things Through’ in tonight’s encore.

On the second song of the set, ‘Lefty’s Motel Room’, Polly substitutes the fine steel guitar of the album version with her cello. The song’s one of Toria’s best and most accessible, a showcase for her vocals and her songwriting. Its steel-laden album cut is a good entry point for fans of alternative country and Americana into her music.

But it’s with the third song, ‘Song for A’, that the night in Chester begins to distinguish itself from my previous experiences of Toria Wooff live. Maybe it’s just an effect of the travelling – Toria’s more than halfway through a nine-day nationwide tour, and played two hundred miles away in London the night before – but I detect an air of melancholy in some of the songs tonight, stronger than I’ve felt them before. ‘Song for A’, a tribute to a lost but not forgotten friend, has this quality anyway, but when I hear ‘Good Mother’ later in the night it’s the first time I’ve really been hit by the full scope of the sadness in the song. “I could have been a good mother, if that’s the card I was dealt,” Toria sings.

The melancholy doesn’t affect her playing or her voice – the latter is the purest I’ve yet heard it – and nor does it dampen the warm humour always present in her set. Toria mentions how she recently introduced Polly by saying she played the violin. As Polly looks up smiling from behind what is definitely not a violin, Toria says her cello is either “a massive violin, or she’s really small.” She also later delivers a disarming anecdote about embarrassing herself by miming a walk down a staircase at a previous gig, after David Gorman had gestured to her at the merchandise table during his opening set. “I doubled down and did it again,” she groans. “So now I mention my own merch. It shocked me into compliance.”

‘Good Mother’ is one of six unreleased songs Toria plays for us tonight, including the afore-mentioned ‘The Bargain’ and ‘Black Shuck’, a short “interlude” about a “cool as fuck” medieval story of a red-eyed demon dog which broke into a church. Toria is on home turf tonight; while she was born in Horwich, near Bolton (“if I want to be romantic, I say I’m from just off the West Pennine Moors,” she tells the amused audience), she has made Chester her home. And where better to bring new material to an audience than the same city where you are currently recording it?

With that in mind, Toria plays a new song she says she’s never played before. Marked on the setlist as ‘Noiselessly’ (Toria doesn’t introduce it by name tonight), it’s the latest evidence that this Northern songstress is quietly building a strong body of work that deserves to begin causing a stir. “Light up your mind,” she sings, the music rising as it finds a new chord.

It’s immediately followed by another unreleased original, ‘Aleister’. Even before I saw the name spelt on the setlist after the show, I suspected this song was inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley, for not only is Toria a proud Goth girl but an avid Led Zeppelin fan. It’s a thrilling folk song, one of those confident melodies where the lyrics land emphatically on the chords like boots on stairs. Toria’s eyes scan the crowd as she confidently sings ‘Aleister’ from the chancel of St. Mary’s Church. It would be far too fanciful to suggest her eyes alight on me in the front row when she sings of “bored housewives summoning Archangel Michael”, but it’s a cool moment regardless.

But by far the most notable unreleased song Toria plays tonight is one she says has “been part of my set for a little while” already. And I can attest to that, having heard it on each of the three previous occasions I’ve heard her live. Despite its familiarity to me now, I still get goosebumps when I hear her high, haunting voice on ‘House on the Hill’, a song she says is inspired by the imagery in Susan Hill’s novel The Woman in Black: “the descriptions of the marshland and the desolate house… it’s frightening, but beautifully worded.” The song sung by the Woman in Black on stage tonight gets better every time I hear it, as though ‘House on the Hill’ finds more invigorating breath to draw upon here in St. Mary’s on the Hill.

It says a lot for the musical wealth on display that I feel I can relate much of the power and magic of the concert tonight without really mentioning two of Toria’s most popular songs, ‘See Things Through’ and ‘The Waltz of Winter Hey’, both of which she plays. But, as I wrote earlier, this is less a review than an imploration, and there is little I can do other than to encourage you to go listen to them yourself, whether on the impressive album recording or live at one of Toria’s gigs.

Because if you are in England, and particularly if you are in the North, there will be plenty of opportunities to see her live. Toria tours frequently and, as mentioned, she is already well on her way with recording a second album – a half-dozen dark jewels of which we’ve been privileged to hear tonight. If it’s a sad fact that talent is so scarcely rewarded in our society – and Toria has plenty of talent – it is at least true that hard work and industry sometimes is.

Bells tolled as I approached the church tonight; they will toll again through the fog as I leave. In between there is remarkable music, and I can only hope that one day bells toll to announce a Gothic revival, the wider recognition of Toria Wooff’s artistic talent. As it stands, despite repeatedly telling my friends not to sleep on this, it is alone that I make my way back to Manchester for the working week, a mist travelling across the black road as I cross the latent River Dee. Sometimes you can’t even bring a horse to water, let alone make it drink.

I write this review a week later in the dead of night, on the night the clocks go back for the coming winter. As I see the time change from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m., the above quote from Hamlet comes to mind. Thinking back on the lighted porch of St. Mary’s Church before doors, I remember reading once about a folk superstition from Tudor times. It was believed that if you kept a watch on the porch of your parish church throughout the night, you would begin to see the spirits of the living people of your parish entering its doors. Those who you did not see come out again would die before midsummer.

But beware this gift of augury, which came with a price: it was also said that if you failed in your vigil and fell asleep, you too would die. For the final song of her encore tonight, Toria Wooff plays ‘Estuaries’ softly, almost like a lullaby. But this is no time for sleep. Like the vigilant guards of Hamlet‘s opening scene, I have already borne witness to the event, and now await the next opportunity. Four times have I seen the Woman in Black live and had her song greet my ears. Others have too, and the number deserves to grow. Do not sleep on this any longer. Take a pew, and watch with us the minutes of this night.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Toria Wooff and written by Toria Wooff, unless noted)

  1. The Bargain (unreleased)
  2. Lefty’s Motel Room
  3. Song for A
  4. Sweet William
  5. Black Shuck (unreleased)
  6. Noiselessly (unreleased)
  7. Aleister (unreleased)
  8. The Waltz of Winter Hey
  9. Mountains
  10. Good Mother (unreleased)
  11. The Flood
  12. House on the Hill (unreleased)
  13. That’s What Falling in Love Will Do
  14. Encore: The Plough
  15. Encore: See Things Through
  16. Encore: Estuaries

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

The Billiad: From the Meth Den to Live at the Royal Albert Hall with Billy Strings

October 19, 2025 /

Friday 10th October 2025

Royal Albert Hall, London, England

The day starts and ends with the sound of Billy. At six in the morning my dog wakes me up with barking and a flurry of face licks, thoughtfully determined that I shouldn’t miss my train down to London in… checks clock… three and a half hours. I groan and roll over. Billy huffs and lays down next to me.

I named the now two-year-old cavachon Billy because he came into our home as a puppy shortly after I last saw Billy Strings live, at the Manchester Academy in November 2023. Since that time the two Billys have been ever-present in my affections; one with pats and belly rubs and the other… without any of that, because that would be weird. I will forever associate the Billy Strings song ‘Enough to Leave’ with my Billy, because it was the song I played to soothe the pup to sleep on his first night with us in his new home.

As for the other Billy, he’s grown even more remarkably than the puppy has. When I first saw Billy Strings at the Manchester Academy two years ago, he was already a star, playing intensely liberating music to a crowd of adoring thousands. Largely embraced by both the traditional bluegrass scene and by the more progressive crowd, he plays and records music that can’t help but strike a chord with people. Alongside his own albums, he has collaborated with legends like Willie Nelson and, more recently, Ringo Starr, and it’s not too hard to imagine that his own name will be spoken about as a legend in the years to come. When the taxi driver arrives to take me from my home to the train station in Manchester (don’t worry, my Billy is not left alone), he asks me why I’m heading for London. I say I’m going to see Billy Strings at the Royal Albert Hall, and just as I’m about to explain who he is and what bluegrass is, I find there’s no need. The taxi driver is already a fan.

But for all his talent and all the success he’s enjoyed over the last few years, even Billy Strings must have struggled to ever imagine himself headlining at the Royal Albert Hall. I’ve attended some impressive venues over the years, from cavernous arenas to intimate churches to charming, dimly-lit back-rooms, but this is the first time I’ve attended one of the world’s truly special, iconic venues. The Royal Albert Hall is a vast, opulent colosseum, an exquisite piece of imperial architecture that in its every detail and coalescence reflects the power and prestige of the Victorian era in which it was built.

My eyes struggle to take in the vastness of the dome, which is peppered with large purple-lit acoustic discs drooping from the ceiling, and I find myself thinking that the deadheads in the pit tonight would no doubt be amused to learn that the Royal Albert Hall can only achieve its sound with the help of these mushrooms sprouting from the ceiling. I look to the Royal Box where monarchs since Queen Victoria have sat, before my eyes return to the stage where even greater names can be found: Sinatra, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin. Wagner, Verdi and Elgar. A speech by Winston Churchill; a bout by Muhammad Ali. Perhaps most remarkably, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones on the same bill in 1963. Behind the stage, the vast organ pipes of the Voice of Jupiter lie dormant, and I turn to look back up at the dome, recalling John Lennon’s lyric from ‘A Day in the Life’. “Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire… Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.” The line is even more of a trip when you’re there and you try to imagine filling the room with holes yourself.

The Beatles song ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ plays over the tannoy as I take my seat in the stalls, following on from the end of a Paul McCartney song I couldn’t quite catch. Later on there’s the Tom Petty song ‘Hard on Me’ – he also played at the Royal Albert Hall. I adore Tom Petty, placing him second only to the Beatles, and I reflect on how, in some ways, I see Billy Strings as the man’s successor. While their sound is different, their approach is not. Like Petty, Billy has that knack of making you feel like everything will be alright. Perhaps it’s just the natural overflow of witnessing someone who seems like a genuinely good person create art to a high level on their own terms, and having people respond to it. That’s creative expression at its peak, in integrity, behaviour and ambition, and it soaks into the notes of their music.

And like Petty, Billy Strings came from a difficult background, a hard life that would have sunk most people unseen and unheard, and he rose above it to become truly, generously remarkable. Shortly before the concert, Billy posts a photograph of his childhood home on Instagram, followed by another of tonight’s prestigious venue during soundcheck. “From the meth den to the Royal Albert Hall,” he writes.

Everyone knows how special this night is, then, even before it begins and Billy remarks on it from the stage, looking around the hall and taking it all in. This, of course, is where the Last Night of the Proms is played; they know how to shoot music here and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the hope and glory of Billy’s own set released on film at some point. Everyone here knows this will be a moment, a milestone, in Billy’s growing legend. A night when it will be, in the decades to come, a genuinely awesome flex to be able to say: I was there.

Because to match the specialness of the historic venue, Billy and his band provide a set for the ages. I’ve previously described a Billy Strings set as a moveable feast, but this was the feast of all feasts, a 10 out of 10 show on 10/10/2025. A one-off UK date (this is not part of any national tour) was always likely to result in a spectacular set-list, but Billy and the band really pull out all the stops here. Even Jerry Jeff Walker would want to be in London tonight, not home with the armadillo.

Some concert mainstays get definitive takes; some lesser-played and never-before-played songs are not only aired but billow like sails filled by a trade wind. Those long, frenzied bluegrass jams that catch and release, which are like a moreish drug… well, there’s not just the usual one or two songs for that tonight but three or four at least. The crowd is fantastic too; we’re locked in, deathly silent when Billy sings a cappella in the darkness and roaring like a storm when we know the band is pushing it higher and higher and yet somehow keeping it together. And then there’s the release, the break, like crashing waves. The Royal Albert Hall gets it all. Four thousand holes might fill the Albert Hall, but there’s not a single hole to be found tonight.

You might ask, then, whether there’s even any need for a review or commentary from myself. Billy Strings certainly needs no introduction, not when the mere sight of him walking onto stage tonight generates a roar among the thousands present that most bands could not raise with their finest song. And unlike some of the smaller, special gigs I’ve been to over the years, there’s no high-minded compulsion to blog and diarize this concert for posterity. It’s recorded, as every Billy Strings gig is, on Nugs.net and perhaps also in the film cameras that zero in on the man on stage tonight.

But even a recording of the highest fidelity cannot capture the atmosphere in a room, or properly convey which songs garner the most emotion in a performer and in an audience. Because silence and song has a weight as well as a resonance, and the weight can only be felt in the moment, in person, as it crushes and lifts and ripples through a crowd.

This review, then, is the weighing of the night as I remember experiencing it from the hall, after Billy Strings walks out onto the stage and looks around and laughs in disbelief. His eyes take in those of us in the stalls and loggia before wandering up undaunted to the gallery and the Rausing Circle. “Well, howdy!” he says.

The first song, ‘Red Daisy’, is a fine stage-setter for the night, a fast bluegrass number right out of the blocks that not only introduces us to Billy’s sometimes-underappreciated singing voice and one of his distinctive fast-pickin’ acoustic guitar solos, but also to the four members of his band. Billy harmonises with his namesake Billy Failing on banjo. Jarrod Walker, who wrote the song, provides some fine mandolin, trading solos with the fiddle of Alex Hargreaves. The Hall’s namesake Royal Masat holds it all together with his large upright bass.

The band show they mean business with their second song, an imperial ‘Gild the Lily’ worthy of this storied hall. Introduced by Royal’s bass, which remains prominent throughout, the band feel themselves into the set with this song, a keening if conservative fiddle solo from Alex bringing cheers. Billy allows himself a long, dreamy guitar solo, switching into a psychedelic electric sound via the pedalboard at his feet and drawing the night’s first primal roars from the crowd. “I’d sing along with the birds, if I only knew the words,” Billy sings, his long hair blowing in the artificial wind. It’s the first transcendent moment in a night that will prove to be full of them.

The band move into the next song without stopping, ‘Hellbender’ played as conventional bluegrass with the band passing off the music to one another to play their solos. They trade with one another in a similar way in the follow-up, the fan favourite ‘Dust in a Baggie’, which Billy introduces as being probably his own favourite song of those he’s written. As the band play, Billy dances before turning to play directly to the fans standing in the balconies of the choir behind the stage.

The night is special for other reasons too. The crowd spontaneously sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to a bashful Billy Failing after ‘Hellbender’; he’s 36 years old, “the birthday boy tonight,” as Billy Strings says, laughing. There can surely be few better ways to spend your birthday than as part of the headline act at the Royal Albert Hall, and Billy Strings agrees. “You’re the present,” he says to the cheering crowd. “You’re IN the present, man,” he adds, cosmically. After ‘Dust’, Billy Failing leans in to speak with him while he’s tuning his guitar. “It’s your birthday,” Billy replies playfully. “I’m not gonna screw it up.”

Speaking of births, Billy tells us that he’s a dad now, and that the first record he played for his son when he took him home was Doc Watson’s Portrait, an album he “commandeered from my dad’s own collection” and which he loves. “It was so warm… Jerry Douglas’ big ole warm dobro slidin’ on there, it’s just beautiful.” Now he plays ‘Leaving London’ from that album for those of us in London tonight, “not quite as good as that, but the best we can”. The song’s played straight, a nice cut of bluegrass with the band providing some great old-timey harmonies on the line “I’d fly to my own true love again.” For all their musical prowess, the band are also capable of bringing out goosebumps with their harmony vocals.

Those harmonies return on the following song, ‘Show Me the Door’ creating ripples of excitement as soon as Billy sings its opening line, “She ebbs and flows like water.” A long, thoughtful guitar solo from Billy wanders around the storied Hall before falling into one of Jarrod’s mandolin flourishes. Jarrod’s solo takes over; the song by this point having become increasingly gentle, the crowd in the pit bobbing, ebbing and flowing like water in the cool turquoise stagelight.

It’s followed by a sprawling ‘Dawg’s Rag’, starting with a fast mandolin riff immediately and keenly picked up by Alex Hargreaves’ fiddle. The two instruments repeatedly pass off to one another as the song builds, with Billy Failing’s banjo also getting in on the action. For a time it becomes almost a soft and pensive song, more silk than dawg’s rag and the moment when Alex really kicks into top gear for the night, the classically-trained violinist beginning to relish playing in this historic venue. His fiddle draws cheers, the crowd appreciating how the five men on stage each pull the song in their own directions before coming back together again. The song seems to be ending with some slightly foreboding chords, before it picks up again and Alex bursts into a prime, spirited fiddle straight out of the free-breathing hills.

For the next song there’s a change of pace, as Billy hands off his guitar to a roadie and switches to a double-necked Martin Grand guitar. His phrasing sounds uncannily like the spaced-out psychedelia of John Lennon as he sings the opening lines of ‘Stratosphere Blues’. The song glides into ‘I Believe in You’, the vocal phrasing and the construction of the song now reminding me more of Tom Petty. The performance of the two united songs has been delivered primarily by Billy, with the band’s light touches only becoming more prominent as the song progresses.

Billy switches back to his normal guitar, thanking us for being here. “I truly cannot even believe that I’m standing here right now, saying this,” he says, with genuine awe in his voice. “This feels like a special night here with these fellas, on Bilbo’s birthday and with all of you.”

To end their first set, the band effortlessly deliver a crystal ‘In the Clear’, before Billy walks to the front of the stage and plays the opening bars of ‘Turmoil & Tinfoil’. It’s an epic, generational rendition of the song, the concert mainstay building and building as the band trade lines – a proper, vintage B.M.F.S. concert jam. The jam spreads around the room as Billy and Alex build each other up higher, the crowd roaring when they recognise the precarious peaks they are daring each other to scale. But they don’t fall apart; the jam sticks, with Billy Failing’s banjo joining in and taking a prominent role. Billy Strings’ own acoustic solo morphs into an electric one by way of the pedal, and he strolls to the front of the stage again while playing, sending the pit wild. The solo becomes thrillingly electric as he stalks about the stage and shreds heavily, before returning to the band and introducing some wah-wah from the pedal. The ghost of Jimi Hendrix sits up, his ears burning, and the Voice of Jupiter nods mute approval. Billy announces they’re taking a short break, and the crowd roars their exit from the stage.

When they return after the intermission, Billy and the band pick up where they left off. ‘The Fire on My Tongue’ is played conventionally, with fine harmonies and the trading of solos across the five men on stage. The song ebbs to catch its breath, before Billy tear into a longer, fast-pickin’ solo. Billy is dancing, the crowd bouncing now too as though they’d never been away. The song builds and builds, Billy letting out a long “Welllll” that draws cheers and crashes straight into ‘Ole Slew Foot’. The ‘Foot’ is fast and fun, with Billy stalking to the front of the stage. He starts singing from a microphone which has been strategically placed there, his ole left foot resting on a speaker.

After the familiar return, Alex’s fiddle now starts off a cover of the Jim Croce song ‘Age’, something Billy says he’s been “fixin’ to do”. It sounds like classic country, a wonderful moment as Billy Failing and Jarrod Walker harmonise with him. It’s the first time they’ve ever played the song live, and it doesn’t deserve to be the last. They follow it with ‘My Alice’, the song from the latest Highway Prayers album drawing cheers of recognition from the crowd from the very first notes. It’s a moment for the band to let us breathe – and we’ve needed to catch our breath, because next up is ‘Away from the Mire’, its distinctive opening riff causing frissons of excitement through the Hall.

People know what’s coming; like ‘Gild the Lily’ and ‘Turmoil & Tinfoil’, ‘Away from the Mire’ is one of those songs that Billy and the band can expand and contract at will into memorable, profound jams, a song that even if you’d never heard it before you would know it’s building to something epic. Mandolin and fiddle solos give us a taste of what’s to come, before the song retreats into a dreamy instrumental soundscape, as though summoning the energy it knows it will need. A long solo from Billy becomes a wailing electric with the use of the pedalboard, a sort of gentle frenzy. A possessed Billy moves to the front of the stage, closer to my side, during his epic, almost unbelievable solo. We can’t help but cheer its conclusion. In such a moment you marvel at the journey this band is capable of taking you on within a single song, let alone how they help you glide along that journey so effortlessly. Listening to a ten-minute Billy Strings jam live is as undemanding as a two-minute pop song, and more rewarding by orders of magnitude. It’s one of the night’s best performances.

It’s followed by another, though one in complete contrast to what we’ve just heard. The four members of Billy’s band leave the stage and Billy unslings his guitar. He approaches a microphone that has now been placed for him at the front and centre of the stage. He looks around, taking in the cheers and the applause.

“This is such a beautiful room,” he says. “I want to sing a song here without the guitars barking.” What follows is astonishing: a solo, a cappella delivery of the mournful hymn ‘And Am I Born to Die?’ The crowd are instantly, respectfully silent, and you could hear a pin drop as a single spotlight descends on Billy. Only a few months removed from the death of his mother, one of the heaviest and most profound losses a man can bear, Billy sings of a “trembling spirit fly Into a world unknown. A land of deepest shade, unpierced by human thought.”

I don’t know if this loss is what he holds in his mind as he sings the hymn. But it’s clear he digs deep to sing it. It’s note-perfect and deeply resonant. It’s brave; the young man singing alone and without instrument under the spotlight in the silent, darkened colosseum on a milestone night in his career. None of the classical giants who have graced this hall since its Victorian genesis could have delivered it better, and if Billy’s guitar abilities often overshadow his vocal talent, his singing can never again be knowingly undersold by me or anyone else who hears ‘Born to Die’ in the Royal Albert Hall tonight. This is what I meant when I wrote earlier in my review that silence and song carries a weight, indescribable and only fully understood in the moment. When the song ends and the lights come back up, the silent crowd begins to roar with pent-up release. It’s a moment of music I think will stay with me until I die.

No doubt feeling the need for release himself, Billy straps his acoustic guitar back on and – still playing solo – sings a fun, routine version of ‘Brown’s Ferry Blues’. “Hello there,” he says as he starts to play the song, perhaps recognising that we are all different people meeting again on the other side of ‘Born to Die’.

He replaces his guitar with a banjo, and Billy Failing walks out to join him with his own. The banjo strings of Strings succeed in teasing Failing with an impromptu playing of ‘Happy Birthday’, before the two decide to play ‘Dos Banjos’. The crowd begin to clap and stomp their feet as Dos Billys play, cheering as Billy teases Failing further, stalking in a circle around his friend as they play.

Taking a big swig of his drink, Billy slings his guitar back on and the rest of the band come back out. Billy introduces them all by name, garnering applause, and the five reunited musicians break into ‘Escanaba’. The instrumental’s a good reintroduction to what they’re all capable of, with solos from Jarrod’s mandolin and even from Royal’s upright bass. The bass provides some regal backing to a long fiddle solo from Alex, drawing more worthy cheers from the crowd.

It’s followed by a fine, swaying cover of ‘Nights in White Satin’, the Moody Blues hit fitting Billy and the band like a glove. Billy’s fast guitar then hoists ‘Pretty Daughter’ high, the man stalking to the front of the stage as he plays before returning to the rank of five to harmonise energetically on the chorus. A mandolin solo from Jarrod draws cheers, and Billy dances as he sings. An incredible fiddle solo from Alex sees the crowd roaring as it catches fire, and even Billy can’t resist letting out a yell and dancing with delight. The crowd is delirious, and Billy takes another big swig of his drink.

“I don’t even… I don’t know how to thank y’all for coming out tonight,” he says. “But this has been such a magical evening that I will always remember.”

As a thank you to his English audience, he alters the opening lyrics of his next song, a cover of Leon Payne’s ‘Psycho’, to “Can Mary fry some fish – and chips?” The song is knowingly disturbing – “you think I’m psycho, don’t you, mama?” goes the harmonised refrain – and ends with a foreboding sound that reminds me of the rising orchestra in the Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’, the song whose holes could fill this Hall.

But just as that song’s orchestral build broke into Paul McCartney’s upbeat middle-eight (“woke up, got out of bed”), tonight’s ‘Psycho’ reveals ‘Hide and Seek’, the fourth and final of those great majestic jams Billy and the band deliver to us live tonight. Those distinctive notes kick the band into gear and the crowd erupts. “Well, it’s a dark time, I do believe,” the band harmonise.

‘Hide and Seek’ builds and pauses and then builds again, the band in complete control of the music. Their ebbs and flows crash against the crowd like waves, making even the most reluctant body in the Hall move in a St. Vitus dance. The song builds again as Billy steps out to the front and the crowd roars. Even the stagelights get in on the action, composing a frantic lightshow as Billy shifts again into an epic electric solo and the music continues to build. As the solo and the song ends, Billy yells – a cathartic release.

It feels like a finale, and the band stop to take in the extended applause and cheers at the end of the marathon song. And while there’ll be no encore tonight – the band play right up until curfew – it feels like we’re at that moment. The band have peaked and everything that happens from now is a bonus, a de facto encore.

Billy and the band, sans Alex, gather around a single mike that a roadie places at the front of the stage. Billy plays a harmonica note to help get the four of them in tune, before they begin to sing ‘Richard Petty’ a cappella. In contrast to ‘And Am I Born to Die?’ earlier, the crowd cannot contain their delight, roaring and stomping their feet and clapping. It seems to throw the band off – ‘Richard Petty’ is a difficult harmonic feat – and they struggle to stay in key. To their credit, the audience recognises this and tones it down, the stomps fading to a minority. ‘Richard Petty’ is able to “carry on without the strife” and it becomes a perfectly fine rendition, if not the transcendent experience the song has proved capable of being.

Billy and the band put their instruments back on, with Alex and his fiddle now joining them at the single mike. ‘Tennessee’, their final song, is a straight cut of bluegrass, with harmonies on the chorus and Royal Masat thrilling the crowd by coming in deep with “I hear her calling me.” The Royal Albert Hall is treated to a final flurry of solos from guitar and mandolin and fiddle, before the band’s harmonies end the night.

“Thank you, folks!” Billy says, handing off his guitar to a roadie. He stands alone, the man from the childhood meth den now taking in the roaring applause of London’s Royal Albert Hall. His band join him and, arm in arm, they soak it all in and take a theatrical bow before exiting the stage.

Jimi Hendrix’s song ‘Fire’ plays over the tannoy as they leave. We’ve certainly been privileged to stand next to their fire tonight. As the crowd filters out, I stay seated for a little while longer in the stalls of the Royal Albert Hall. I look over at the balconies, up at the dome, back to the now-emptying stage. Someone once sat in this seat in 1963 and watched the Beatles from this same distance. They watched legends being made. And as I look I can almost manifest their four silhouettes on the stage close by, imagining how real they must have once been stood right there.

Tonight I can say without hyperbole that I’ve watched another legend in the making. No one can hit the matchless heights of the Beatles. It is impossible. But having witnessed Billy Strings live with his band, playing brilliant, imaginative bluegrass music to a crowd of thousands, and learning something of the journey that brought him here, I can say that his is also a story that you can scarcely believe is being written, and tonight was an illustrious chapter in it. If I ever have grandchildren, I might well find myself bragging that I was there when Billy Strings played the Royal Albert Hall. And I will be able to draw on this review I have written, a week removed from the event, to recall some of its intangible weight from the mists of time and memory. That silence in ‘Born to Die’ is one of the most exquisite sounds I’ve ever heard.

Stepping out into the night, I walk around the outside of this beautifully composed piece of architecture, taking it in from all sides. Finally satisfied, I walk back to the road and stand on Kensington Gore, looking across to the Gardens at the opulence of the Albert Memorial. At a taxi rank that’s comically small for a venue of this grandeur, I finally manage to hail a passing taxi.

A man behind me is also waiting for a taxi, and I ask him where he’s going. “Euston Station,” he says. That’s also where I’m going – my hotel is close by – so I invite him to join me. In the ride that follows it turns out that, remarkably, he came down to London for the concert today from Kearsley, only a few minutes up the A666 from where I began my own journey this morning in Salford. From my taxi driver this morning, things have come cosmically full-circle. But then perhaps it’s not that much of a surprise. Billy Strings fans are everywhere, and we’re growing in number. The man’s just that good. Dogs find themselves named after him. From Manchester to London, from meth dens to the Royal Albert Hall, everybody loves Billy – and rightfully so.

Setlist:

(no opening act; two full Billy sets with intermission after ‘Turmoil & Tinfoil’)

  1. Red Daisy (Jarrod Walker/Christian Ward) (from Renewal)
  2. Gild the Lily (William Apostol/Walker) (from Highway Prayers)
  3. Hellbender (Apostol/Aaron Allen/Jon Weisberger) (from Renewal)
  4. Dust in a Baggie (Apostol) (from Billy Strings EP)
  5. Leaving London (Tom Paxton) (unreleased)
  6. Show Me the Door (Walker/Ward) (from Renewal)
  7. Dawg’s Rag (David Grisman) (unreleased)
  8. Stratosphere Blues/I Believe in You (Apostol) (from Highway Prayers)
  9. In the Clear (Apostol/Allen/Weisberger) (from Highway Prayers)
  10. Turmoil & Tinfoil (Apostol) (from Turmoil & Tinfoil) [End of Set #1]
  11. The Fire on My Tongue (Apostol/Allen/Weisberger) (from Renewal)
  12. Ole Slew Foot (James Webb) (unreleased)
  13. Age (Jim Croce/Ingrid Croce) (unreleased)
  14. My Alice (Apostol/Allen/Weisberger) (from Highway Prayers)
  15. Away from the Mire (Apostol/Weisberger) (from Home)
  16. And Am I Born to Die? (Charles Wesley) (unreleased)
  17. Brown’s Ferry Blues (Alton Delmore/Rabon Delmore) (from Earl Jam)
  18. Dos Banjos (Apostol) (from Billy Strings EP)
  19. Escanaba (Apostol) (from Highway Prayers)
  20. Nights in White Satin (Justin Hayward) (unreleased)
  21. Pretty Daughter (Danny Barnes) (unreleased)
  22. Psycho (Leon Payne) (unreleased)
  23. Hide and Seek (Apostol/Walker/Billy Failing/Royal Masat) (from Renewal)
  24. Richard Petty (Apostol) (from Highway Prayers)
  25. Tennessee (Jimmy Martin/Doyle Neikirk) (unreleased)

Note: An official stream of tonight’s show is available on Nugs.net here.

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Humbucker Blues: 49 Winchester Live in Manchester

October 13, 2025 /

Wednesday 8th October 2025

Manchester Academy, Manchester, England

humbucker – ˈhəmˌbəkər

noun – a coiled device attached to the body of an electric guitar, beneath the strings, to cancel out electrical interference and unwanted noise

There’s nothing quite like seeing a great rock band in their prime, live on the stage. The power and synergy of a band of men picking on guitars, booming on drums, singing and harmonising and shredding their way through an amplified set. Men who have spent so much time together, on stage and in practice and on tour buses, that they can almost read one another’s minds, and who show it in the confident, inspired interplay of their music.

49 Winchester are the epitome of this. A band of six men from Virginia who first started practicing on the small-town street which gave them their name. A band who, years later, are on stage tonight at the Manchester Academy as one of the two great Southern rock bands of this generation (the Red Clay Strays being the other). Amidst a flurry of blinding stagelights they burst straight into the funky twang of ‘Long Hard Life’, following it up with a frenetic version of ‘The Wind’ that dazzles even more than the lightshow does. Justin Louthian’s drums boom. Chase Chafin’s bass roams. Noah Patrick’s keening steel guitar slides across the bars and Tim Hall, the ‘Redneck Mozart’, fills in the gaps with his keys. Bus Shelton’s electric guitar trades licks with the one slung around Isaac Gibson’s neck. Gibson himself, the hillbilly hegemon, provides vocal dynamite, moving from the country shitkicking of ‘Long Hard Life’ through the raucous rocking of ‘The Wind’ into the soulful tones of ‘Everlasting Lover’.

It’s a blistering start to the night, the first three songs a testament to what a rock band can do when given their head. One hundred years ago it wouldn’t even have been possible, with the electric guitar being an invention that came out of experiments in electrical amplification in the 1920s and 1930s. To provide aural fidelity, the instrument required some innovations, not least the humble humbucker. Attached to every electric guitar you will find one of these modest coiled pickups, or something similar, which cancel out electrical buzz and “buck the hum”, allowing for the exquisite tones of amplified guitar music. This eventually birthed rock ‘n’ roll and the sound which 49 Winchester now put to great effect on ‘Miles to Go’, their fourth song of the evening.

It’s a shame, however, that all the innovation and ingenuity which made rock music possible could not find a way to tune out the one perennial blight on the live music experience: the obnoxious fan, born with no shame or self-awareness and with a foghorn instead of a mouth, who ruins the experience for everyone around him.

Tonight’s unbalancer of the signal-to-noise ratio is a burly, moon-faced man who plonks himself directly behind me, stage-right – despite this being a spot on the periphery of the Academy hall that I’d chosen largely in the hope of avoiding such people. I’m no miser, no hillbilly bah humbug, and I certainly don’t expect people to just stand silently and clap politely on their night out. I’m all for roars and singalongs and dancing, which can help make a night of music special, especially music like this which encourages a bit of rowdiness, like seasoning added to a soup.

But every reasonable concert-goer knows the type of person I’m now describing. In the annals of concert fucknuggetry, he demands his own page. He starts 49’s set excitedly telling his girlfriend about his new purchase from the merchandise stand – a black hat – and he’s desperate to prove worthy of its polyester peak by demonstrating to everyone around him that he is 49 Winchester’s biggest fan.

He does this by singing along – which is every fan’s right, of course, even if the only thing this particular lost soul can harmonise with is a bleating goat. The problem is that he doesn’t know any of the lyrics for any of the songs, and so after Isaac Gibson sings a line from the stage, our stage-right simpleton loudly repeats it – two bars behind.

Growing bored of this, and with his IQ struggling to match the room temperature, he stumbles upon a brainwave. Instead of singing the lyrics, he decides to substitute them with his own. “I shit my pants. I SHIT MY PANTS!” he brays, over and over again, before turning to his companion. “This will be so funny tomorrow!” he yells.

In this way, the first half of 49 Winchester’s set is disrupted for me and probably two dozen other paying fans who have waited sixteen months for 49 to return to Manchester. It’s not only an insult to us, but an insult to the band, who Isaac Gibson confesses are as “sick as a dog”, just as he is, and yet who power through their illness to make it an amazing night for their fans. Only to have one burdensome oik ruin it for many of those fans anyway.

You may ask at this point why I don’t say something, waiting until now in this review to be a tough guy from behind a keyboard. One reason is that I have in the past argued at concerts with aggressive, ignorant people who go too far, and reflected afterwards that it probably hadn’t been a good idea to do so when the guys were younger than me, intoxicated, and probably could have beat the shit out of me if things had gone south. Call me coward or call me sensible, but I have no desire tonight to risk an altercation with this regeneration of Sloth from The Goonies.

Another reason is that I can still hear enough of the music to make it salvageable. I’ve been able to enjoy ‘Anchor’, delivered slow and soulful by the band under moody blue lights, reflecting later that one of the best things about live music is that it helps you appreciate songs from a band’s catalogue you might previously have overlooked.

That said, some of my favourite 49 Winchester songs are spoiled by Sloth, including ‘Yearnin’ for You’, ‘It’s a Shame’ and ‘Russell County Line’. The latter sees British country singer Jake O’Neill invited onto stage to sing with Isaac on 49’s signature song – but it passes me by. When Isaac announces he is inviting someone onto the stage, Sloth shouts “It’s me!” and then rants indignantly throughout the song when this proves not to be the case. Had the band not recognised the poetic genius of his “shit my pants” lyric?

The final reason I don’t say anything is that, mercifully, this mooing buffalo starts to migrate through the crowd, benevolently spreading his talent to as many people as possible. I should be sympathetic for those now afflicted, but in truth I’m just relieved he’s gone. At the end of the night, as the band tell the crowd we’re all going to take a selfie together, this prime specimen of humanity can be seen climbing a railing, nudging a young woman aside to do so, determined not to deny 49’s photo finish of its main character. But for those of us in his wake, the hum has now been bucked, and from ‘Annabel’ onwards we’re actually able to enjoy the music unmolested.

If half a set seems like insufficient lemonade to make from the sour lemon Sloth has left us, we’ve at least already been recompensed by tonight’s opening act. Wyatt Flores sings from behind an acoustic guitar and a huge grin, backed by Austin Yankunas on another acoustic and a rather eccentric Clem Braden, who wears what looks like a green pith helmet and alternates between mandolin, keys and some rather thrilling blues harp. The trio perform their own 12-strong set of material, combining original songs like ‘Welcome to the Plains’ and the hook-laden ‘Milwaukee’ with crowd-pleasing covers like ‘How to Save a Life’ and the Turnpike favourite ‘Kansas City Southern’. Their penultimate song is a sprawling, expansive ‘Oh Susannah’, worth the admission fee alone and providing a more-than-worthy curtain-raiser for tonight’s main event.

In 49 Winchester’s set, the clear harmonies in ‘Annabel’ are, with Sloth now gone, more blissful than ever. I’m now able to appreciate not only the band but the rest of the crowd who, with the one now-well-documented exception, give 49 the energy they’re looking for. ‘Hillbilly Daydream’ is a solid rocker elevated by the buzz of the crowd and the power of the band. “Not quite boiling, but hot enough to scald,” as Isaac sings, but the night does then reach boiling point with the stop-start thump of ‘Don’t Speak’ and the raucous crowd-pleaser ‘Tulsa’. Isaac salutes someone in the front row, and the night is good.

The freshly humbucked aural clarity on my side of the room is something I’m particularly grateful for as we enter the home stretch. Aside from being a supremely tight rock band able to roam through the various genres of roots music at will, 49 Winchester also have, in frontman Isaac Gibson, an excellent songwriter and soulful singer. This is now proved further in the performances of ‘Damn Darlin” and ‘Hays, Kansas’. The latter in particular brings forth goosebumps; the song – which Isaac tells us was one of the first he ever wrote, when he was 19 – remains his crowning glory. Its mix of soulful desperation, wandering despair and cathartic angst, driven by an increasingly epic rock momentum, is 49 at their absolute best – difficult as that is to distinguish when they set the bar so high at the start of the night.

After an obligatory ‘Last Call’ to end their set, 49 are roared back onto stage for an encore. They deliver an intense, crunching rendition of ‘Hillbilly Happy’, the band’s illness seemingly banished by adrenaline if Isaac’s signature high kick is anything to go by. And they have enough juice left over for Isaac to hold up his hand and say they’re going to do one more. “We’re going to do something we’ve never done before and play something that isn’t one of our own songs.”

“This is for Ozzy,” he says, before leading the band into a tribute to the late, great Ozzy Osbourne with an immaculate, soulful cover of the Black Sabbath ballad ‘Changes’. It’s another moment that causes goosebumps, a soulmate to the earlier ‘Hays, Kansas’ and a shining example of 49 Winchester’s taste, power and dexterity. It’s so exquisite it stirs me to wonder momentarily why the band don’t do more covers. But then the stage fades to black and a single spotlight remains on Isaac Gibson, the hillbilly hegemon, as he stuns a molten crowd with his final soulful verse. With a singer and songwriter this talented, leading such a band, you can only stand back and let them go where they will in their own good time.

Setlist:

(all songs written by Isaac Gibson, unless noted)

  1. Long Hard Life (from III)
  2. The Wind (from The Wind)
  3. Everlasting Lover (from III)
  4. Miles to Go (single)
  5. Anchor (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  6. All Over Again (unreleased)
  7. Yearnin’ for You (Gibson/Matt Koziol) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  8. It’s a Shame (from III)
  9. Bringing Home the Bacon (unreleased)
  10. Pardon Me (unreleased)
  11. Russell County Line (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  12. Annabel (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  13. Hillbilly Daydream (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  14. Don’t Speak (from The Wind)
  15. Tulsa (Gibson/Stewart Myers) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  16. Damn Darlin’ (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  17. Hays, Kansas (from III)
  18. Last Call (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  19. Encore: Hillbilly Happy (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  20. Encore: Changes (Geezer Butler/Tony Iommi/Ozzy Osbourne/Bill Ward) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

The Woman in Black: Toria Wooff Live with the Manchester Camerata

October 9, 2025 /

Sunday 5th October 2025

Derby Hall, The Met, Bury, England

“It’s not often you get to see one of your favourite artists backed by an orchestra,” opener Carl North says from the stage tonight. “And for free, too.”

With this one utterance Carl makes my own review redundant, because this is the appeal of the night in a nutshell. Toria Wooff has become one of my favourite artists in the half-year since I first came across her music and heard her play in a packed basement in Manchester, delivering an evocative Gothic folk sound with sophisticated songwriting and powerfully clear vocals. And tonight she’s not only backed by four members of the Manchester Camerata as a string quartet, but it’s free entry too – part of the Camerata’s charity-driven celebration of music across the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester.

Tonight is the third time I’ve seen Toria live in the six months since I first discovered her music, with a fourth soon to come as she embarks upon an autumn tour in the next couple of weeks. That fourth will make her joint-top of the list of artists I’ve seen live (with Kassi Valazza). Having written reviews of her Manchester and Liverpool gigs in so short a span of time, is there anything new I could say a third time around? Would it be best, perhaps, to just leave the night with Carl’s succinct summary?

In one sense, no – I can’t say anything new. Toria is as good as ever – strong in voice, picking out melodies on her acoustic guitar, and after the show devoting her time to those who wish to meet and speak with her. But in another sense, the presence of the Manchester Camerata on this unique night gives me a new perspective, an opportunity to reflect on the talent and achievements of this artist.

Not all songs would stand up to the scrutiny of a classical rearrangement, but Toria’s do, which speaks to the quality of her songwriting. The bones are strong, and in the capable hands of Polly Virr, one of Toria’s regular collaborators, who has reworked their arrangement for the camerata tonight, they remain as impressive as ever. Toria’s self-titled debut album is played in full tonight, and in the same sequential order. The balance, the flow of the music, is excellent, giving us an opportunity to doff our cap to James Wyatt, Toria’s partner who produced that exquisite album at Sloe Flower Studios.

One thing that’s clear is that Toria has chosen her collaborators well, not only Polly and James but Carl North, her friend who opens the night with his own acoustic guitar and deeply soulful voice. His original songs, including ‘Hard Times’, ‘Thorn in Your Side’ and ‘Pearl’, are able to stand tall alongside his covers of Hank Williams, Jerry Reed and, as the last song in his set, the Bob Dylan song ‘Corrina, Corrina’.

And, of course, there are the members of the Camerata itself, one of whom (Katie Foster) played on Toria’s album too. Tonight’s string quartet consists of Sarah Whittingham, Katie Foster, Alex Mitchell and Graham Morris (the latter on cello) and, with Polly Virr watching on from the audience, they bring an orchestral magnificence to Toria’s songs, whether that’s the pensive roaming of ‘Lefty’s Motel Room’, the thoughtful rumination in ‘Sweet William’, the dreaminess of ‘Mountains’ or the soaring catharsis of ‘See Things Through’. They bring out the haunting depth of ‘The Waltz of Winter Hey’ and conjure a sound like rustling autumn leaves on ‘Estuaries’. Falling glissandos from the cello add an element of danger to ‘The Flood’, the swelling music drawing deep smiles from the quartet. There are few better harmonies of sight and sound than an orchestra swaying as they move across their strings.

The smiles are even warmer on their faces at the end of the show, as Toria leaves the stage and they remain seated, looking in her direction as the audience cheers for an encore.

“I genuinely didn’t have anything prepared,” Toria says after she returns to the stage in her long black dress and lifts the strap of her acoustic guitar back onto her shoulder. She decides to treat us to a new song, telling us she’s finished writing her second album and it’s currently in tracking. The song was written while she was reading the Gothic horror novel The Woman in Black, and “this song is loosely attached to that”.

‘House on the Hill’ is the song in question, and if tonight has been an impressive recreation of her first album, ‘House on the Hill’ shows that Toria’s second is to be eagerly anticipated. You can hear a pin drop as her clear voice fills the hall with one of those memorable folk melodies she has proven to be so good at creating. The song is played solo by Toria on her guitar: an unprepared encore, no arrangement from Polly, the four members of the Camerata now just four more additions to an admiring audience of hundreds at the Derby Hall. It’s not the free entry that appeals. It’s not the orchestra that keeps us fixed in place, remarkable as they are. The draw remains the woman in black, Toria herself.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Toria Wooff and written by Toria Wooff, unless noted)

  1. The Plough
  2. Lefty’s Motel Room
  3. Song for A
  4. Sweet William
  5. Mountains
  6. The Flood
  7. Author Song
  8. The Waltz of Winter Hey
  9. That’s What Falling in Love Will Do
  10. See Things Through
  11. Estuaries
  12. Encore: House on the Hill (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

It’s a Damn Shame What the World’s Gotten To: Oliver Anthony Live in Manchester, and Some Thoughts on Charlie Kirk

September 22, 2025 /

Sunday 14th September 2025

Manchester Academy, Manchester, England

“I wasn’t sure you were gonna show up,” Oliver Anthony says from the stage to the thousands of people who have packed into the Manchester Academy concert hall tonight. Overpriced beers in hand, they’ve just sung along to ‘I’ve Got to Get Sober’, the third song of the main set.

It’s a reasonable concern. Not only has tonight’s gig, and this whole European tour, been rescheduled from its initial date in February, but there remains that question mark over the rise of Oliver Anthony – real name Chris Lunsford. As everyone knows, Chris was not a professional musician when he put the video for his ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ song online in August 2023, but it immediately went viral, speaking as it did to a vast community of forgotten men and representing a political zeitgeist that many of the chattering classes either didn’t know existed or had tried to suppress.

That viral sensation for such a political song, and Chris’ remarkable decision to resist the lure of obscene money or compromising for the music industry, resulted in some bitter mainstream and partisan attack pieces – labels like ‘flash in the pan’, ‘one-hit wonder’ and, for the ‘Richmond’ song itself, sneering dismissals of its technical quality or the content of its lyrics. And, such has been the unprecedented strangeness of Oliver Anthony’s rise, the questions and the criticisms weren’t always illegitimate, even if they were sometimes dishonestly made. What to make of an ordinary, if talented and principled, man who, literally overnight, became a man and message discussed by presidents and presidents-elect, and considered the voice of many?

I posed the same question to myself when I went to see Oliver Anthony on his first visit to Manchesterin February 2024, a mere six months after that viral ‘Richmond’ hit. It was answered within moments of him taking the stage, as the crowd spontaneously belted out the entirety of ‘Richmond’ word for word – a special night of musical catharsis, generosity and goodwill. In my review of the night, I labelled Oliver Anthony – with a nod to the title of his viral hit – ‘The Richest Man in the World‘. Chris had been tested and had come forth as gold. Speaking the truth, he had been lauded for it and loved. He was making bank and, when the tour was over, he could retreat back to the sanctity of his woods in Virginia with his wife and kids and his good ole dogs.

What, then, would be the change in the nineteen months since then? One, sadly, is that his sanctuary has been somewhat compromised; the afore-mentioned wife is now that most dreaded of things, an ex-wife, having allegedly demanded (admittedly, according to podcast rumours) 60% of his future earnings. The beloved partner of ‘Always Love You Like a Good Old Dog’ has become a ‘Scornful Woman’, the title of his latest single.

But if Chris has been bruised and battered by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, he doesn’t show it tonight. Both the above songs are played in his set; ‘Scornful Woman’ is not excessively bitter and ‘Good Old Dog’ remains as tender as ever – my favourite Oliver Anthony song. “I’ve still got these three kids with her,” Chris says before ’90 Some Chevy’, his song about taking the not-yet-scornful woman out in his old car when they first met.

Other changes are more routine, but still noteworthy in a review of a night of live music. Having visited Manchester last year as part of an acoustic trio, with Joey Davis on guitar and Caleb Dillard on stand-up bass, Oliver Anthony now leads an amplified five-piece band. Joey remains on guitar, though he occasionally switches to electric throughout tonight’s set. (Oliver Anthony also leaves the stage at one point to allow Joey to take the lead on singing two well-received covers, ‘Valerie’ and the Elvis Presley cut ‘T-R-O-U-B-L-E’.) The rhythm section is now performed by Peter Wellman on bass and keys and Noel Burton on drums, with the music further complemented by Billy Contreras’ fiddle. Opening act Sam Shackleton even returns to the stage on a few numbers to lend his harmonica.

Backed so strongly, and with nineteen months since he last toured England, the night should be set up for an incredible expression of Oliver Anthony’s creative and political message. But, surprisingly, this is where the Oliver Anthony live experience falters somewhat. The one-two punch of ‘Scornful Woman’ and ‘Cowboys and Sunsets’ in the second half of the set are the only two newer songs Oliver Anthony plays. Indeed, they (along with ‘Momma’s Been Hurting’, which doesn’t get an airing tonight) are the only new songs Chris has released since his viral frenzy, not counting the re-recorded Samsongs that made up his Hymnal album.

There is one unreleased original tonight: ‘Hank’, a fine slice of Oliver Anthony’s patented portentous country-folk which goes down well with the Manchester crowd. But if I’m honest I had expected more from an artist who, onstage, promises us there’s much more to come: “I’m gonna take a couple of months off when I get back and we’re just gonna try and get as much stuff recorded as we can.”

This may be down to an excess of caution from a truly independent artist, who would no doubt want his songs fairly protected. At the start of the night, Chris alludes to an ongoing dispute with the streaming companies about getting his money (“they make it so difficult to just do this like a regular person. There’s always some asshole that you gotta go through”) and later introduces ‘Ain’t Gotta Dollar’ by saying this whole viral thing started because he’d written that song and “was wanting to just go play it at a bonfire or a bar and I didn’t want anybody to steal it. I didn’t have a lot of money at the time, so the cheapest way to do it was just to put it on the internet. I knew nobody would be able to rip it off.”

But even allowing for this caution, the fact remains there are nine covers in tonight’s set (not counting Joey Davis’ two-song interlude). That would be unusual for any singer-songwriter, but particularly for one who is so consciously opinionated, who has such a rare opportunity to reach large numbers of people while remaining unfiltered and untethered to any industry compromise.

Tonight’s covers are themselves a mixed bag. The set opens strongly with the evergreen ‘Amazing Grace’, before Chris nods to the local crowd – “there’s a city not very far from here called Salford, I believe” – with a cover of ‘Dirty Old Town’ by the local folk legend Ewan MacColl. The song gets a fantastic singalong from the crowd, and I’m sure I’m not the only Salfordian here tonight who finds it a special moment.

Some of the covers suit Oliver Anthony’s sound well: Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’, revived for the first time in the set since Chris last came to Manchester, and the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic ‘Free Bird’, countrified with a bending dobro sound here while still allowing Joey Davis opportunities to shred on guitar. Others are unnecessary or ill-chosen: the dissonant Primus song ‘Jerry Was a Race Car Driver’ passes me by, while the fluent staccato singing required for ‘Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked’ and ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ doesn’t sit well with Oliver Anthony’s more plaintive, resonant voice.

I’m no party-pooper, mind, and I enjoy as much as anyone tonight the lusty crowd-pleasing singalongs enabled by the likes of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ (“they don’t sing it that good in West Virginia, I swear,” Chris remarks). It’s only that I go to a night of live music wishing for an artist to express themselves just as much as they enjoy themselves, and tonight’s covers see that expression diluted. If a particular cover has a particular resonance for an artist, then all the better, but in my opinion such a significant number of easy crowd-pleasers take away from the artist’s own voice and message. And remember, this is an artist who became so rapidly popular precisely because he had something to say.

(That said, Chris does have some limits on how far he’ll go to cover a song tonight. “You guys’ll wanna hear one of those new Beyoncé country songs, or something like that?” he jokes, to pantomime boos from the crowd. “Nah, I’m just kidding. We don’t need two people butchering ‘Jolene’, that’s for sure.”)

Clinging to a raft of covers is particularly strange when Oliver Anthony has plenty of his own to keep him afloat. His original songs are very well-received tonight, generating singalongs to rival any, and when he breaks into the earnestness of ‘I’ve Got to Get Sober’, ‘Rich Man’s Gold’ or ‘I Want to Go Home’, he allows for a communality of experience among his fans. For all the covers on show, Oliver Anthony resonates best when he’s speaking from the heart.

Certainly, there’s no harm in the audience having a working-class hero to call their own, for all the sneers that come from outside. His music gives people a license to release their pent-up frustrations in a healthy way, and it means crowds get behind him like few others. Regardless of whether you agree with his politics, none can, in good faith, deny his authenticity, or his sincerity from behind the mike.

Two years after ‘Richmond’, Oliver Anthony is still clearly trying to figure out a way to cash that golden ticket in the most meaningful and culturally useful way. One thing he is doing which is of merit is creating opportunities for other artists to follow, as with Sam Shackleton, tonight’s opening act. It’s unlikely that Sam’s authentic, lively folk music, complete with banjo, harmonica and lyrics delivered in a thick Scottish dialect, would have made it on its own to as large a crowd as the one that has assembled in the Manchester Academy, were it not for the support of iconoclastic gatebreakers like Oliver Anthony. It’s an opportunity Sam takes fully and with a charming insouciance, singing his opening song a cappella with a can of beer in hand. He provides a mix of old folk standards and western songs alongside his own canny originals, and the crowd is fully invested in the sound, uncommercial as it is. Our cultural gatekeepers have never known what we truly want, but apparently it’s Scots banjo music, and I for one am here for it.

As for Oliver Anthony, he still has plenty of time to figure out how else he wants to grasp his opportunity. It seems his fanbase isn’t going anywhere: Chris remarks how he hid in the woods for six months or so and “I didn’t look at none of my socials or Spotify or none of that crap, and I just figured everybody had moved on. And one day I got on there and looked and it was like the same amount of monthly listeners. And I just realised I gotta keep doing this a good while longer.” Far from being a flash in the pan, his status and sincerity grants him a staying power. He only has to find a way of making the best of it.

Perhaps all he needs is encouragement; to be reminded of something he surely already knows but might understandably forget or allow to lapse in moments of doubt. Namely that a great many ordinary people, voiceless in the grand scheme of things, are willing him on. And Manchester is keen to provide that encouragement.

“Uuu uu ouu uhhh!” comes the shout from the crowd.

“What’s that?” Oliver Anthony replies from the stage.

“Uuu uu ouu uhhh!”

“I wish I could hear what you were saying,” he says. “It sounds like it’s really cool.”

“Uuu uu ouu uhhh!”

“I can’t hear shit up here. All I hear is “something the bay” or something like that.”

“Uuu uu ouu uhhh!”

“I just gotta hear what he’s saying. ‘Go on the boy?”‘

The crowd cheers.

“Alright, now what?” he says. “I don’t know what that even means.”

The crowd laughs.

“GO ON THE BOY!” Chris roars, and the crowd roars back. The shout will be heard spontaneously throughout the rest of the night.

“I don’t know what it means,” Chris says later on in the night, after roaring the phrase again. “I’ll find out tomorrow, I’m sure.”

What it means, aside from being a throwaway piece of slang, is that Oliver Anthony has a crowd of thousands behind him. Everywhere he goes, in England, in Europe, and back home in the United States, there are crowds of thousands. And they are there because he’s doing something against the grain. He came from nowhere, bypassing the gates and the gatekeepers, and expressed a sentiment shared by many that had been too often dismissed. He’s singing honest songs and endeavouring to stay honest himself while he does so. This is why people stay invested in him and his music. He might not be the right-wing prophet some wanted him to be in the immediate aftermath of ‘Richmond’s virality, but he’s an artist with integrity trying to do it the right way. Go on the boy, people say, having recognised what he is. Keep going.

The Oliver Anthony experience, then, is to recognise in him both change and constancy. I can criticise something as banal as the lack of change in the setlist, the small number of new songs and the plethora of covers, but also recognise and admire that in much deeper ways it’s good that this artist has not changed, or at least has not been changed, not been corrupted by what he’s encountered in the last couple of years.

It’s this that people respond to, and it’s this that I’m hoping flourishes in the next couple of years, with Oliver Anthony continuing to hone his craft and focus in on his greater purpose. A figure like this, a beacon of sanity and normality in an increasingly divided world, becomes something even more cherishable considering this Manchester gig takes place just a few days after the senseless murder of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk in America, and the attempts of a worryingly large number of people (including some musicians I admire) to rationalise and excuse it. Even celebrate it.

“I only spoke to Charlie once,” Chris says, “I didn’t really know him. And the reality is that it could’ve been…” He pauses for a moment, not continuing the thought. The reality is it could have been anyone. It could have been you for your opinions, it could have been me for mine. It could have been Chris. What if someone took a shot at him? It seems absurd that the writer of “fudge rounds” would be met by rounds from a thirty-aught-six, but then again it would have also sounded absurd to me a few days earlier if someone had posed the same scenario for Charlie Kirk. “The Turning Point guy?” I asked, baffled, when I was first told the news. “Why would anyone want to get him?”I find it hard to accept Kirk as the saintly Martin Luther King figure some have tried to present him as since his death. But he was someone who appeared to be, at least by the standards of the clusterfuck that is modern political engagement, moderate and respectful and sincere.

“The point is, we should be out in public talking like this all the time,” Oliver Anthony says. “It shouldn’t take a Charlie Kirk for people to want to stand outside and talk this out. This is a psychological war we’re in and it’s gonna go on for a long time.”

Chris has just played his penultimate song, ‘I Want to Go Home’. “We’re on the brink of the next world war,” he sang, and in my review of Oliver Anthony’s first gig in Manchester nineteen months ago I noted that the song was full of foreboding. I then quoted, a tad indulgently I admit, from my own novel, writing that it feels like something is coming. We don’t know what it might be or what form it will take. But if we don’t know what it is or what we would need to fight it, we can at least decide what we would want to preserve when it comes. What we would want to keep of ourselves.

Whatever was coming might well have arrived in the wake of Kirk. World war, or civil war, or even just a culture war getting out of hand, we’re at a dangerous moment. What was lost to a bullet in Utah was not just a young father who sought to speak across political divides, but what the many who celebrated and excused the murder allowed to be lost in themselves.

Even if Kirk was the evil man some claim – and he wasn’t – he wouldn’t deserve that death. The only divide that matters here is the one between those who think it is acceptable for a man with a microphone to be gunned down in public and those who know it is not. The whole point of civilisation is to allow us all to co-operate and co-exist without resorting to violence, so that our base animal instincts to hurt and bully and tear one another apart do not take control. When we justify violence in our society, even slightly, we pull recklessly at one of the fundamental threads of our existence.

Because Death is the enemy. Death and violence. That is the enemy of civilisation, and it doesn’t tilt left or right but stands unwaveringly as the fundamental enemy of organised humanity itself. When I saw the video of Kirk I was sickened, of course, but it was clear in what it was: Death, the Enemy, making an appearance. What was more disturbing, more disheartening, was the attempt of many to excuse and diminish it, because that is an enemy that’s harder to pin down, one that seeps in like rot rather than stands tall as Death does. For all that I’m familiar with aspects of the culture war, I at least thought we were in a healthier place than this. It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to.

“Think about people you’ve dated in the past,” Oliver Anthony says, shortly after invoking Kirk. “Stupid arguments you’ve had. You can’t even fix those on the phone, so how are we gonna fix our country on a phone, y’know? It’s a rigged game.”

Chris puts a lot of it down to manipulation from above, from the powerful people and the rich men north of Richmond, and certainly it’s true that there’s a push, particularly with social media, to incentivise negativity and division. He calls from the stage that “we’re all a lot more similar than we are dissimilar” and how it’s important to resist this attempt at control.

This is true, but it’s also important for people to take ownership of their own thoughts. Nobody should be so far gone to the manipulation of algorithms and elites that they cheer and mock the murder of Charlie Kirk. Nobody should douse their morality in arterial spray. It doesn’t matter what Kirk was. It only matters what you are. You can never fully know another person, and so you can never judge them proportionately for their errors and opinions. You can only seek to know yourself – and even that is hard to do.

But in knowing yourself you can, in spite of the attempts to control you, choose to be who you are, or at least choose who you will not be. You can choose to be someone who doesn’t rationalise political violence because they agree with the ‘side’ it comes from, and you can choose not to follow sly, vindictive or insidious takes dressed up as morality and virtue in order to excuse or diminish the brutal and undignified public murder of a man in front of his young family. The important video shared online in the wake of Utah was not the one of the deed itself, but the one of Kirk on a studio news set some months earlier, beaming a smile as his infant daughter runs towards him and he lifts her up in a hug. That was what was lost, something more important than any political hot-take that’s here today and gone tomorrow. And that, sadly, is what many fail to realise.

What does this have to do with Oliver Anthony live in Manchester? We’re certainly a long way from critiquing the number of covers on tonight’s setlist. But it’s worth discussing not only because Chris mentions it himself on stage, but because Oliver Anthony as an artist appears to be in a holding pattern. Whether out of caution or doubt, he has not kicked on from his initial viral success. He’s talked of releasing new material on one hand and of quitting music entirely on the other. It would be natural and completely understandable for him to not know what to do with his success and his opportunity; an opportunity which is unlike any that came before it, and which has come during such increasingly contentious times.

But he plays ‘Richmond’ to end the show. And it reaches the people in the crowd just as it has always done, prompting not only a singalong of people who in the grand scheme of things consider themselves voiceless, but a flood of cathartic purpose, a sense that if the world is fucked there’s at least these three minutes of a song under which people can shelter and regroup and perhaps even push back. It doesn’t matter what you think about fudge rounds specifically, or minors on an island somewhere. It only matters that when you hear it you know you’re not crazy, that there are others who see things are fucked too and for a short while they’re singing all around you.

“If you don’t get anything else out of this show tonight,” Oliver Anthony says, “I just want you to remember this…. They already do this, but it’s gonna get worse and worse with all this crap. They’re gonna make you feel like you’re this big. Like there’s nobody else on this planet that thinks the same way you do. They isolate you in this little box… Like you’re just dead. Like nobody cares about you.

“And I swear to you – I’ve been all over the United States and Europe and Australia and I’ve talked to so many people. Thousands of people. Just believe me: there will always be more of us than there ever will be of them.

“I love you all. Just give me a minute and I’ll jump down there. I’d love to meet you all – if you want. Thank you.”

This, then, is what matters. Someone looking to lead by example. It doesn’t mean that person needs to be pure and error-free. It doesn’t mean they always have to be right. It doesn’t even mean they have to be doing everything they could be doing. It just means that it’s valuable that, every once in a while, you can look to someone and see them trying to operate with integrity in a world that makes it increasingly harder to do so.

Some of the crowd filters out into the night, and Chris walks along the front row talking to people and taking selfies and signing autographs, greeting anyone who chooses to stay. I’m already in the front row, where I’ve been all evening. I consider staying to meet him, but instead I stick to my long-standing rule of not bothering artists after a gig, unless it happens naturally.

After all, I can say it here instead.

Setlist:

(all songs written by Chris Lunsford – a.k.a. Oliver Anthony – unless noted)

  1. Amazing Grace (John Newton) (unreleased)
  2. Dirty Old Town (Ewan MacColl) (unreleased)
  3. I’ve Got to Get Sober (from Hymnal of a Troubled Man’s Mind)
  4. Lonely Boy (Dan Auerbach/Patrick Carney/Brian Joseph Burton) (unreleased)
  5. Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked (Matt Shultz/Brad Shultz/Jared Champion/Daniel Tichenor/Lincoln Parish) (unreleased)
  6. Cobwebs and Cocaine (from Hymnal)
  7. Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver/Bill Danoff/Taffy Nivert) (single)
  8. 90 Some Chevy (single)
  9. Rich Man’s Gold (from Hymnal)
  10. Always Love You Like a Good Old Dog (from Hymnal)
  11. Jerry Was a Race Car Driver (Les Claypool/Larry LaLonde/Tim Alexander) (unreleased)
  12. Hank (unreleased)
  13. Free Bird (Allen Collins/Ronnie Van Zant) (unreleased)
  14. The Devil Went Down to Georgia (Charlie Daniels/Tom Crain/Joel DiGregorio/Fred Edwards/Charles Hayward/James Marshall) (unreleased)
  15. Scornful Woman (Chris Lunsford/Joey Davis/Billy Contreras/Draven Riffe) (single)
  16. Cowboys and Sunsets (single)
  17. Valerie (Dave McCabe/Boyan Chowdhury/Russ Pritchard/Sean Payne/Abi Harding) (unreleased) [Joey Davis singing]
  18. T-R-O-U-B-L-E (Jerry Chesnut) (unreleased) [Joey Davis singing]
  19. Ain’t Gotta Dollar (single)
  20. Rocket Man (Elton John/Bernie Taupin) (unreleased)
  21. I Want to Go Home (from Hymnal)
  22. Rich Men North of Richmond (single)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

A Live Theory of Time Travel: Makin’ Memories I’d Like to Recall

September 14, 2025 /

Wednesday 3rd September 2025

Melissa Carper

St. Lawrence’s Church, Biddulph, England

Saturday 6th September 2025

85th Anniversary Battle of Britain Air Show

Duxford Aerodrome, Cambridgeshire, England

Monday 8th September 2025

Jake Vaadeland and the Sturgeon River Boys

The Attic, Leeds, England

Abstract: This post proposes that in witnessing live events that evoke or recreate a sense of a bygone era, those with sufficient imagination can experience something akin to what it must have been like to witness the real thing. In doing so, the witness can, in effect, travel through time, if only for a fleeting moment. The post makes this argument with reference to three eras and three events attended over the course of a single week in September 2025: the 1920s and 1930s swing era recalled in Melissa Carper’s live music performance, the 1940s wartime era evoked by the Battle of Britain Air Show at Duxford aerodrome, and the 1950s rockabilly stylings recreated by the live music “programme” of Jake Vaadeland and the Sturgeon River Boys. In doing so, the author of this post accomplishes a secondary objective of freshening up his approach to writing concert reviews.

If you could truly go back in time, what would you choose to experience? Leave aside the current scientific consensus that time travel, or at least backwards time travel, is impossible. Imagine that one of the common tropes of time travel fiction were true, whether that were some sort of machine, a wormhole or quantum effect, hypnosis, or simply stepping through a doorway. And leave aside all questions of causality and paradoxes. Imagine you could not affect anything, whether that be becoming your own grandfather, killing Hitler or saving Harambe. You could only observe.

What would you choose to observe? Would you go back to the music you love: witness the Woodstock festival or Dylan in Greenwich Village or the Beatles in the Cavern Club or at the rooftop concert? Would you go back to a scene of war or spectacle: the desperate dogfights in the blue skies over England in September 1940, Drake and his captains meeting the Spanish Armada at Gravelines, or the herds of American buffalo so thick it seemed as though the Great Plains themselves moved? Would you witness Alexander rouse his troops, Plato address the Symposium, George Washington refuse the kingship? Would you sightsee Rome at its peak, a Renaissance Venice unblighted by tourists, or a Globe Theatre with Shakespeare himself performing one of the roles on stage? Perhaps you peer in on a mystery: book the seat next to D. B. Cooper, eavesdrop at Gethsemane, or witness the building of the Great Pyramid?

Needless to say, the imagination is fired by such thoughts. But while all those moments are irretrievably lost, we do still have opportunities to experience moments of the past in facsimile. And, with sufficient imagination, it is not too difficult to make them vivid. Last Saturday, I sat in the grandstand at Duxford aerodrome for the Battle of Britain Air Show. I saw a squadron of Hurricanes take off and assemble into formation, and the swarm of black iPhones that were raised to record the moment could not distract from its majestic otherness. As they peeled away and, within mere seconds, became silhouettes in the distant clear blue sky, I thought of how common that same sight would have once been, 85 years ago, when this place was RAF Duxford and it was on the frontlines of the Battle of Britain. I could vividly imagine that squadron of silhouettes, rising regally into the skies, carrying young men into battle to defend their country. I could imagine a member of the ground crew stood where I stood, wondering which of those planes would not return home.

Similarly, at the same air show I saw two Spitfires, their Merlin engines on full song, chase a Messerschmitt 109, wheeling in that same brilliant blue Battle of Britain sky in mock dogfight. I craned my neck to see an Avro Lancaster fly in directly overhead from the north. And while I was indeed safer underneath its bomb bay than the citizens of Hamburg and Dresden had once been, it was disconcerting to see that great black beast turn slowly in the skies ahead, its wingspan wide like a malevolent dragon, and come around again. I saw a silver P-51 Mustang perform a victory roll high in the sky; a B-17 blistering with its flying fortress of guns; a Fairey Swordfish move slowly and unhurriedly as the machine once did when crippling the Bismarck.

Small moments, of course; not the same spectacle as of old, even when a full fifteen Spitfires and eight Hurricanes assembled in the same historic ‘Big Wing’ formation they did in 1940 and roared overhead, those two dozen Merlin Rolls-Royce engines providing a symphony unlike any other. In such moments your imagination too takes flight, and those small experiences serve as a kernel of truth you can build upon. You remember that such things did once happen, and were not merely pages in a history book, or recreations at an air show or movie set.

One can carry this idea further when one introduces a night of live music. On either side of the Duxford air show I attended gigs that delivered a heavy and intended dose of nostalgia. Melissa Carper’s throwback singing voice rested easily in her cosy cavalcade of Twenties and Thirties swing. Only one of her songs – ‘That’s My Desire’ – was a bona fide ‘oldie’, with the rest being Carper originals. You would never have been able to tell, so arresting was the jazzy nostalgia of her sound as she stroked her stand-up bass, backed by the guitars of Bonnie Montgomery and Greg Harkins.

Jake Vaadeland’s night is more consciously nostalgic – “I’m a retro man,” he sings during his encore – and almost imitative of Fifties rockabilly in look, sound and general vibe. With Jake’s slicked-back hair and charming, rehearsed stage patter – “friends and neighbours” is a common refrain – you would almost be inclined to dismiss it as twee if not for the talent on show. Between Jaxon Lalonde’s banjo, Joel Rohs’ electric guitar and Jake Smithies’ stand-up bass, the Sturgeon River Boys can shift seamlessly between fast bluegrass numbers, bopping throwback rockabilly and, in the likes of ‘Don’t Go to the Valley’, a more rootsier blues sound, playing a set that mixes old covers with the prolific Jake’s own Buddy Holly-esque self-penned tunes.

There are many points of difference between the two nights, and I regret that it is beyond the means of this post to delve into them more deeply and give each the space their marvels deserve. The bold frontman character Jake Vaadeland plays contrasts with the almost shy energy of Melissa Carper, who started her career as a side-player before her voice and talent deservedly moved her centre-stage. The old church which hosts Melissa contrasts starkly with the incongruously-named ‘Attic’ dancefloor – just a few years old – which Jake and his Boys burn up, just as Melissa’s more relaxed country garb contrasts with Jake’s studiously trim retro stylings. When Jake and his band playfully sing an advertising jingle for ‘Better Off Duds’, a vintage clothing shop in their homeland of Canada, their appearance on stage tonight has been the best advert for it.

Difference too in how our two groups of artists approach the night: Jake sticks rigorously to what he quaintly calls his “programme”, joking early on that they only take requests if you write the song title on a Canadian $100 bill and deliver it to the stage. Melissa’s fluid setlist, in contrast, shows a variety of changes and crossed-out song titles, and when one woman strides up the church aisle to the front of the stage before the encore and asks her to play ‘Pray the Gay Away’, Melissa seems taken aback. “Oh gosh, I’ve not played that one with this band,” Melissa says apologetically, and plays ‘I’m a Country Gal’ instead.

Differences, then, but also similarities; the control factors in our live theory of time travel to go alongside the variables. The grace with which both Melissa and Jake share the spotlight: Bonnie Montgomery taking the lead to sing a powerful ‘I’d Rather Have Love’ during Melissa’s set (Greg also leads on ‘Bee in a Can’), while Jake praises the electric guitar of Joel Rohs, which “souped up” his song ‘Until the Day I See You Dear’, and duels with Jake Smithies’ bass on ‘Jake vs. Jake’. The prominence of the stand-up bass is also a similarity between both nights, as are the strong opening acts: Bonnie had her own buoyant set before backing Melissa, and the local band Vox Americana opened the night with the swaying ‘St. Michael’. Rob Heron opened for Jake with a charming stage presence of his own and a series of fun songs sorely needed in our heavy and fractured times, his impressively long yodelling note on ‘Lonely Boy in the Dole Queue’ drawing cheers.

Indeed, fun itself was the name of the game on both nights of music, and what’s more, it was that shame-free, innocent fun that seems to have become lost in recent decades, and which makes nostalgia an increasingly potent force. Whether it was Melissa and her band buzzing during ‘Bee in a Can’ or bleating like goats during ‘Would You Like to Get Some Goats?’, or Jake jumping atop ‘Cousin Smithers’ stand-up bass during ‘Until the Day I See You Dear’ and grinning with Joel as the two of them harmonise with Jaxon around a single mike, you could lose yourself in an older, more innocent world, a world before edginess, deconstructionism and the lowering of standards. A time when going to see a night of live music was precisely this: a bop, a swing, a time to relax and forget your troubles.

So wonderful was this innocence and so earnestly it was delivered on the two nights, the feeling was increasingly not so much throwback nostalgia, but a sense of the uncanny, of closing your eyes and recognising there would have been many such nights exactly like this one (sans smartphone) seventy to a hundred years ago. A time when people knew how to act, knew how to dress, knew how to treat one another. We look at the past through rose-tinted glasses, of course, filtering out all that was unsavoury from those times, but there’s no harm in doing so for a night of live entertainment. The world isn’t less honest for us choosing the best moments to recreate and leaving behind the worst.

This, then, is the live theory of time travel, cherishing the moments when talented artists can pull a moment of joy from the past and polish it and make it fit into our own. “Makin’ memories I’d like to remember,” as Melissa Carper sings from the stage. When people jived in dancehalls in the Thirties and Forties and Fifties, to songs uncannily similar to those I have heard on these two nights, they didn’t do so in ignorance of the more serious faults and injustices of their times. They did so because the world belongs to music and fun and laughter as much as it does to war and prejudice and poverty, and the light has no apology to make to the dark for deciding to pour through.

Time travel, the reliving of past memories, can be accomplished in small moments like this. No mechanical contraption or gateway or quantum sauciness is needed. Only a humble ticket to enter a place of like-minded people who are seeking to nod gently to, if not better times, then at least the idea of better times.

It’s a thought that occurs to me at the Duxford aerodrome. Not long after I arrive in the morning, walking from my hotel in the nearby village, I wander past the glittering array of parked Hurricanes and Spitfires and other assorted warbirds of yesteryear towards the Classic Wings stall. Here I purchase a ticket to fly a circuit on a De Havilland DH-89A Dragon Rapide, a twin-engined biplane passenger aircraft from 1946 that seats eight, including myself, behind the single-seat cockpit. The humble plane is strikingly beautiful, the name ‘Nettie‘ written in blue cursive beside her silver nose, but it’s beautiful in an almost unassuming way, built and designed as it was during a time when beauty and aesthetics were recognised as essential for the flavour of life rather than an unnecessary cost or extravagance.

I’m seated next to the wing. The propeller just outside my window begins to turn and sputter into life, bringing with it those evocative sounds that only propeller engines from the 1940s can provide. As we taxi across the bumpy grass and out onto the runway, Nettie shuddering all the while, my brain ill-advisedly brings a thought to mind: This must be how Buddy Holly felt. But I’m not afraid and the thought isn’t an unwelcome one. Instead, I’m happy to be chasing a sensory fragment of the past, making a memory I’d like to recall. The plane buzzes down the runway, picking up speed, and we take flight. The lift is gentle, almost imperceptible. We’re up in the clear blue sky, ageless England below. For the second of three times in a week, a group of skilled individuals have transported me back in time.

Setlist (Melissa Carper 03.09.25):

(all songs written by Melissa Carper, unless noted)

  1. Your Furniture’s Too Nice (from Borned in Ya)
  2. Lucky Five (from Borned in Ya)
  3. Ramblin’ Soul (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  4. That’s My Only Regret (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  5. I Do What I Wanna (Melissa Carper/Gina Gallina) (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  6. I’d Rather Have Love (Bonnie Montgomery) (unreleased) [Bonnie singing]
  7. Would You Like to Get Some Goats? (from Daddy’s Country Gold)
  8. Bee in a Can (unknown) (unreleased) [Greg singing]
  9. Zen Buddha (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  10. Makin’ Memories (from Daddy’s Country Gold)
  11. Texas, Texas, Texas (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  12. That’s My Desire (Helmy Kresa/Carroll Loveday) (from Borned in Ya)
  13. Boxers on Backwards (from Ramblin’ Soul)
  14. Made with Love (unreleased)
  15. Evil Eva (Carper/Joe Sundell) (from Borned in Ya)
  16. Christian Girlfriend (from Arkansas Bound)
  17. Encore: I’m a Country Gal (unreleased)

Flying List (Duxford 06.09.25):

  1. Pre-Show Classic Wings Flight: De Havilland DH-89A Dragon Rapide TX310 G-AIDL
  2. Douglas A-26C Intruder
  3. Hawker Hurricane x 10
  4. Battle of Britain Dogfight: Supermarine Spitfire vs Messerschmitt Bf109 (Hispano HA-1112 Buchon)
  5. Miles Magister; De Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk
  6. CA-13 Boomerang; Yakovlev Yak-3
  7. Curtiss P-40F Warhawk; Curtiss Hawk 75; Curtiss P40-C Tomahawk
  8. PBY-5A Catalina; Fairey Swordfish
  9. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
  10. P-47 Thunderbolt
  11. Hawker Fury
  12. Search and Rescue Demonstration: NH90 NFH Helicopter
  13. Bristol Blenheim
  14. De Havilland Vampire
  15. F-86 Sabre; Canadair CL 13B
  16. P-51 Mustang x 3
  17. Acrobatic Display: Yak-18; Yak-52 x 2
  18. Battle of Britain Memorial Flight: Avro Lancaster; Hawker Hurricane; Supermarine Spitfire
  19. Duxford Big Wing Formation: Supermarine Spitfire x 15; Hawker Hurricane x 8

Setlist (Jake Vaadeland 08.09.25):

(all songs written by Jake Vaadeland, unless noted)

  1. Father’s Son (from Retro Man)
  2. The Bachelor’s Life (from Everybody But Me)
  3. Farewell Blues (Leon Roppolo/Elmer Schoebel/Paul Mares) (unreleased)
  4. More and More (from Retro Man… More and More)
  5. Be a Farmer or a Preacher (from Retro Man)
  6. Flint Hill Special (Earl Scruggs) (unreleased)
  7. Jake vs Jake (unreleased)
  8. One More Dollar to Go (from One More Dollar to Go)
  9. Great Joy and Happiness (single)
  10. Diet Pepsi Jingle (unreleased)
  11. I Ain’t Going Back to Nashville (from More and More)
  12. Bound to the Road (from One More Dollar)
  13. Sittin’ on a Strawbale (from More and More)
  14. Don’t Go to the Valley (from One More Dollar)
  15. Gonna Find My Baby (from Everybody But Me)
  16. The Greatest Showman Around (unreleased)
  17. Better Off Duds Jingle (unreleased)
  18. Cow on the Road (from More and More)
  19. Until the Day I See You Dear (from No More Pain in My Heart)
  20. Y’All Come (Arlie Duff) (unreleased)
  21. Encore: Love Bug (Wayne Kemp/Curtis Wayne) (unreleased)
  22. Encore: Retro Man (from Retro Man)
  23. Encore: Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

No Digas Más: LA LOM Live in London

August 25, 2025 /

Wednesday 20th August 2025

Jazz Café, London, England

Regardless of all the wonderful things that are happening in the world, it stands to reason that, if it were possible to weigh such things in the balance, there would be one thing happening in any given moment which is above all the others. Of all the things happening simultaneously across this sphere of ours, there would be one place and one experience that is the best thing currently happening. And while that experience may change – in one moment it could be a couple welcoming their first child, the witness of a meteor shower or other great natural event, the triumph over a great task or an act of consummated love, or even just a moment alone or in fine company – there would always be one such moment. And, hyperbole aside but still feeling the heady after-effects of this music, it is hard for me to imagine that there is any better place on Earth to be on the night of Wednesday 20th August 2025 than among the crowd of a few hundred in the Jazz Café in Camden, listening to LA LOM.

This trio of American musicians leave you speechless. Certainly, they are hard to summarise in a piece of writing. There’s no need for anyone to sing – the band are exclusively instrumental – so it’s perhaps little wonder that my own words seem insufficient. Guitarist Zac Sokolow, dressed in the laid-back style of one of the capable men from Hemingway’s Cuban stories, strides across the stage. A few feet from where I stand in the front row, stage right, he picks up the white lead which has lain like a coiled python on the stage and plugs it into his striking black and copper 1960 Kay Style Leader guitar. On the other side of the stage, bassist Jake Faulkner is dressed all in black, an electric Fender Vintera slung across his body. A large upright bass looms behind him. Between these two guitar players, drummer Nick Baker – as handsome as a model in his waistcoat and slicked-back hair – is seated behind a remarkable array of percussion (on which more later).

I start with the look, not the sound, because, like many, that was what first drew me to the band. As an aficionado of the resurgence in alternative country and roots music in recent years, which has formed the bulk of my live music experiences, I came across LA LOM by chance in the Instagram feed of Sierra Ferrell, one of alternative country’s leading lights and a generational talent herself. A fan of the band, Sierra had reposted one of those vivid Technicolor videos the band has released of their songs. My phone was on mute, but the evocative retro images were enough to hold my attention. And when I unmuted and heard those sounds for the first time, that attention turned to afición.

The LA LOM sound is hard to describe, but instantly recognisable as Zac plugs in his guitar and the band begins ‘Figueroa’. Theirs is Latin instrumental music, but that doesn’t begin to cover the vast array of influences which the trio have managed to distil into their own sound. My own reference points were the rock instrumental music I knew – Duane Eddy, Santo and Johnny, perhaps Booker T and the MGs – but those more knowledgeable than I could rattle off more accurate descriptors: cumbia, Afro-Cuban, arabe, Mexican bolero, Peruvian chicha, all backed with classic Americana and the slight hints of country and rockabilly that provide the one link to the alt-country music of Sierra Ferrell that led me here.

It is an incredibly cultured and nuanced musical brew – and also an intoxicating one. Zac’s distinctive guitar tone – particularly from his red 1960s National Val-Pro guitar, which replaces the black-and-copper Kay after the first song in tonight’s set – speaks and sings as clearly as any frontman.

Nick’s drum setup is a masterpiece of innovation and improvisation, combining the traditional Ludwig drum kit – hi-hat, bass drum, etc. – with congas and a cowbell. Nick uses conventional drumsticks, his bare hands, and even maracas as drumsticks, the sum effect allowing one man to perform the beat of cumbia, which usually involves multiple percussionists. It also looks impossibly cool.

Meanwhile, Jake slaps and twirls his upright bass with flair and howls primal Latin aullidos at the most cathartic moments of the songs. He stalks about the stage with the Vintera slung around his neck and provides the band’s swagger as he gestures and cheerleads the crowd. This band has élan. It has cojones. It has the right stuff. They follow up ‘Figueroa’ with the self-titled ‘Danza de LA LOM’, fully announcing themselves to a crowd that is already whipped up by the sound. The bartenders at this jazz bar couldn’t make a more potent mix tonight even if they served their cocktails in quart jugs.

The band begin to roam, showing their dexterity by adapting the Turkish song ‘Dane Dane Benleri Var’ into signature riffs and then moving back into the more familiar territory of the Calixto Ochoa song ‘Los Sabanales’. Zac’s guitar sings, while Jake’s rhythmic swaying and Nick’s short drum solo draw cheers. The crowd is already in a party mood.

LA LOM roam through some more fine cumbia songs that I can’t place, but whatever they are, they’re good eatin’. I swear I hear ‘Moonlight Over Montebello’ at some point in there, but when it comes there’s no mistaking the distinctive twinkling riff of ‘Santee Alley’, which draws cheers from the crowd.

The band have been stacking powder kegs so far tonight, but now they light the match. ‘Alacrán’ is where the night becomes impossibly fierce, so dirty and so bright; in its wake the dancing becomes uncontained. The Arab-tinged guitar riffs of ‘Alacrán’ are, in the live setting of the Jazz Café, made heavier by Zac, reminiscent of Jimmy Page’s Led Zeppelin riffs. Nick matches him with some booming Bonham-style drums. Jake, not to be outdone, unslings his Fender bass midway through the song and, to spontaneous whoops and roars from the crowd, takes and then theatrically spins his upright bass. LA LOM certainly know how to put on a show.

A drum roll triggers the frenetic ‘Arriba Pichátaro’, one of the most glittering moments of music in a night full of them. Jake and Nick pause to track the bars of Zac’s ascending guitar notes, nodding with approval, before each taking a flourish of their own. As Nick performs a drum solo, Jake takes a black cloth from his pocket and waves it like a matador before Nick’s drum set. The drummer takes the bait and turns the intensity up a notch. Jake takes the rag and twirls it around his head, jumping maniacally and whipping the crowd into a frenzy, before throwing it over his shoulder and performing a slapping bass solo of his own.

From this moment on, the night is a Pandora’s box of exploded musicality: an expansive ‘Espejismo’ followed by the spectral riffs of ‘Ghosts of Gardena’; a grooving cover of ‘Tonta’ by Grupo Mojado; a brand new song, ‘Belvedere’, with a throwback Seventies soul-funk vibe. The band can slow it down with ‘Lorena’ and another brand new “love song”, the slow, hazy romance of ‘Sixth Street’. They can speed it up with the conga-driven ‘Me Robaron Mi Runa Mula’, or roam between the two extremes with a free-range cumbia medley, which also contains the only vocals of the night – Zac singing a verse in Spanish in ‘Cumbia Sampuesana’. And throughout it all there is the signature LA LOM sound; the propelling drums and grooving bass that give a platform for Zac’s riffs on ‘Cumbia Arabe’ and the complete soundscape of ‘Angels Point’, perhaps their quintessential song. One stunning young woman in the front row holds up a sign with a marriage proposal. This might be the coolest band in the world right now.

After ‘Angels Point’, the band invite Rihab Azar back to the stage. She had been tonight’s support act, delivering a rich, textured half-hour set of Middle Eastern folk music on the oud. Now she brings the lute-like instrument to complement LA LOM on ‘Al Wafa’. Sitting on a stool before the band, her oud dovetails well with Zac’s guitar and, taking a solo on the instrument, she smiles up at an admiring Zac. Her oud solo draws a roar from the crowd as loud as any tonight.

After Rihab leaves the stage to applause, blowing kisses to the band, LA LOM break into the final song of their set, a cover of ‘El Sonido de Los Mirlos’ by the titular Los Mirlos – “one of our favourite groups,” Zac says from the mike. Nick’s rapid conga solo is quickly followed by a dirty, crunching Latin guitar solo by a grinning Zac, which draws another howling aullido from Jake. There’s a massive smile on Nick’s face as another high-tempo drum solo reaches its peak and Zac’s guitar picks up the release. Amongst all the showmanship and colour and fun of the band, there is a powerful synergy of goodwill and musicianship.

After the band leave the stage, there is naturally a huge roar for an encore, a collective passionate wail around the jazz bar that almost drags the band back up on stage by itself. When they do return, Zac has taken off his shirt and is down to his vest in the August heat of the bar, while Jake twirls his black rag again to ensure the crowd remain at fever pitch. ‘El Cascabel’, their encore song, is one final blitz of that addictive LA LOM sound, after which, in one final display of flamboyance, Jake takes his upright bass and holds it high above his head. Are you not entertained? the gesture seems to ask the thronging, roaring crowd.

How bright the sound has been tonight. So much of what is great in music, and in live music particularly, has been manifest in the performance of LA LOM. There has truly been no better place to be in the world for the last couple of hours than in the front row of the Jazz Café in Camden Town, as Zac Sokolow’s singing red guitar emits its perfect tone as naturally as breathing, Jake Faulkner spins his upright bass, and Nick Baker plays a conga with one hand and beats a drum with a maraca in the other.

In look and sound and energy, LA LOM represent something that we understandably thought lost to the world; that undiluted colour and vibrancy and guiltless, irrepressible fun that characterised the music of better times. It’s not something retro or reclaimed, but something reborn, made by a band that refuse to let a soul leave unmoved. It is irresistible, and it was in London tonight. If it is in your city it is essential that you go. It is not up for debate. I can say no more.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album The Los Angeles League of Musicians and written by Zac Sokolow, Jake Faulkner and Nick Baker, unless noted)

  1. Figueroa
  2. Danza de LA LOM
  3. Dane Dane Benleri Var (Neşet Ertaş) (unreleased)
  4. Los Sabanales (Calixto Ochoa) (unreleased)
  5. Eleno Kerko (unreleased)
  6. Astro Cumbia (unreleased)
  7. Moonlight Over Montebello
  8. Santee Alley (from LA LOM EP)
  9. Alacrán (single)
  10. Arriba Pichátaro (Daniel Plancarte Alejandre) (unreleased)
  11. Espejismo
  12. Ghosts of Gardena
  13. Tonta (Felipe Barrientos/Luis Elizondo) (unreleased)
  14. Belvedere (unreleased)
  15. Lorena
  16. Cumbia Arabe (Francisco Nicolás Bobadilla) (unreleased)
  17. La Danza Del Petrolero (Emerson Casanova Sanchez) (unreleased)
  18. Cumbia Medley (from Live at Thalia Hall)
    • El Paso Del Gigante (Albert Tlahuetl)
    • La Danza de Los Mirlos (Gilberto Reátegui)
    • Cumbia Sampuesana (José Joaquín Bettin Martínez)
  19. Me Robaron Mi Runa Mula (Noé Fachin) (unreleased)
  20. 6th St. (unreleased)
  21. Angels Point
  22. Al Wafa (with Rihab Azar) (unreleased)
  23. El Sonido de Los Mirlos (Gilberto Reátegui) (unreleased)
  24. Encore: El Cascabel (Lorenzo Barcelata) (unreleased)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

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