Architects @ The O2

Architects @ The O2 (Abigail Shii)

While the song builds and more members of Architects take their positions, the light swells. Once more, just for a moment, everything cuts out. They return with the full force of the transformed Elegy; no longer a quiet plea, now a pulverising battle cry led by Carter’s flamethrower vocal. Visually, everything’s amplified on a central video screen flanked by a wall of lights that either flash to the beat of Dan Searle‘s apocalyptic drumming or, when the ever-evolving song hits its melodic chorus, bathe the arena in the glow of a thousand suns.

When the track momentarily drops back for a couple of lines of beautifully sung synthy fragility, the spotlights on Carter return, before all hell breaks loose again: pulverising riffs, barbaric beats, primeval roaring. Just as unexpectedly, the song’s final moments are visually and sonically a complete return to its tranquil beginning.

And that’s just the show’s first five minutes.

Yet, tonight’s performance of Elegy, also the opening track of the band’s latest album, says a lot about where Architects are today. In the three years since they last played the O2 Arena, they’ve supported Metallica in stadiums the world, opened up for the reformed Linkin Park on part of their recent European trek, and headlined festivals like Wacken. So they’re more than fighting fit: the band members actually seem to relish the instant time- and intensity changes that characterise their music; Carter somehow has no trouble switching his voice between gentle tenderness, full-blown rock god bellow, intense scream, and guttural roar. As a frontman, he also knows how to engage a crowd, from encouraging crowd surfing virgins to partake before Impermanence, to the introduction of Everything Ends (“It’s truly a gift to be stood up here in front of such a beautiful, amazing crowd”), movingly dedicated to fallen crew member Miles Kent.

The song itself turns into a heartfelt tribute — as the O2 is lit up by swaying mobile phones — and shows the mellower side of Architects‘ arsenal. It’s another track from The Sky, The Earth & All Between, an LP that, like tonight’s show, successfully blends the band’s various moods and features some of Searle’s strongest writing. Only kept off the number one spot on the UK albums chart by Sabrina Carpenter earlier this year, the album’s success has pushed the band further into the mainstream without betraying their metalcore roots, turning their run of the UK’s biggest indoor venues, including Manchester’s colossal Co-op Live, into a victory lap. Not that they’ve let this new flush of success go to their heads — not many artists would invite both support acts up to join them on a song each.

Wage War @ The O2

Wage War @ The O2 (Abigail Shii)

First up is Briton Bond from Wage War on Impernance (big on riffs and military beats), who joins Carter on the raised platform at the foot of the stage to roar through a verse as security guards lift crowd surfers over the barrier. And, after the frontman in his Oasis vest urges the crowd to turn the arena’s floor into a circle pit (“Move it or lose it!”), Stephen Harrison and Aric Improta of House Of Protection bound on stage to run, leap, headbang, and rage through Brain Dead.

By the time Architects reach the encore, they’ve run the gamut from Whiplash‘s rock anthemics to Gravedigger‘s all-out assault by way of Gone With The Wind, the haunting, keys-led tribute to late guitarist Tom Searle. They’ve even stopped the intro to the cataclysmic Blackhole because the moshpit’s not big enough. But the audience need no egging on for the night’s final moments: Seeing Red and (after a band photo) Animals are accompanied by the crowd joining in (almost) as loudly as Carter.

Clearly the “I went to see Architects and all I got was whiplash” slogan on T-shirts tonight isn’t just a bad pun. It’s completely inaccurate. Twenty one years into their career, the band offer so much more.

Live review of Architects at O2 Arena, London on 12th October 2025 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Abigail Shii.

Feeder Come Back Around To O2 Academy, Brixton

Not just a moving tribute to their late drummer, it’s a powerful finale to the band’s end-to-end performance of Comfort In Sound, the album written in the wake of his death. When it was reissued earlier this year, frontman Grant Nicholas described the 2002 LP as “very close to our hearts”. And that’s very apparent at O2 Academy, Brixton tonight; its 12 songs are played as reverentially as they deserve, with no banter to distract. What’s more, they all sound entirely faithful to the original recordings; unlike most albums-played-in-full situations, the hits haven’t evolved into sloppy facsimiles over years of repetition and the rarely played deep cuts don’t sound tentative or soulless.

Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton

Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton (Kalpesh Patel)

It certainly helps that, even after all these years and subsequent releases, Comfort In Sound (which allowed Nicholas to put his “mixed feelings and emotions into writing songs of recovery”) still contains some of the singer-guitarist’s best compositions: the album “opened both [himself] up as a writer and the depth and soul of Feeder as a band”.

That depth and soul plays out from the very start. The plaintive opener Just The Way I’m Feeling opens quietly with the lines “Love in, love out, Find the feeling/ Scream in, scream out, time for healing” before the buoyant chorus offers a glimmer a hope: “And I feel it’s going down, ten feet below the ground/ I’m waiting for your healing hand, one touch could bring me round”.

The punchy Come Back Around feels more resolutely optimistic but individual lines like “I miss you around” cut right through. Helium (like the stomping Godzilla later) shows off Feeder‘s darker, scuzzier musical side with bass player Taka Hirose and drummer Geoff Holroyde getting their first big workout of the night. Child In You, by contrast, is sonically far more tranquil and beautiful, only highlighting Nicholas’ tender delivery of lines like “Close your eyes and drift away to some place new/ Where the skies are blue brings back the child in you”.

Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton

Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton (Kalpesh Patel)

The title track, lifted by incisive backing vocals from guitarist Tommy Gleeson, glimmers like a beacon of hope, while Forget About Tomorrow pairs buoyant music with darker sentiments. Like the rest of the album — and Aya Takano‘s singular album artwork that’s brought to life behind the band — it feels timeless, not stuck in a moment in time.

The quiet-loud-quiet Summer’s Gone has Nicholas digging deep as he belts out the bridge (“Oh, you’re thinking back, you’re going back to places that you’ve been/ Where days could last forever, but you can only dream”) before playing a charged solo. A mournful Quick Fade gets straight to the heart of the matter with lines like “I miss you more than words can say”; lump in the throat stuff, even if you don’t know the backstory. Find The Colour, in turn, is awash with hope and optimism; a poignant Love Pollution finds the light in the shadows; and the yearning Moonshine offers a gentle resolution (“Only you, it’s only for you”) and that stirring tribute to Lee.

A few minutes after the drum loop suddenly stops and the stage abruptly cuts to black, Nicholas returns for what turns out to be a more playful second half. Immediately more chatty, he admits performing Comfort In Sound is “quite an emotional journey” before a solo acoustic rendition of High turns into a joyous singalong. As Hirose and Gleeson return, they’re joined by hard-hitting former Feeder (and current Skunk Anansie) drummer Mark Richardson for big, bold, booming renditions of Feeling A Moment and Pushing The Senses.

Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton

Feeder @ O2 Academy Brixton (Kalpesh Patel)

They look and sound like a band having fun, which continues into the thrashy, Foo Fighter-y Come Back Around B-side Feel It Again and swirly, stompy Opaque. A bonus track on the Japanese version of Comfort In Sound, tonight it’s dedicated in part to album producer Gil Norton; despite only one previous public airing (in Leeds last night), the song’s “rough around the edges” performance only adds to its swagger. An instant classic.

Clearly emboldened by the reception, Nicholas teases the audience with the Buck Rogers riff before leading them through a riotous rendition of what remains Feeder’s biggest hit. By this point, nobody in the stalls is standing still and everybody in the balcony’s out of their seats — a situation that remains unchanged as Just A Day (and its lockdown video) end the night on a grinning, good-time high.

Live review of Feeder at O2 Academy, Brixton, London on 27th September 2025 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Kalpesh Patel.

Cage The Elephant Show London A Good Time

The Maccabees @ All Points East 2025

The Maccabees @ All Points East 2025 (Ethan Jones)

“All Points East said we should do this. And then all of you bought tickets. You gambled. You thought: ‘Yeah, we’ll go and see that, they haven’t played for ages.’ It’s unbelievable that you took that risk, that you paid that money, you put the faith in the love that you had for our band and the love that you had for the occasion that this might be… It’s not lost on us and I want to say a huge ‘Thank you’ to you for being the gamblers that you are. Thank you for taking the chance.”

The reunited band’s gratitude isn’t just apparent in Weeks’ outpouring. It’s in their euphoric performance, honed to perfection over several summer shows. And it’s in their thoughtful personal curation of the day’s line-up: something like 30 bands across five stages in the space of eight hours. Fantastic, but that’s a lot of potential clashes and a lot of potential FOMO, which — if you’re not careful — can equate to a lot of walking, a lot of dust inhalation in an especially dry park, and a lot to absorb.

All Points East 2025

All Points East 2025 (Ethan Jones)

One minute you might be watching Katy J Pearson and her band (including a trumpeter and violinist) perform the breezy Talk Over Town and dreamy Long Range Driver, the next Tasmin Stephens of TTSSFU take off her devil horns and drop into the audience to sing amongst them, or a focused Hamish Hawk stare down the crowd or move with intensity as he spits out the lyrics of Caterpillar (with its refrain of “testing”).

Or you could wander from experimental post-punks Sorry, playing against a backdrop that reads “You were empty enough to be filled with myth”, give their all to an urgent Echoes or drop in a vocal sample from American Pie, to a stage featuring an assortment of vintage radio-tape decks where Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers is inexplicably holding a baseball bat while singing.

But ultimately it’s better — less walking, more engagement — to take a stand and watch sets in full. The Murder Capital open theirs with The Fall and singer James McGovern demanding “Let’s see some fucking energy!” The fans do just that by moshing to the frenetic drumming and fast, desperate vocals (“We remember why we die”). McGovern corrals that energy into support for The Mary Wallopers (silenced at Victorious Festival) and Palestine before slipping into the emotive set high point Love Of Country, accompanied for the most part by a single strummed guitar. A stormy That Feeling and heavy Words Lost Meaning follow; they may be louder, but neither match its intensity.

Everything Everything, in turn, are a far sunnier proposition. Their outfits (white or black T-shirts underneath pastel shirts) give off the same feelgood tropical vibes as their music. It’s perfect for a beautiful late-Summer afternoon; little wonder they pull the first big crowd of the day. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Get To Heaven, the Manchester band’s set leans into their third album: from the opening rush of To The Blade (immediately showing off Jonathan Higgs‘ falsetto and knack for pairing dark lyrical themes with bright melodies) to plaintive closer No Reptiles (“Just gimme this one night/ Just one night to feel”). Highlights along the way include the technicolor Pizza Boy (with its big synth groove and handclap beats), the motorik Violent Sun, and hip-hoppy dance fest Distant Past (“I want to go back”).

Walking on to Aztec Camera’s Somewhere In My Heart, The Cribs keep the good vibes going by blasting straight into Hey Scenesters! as the crowd shout along spontaneously. I’m A Realist gets a similar response from the get-go, with the audience even chanting the opening riff. Shimmery new song Summer Seizures anchors a quieter mid-set run, before Moving Pictures gets everyone jumping and Men’s Needs gets everyone singing. A punchy Mirror Kissers and communal Be Safe send the Jarman brothers off on a high.

Reaching even greater heights today is CMAT. Backed by an expansive band (including lap steel guitarist and violinist) all dressed in white tops, black shorts or skirts, and ties, the artist born Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson puts on one of the performances of the day. She crowdsurfs. She gets her band to line-dance. She throws her belt into the audience after it gets in the way of her exaggerated ’80s-aerobics-workout-video dance moves. She pauses the show to have a communal cuddle with her musicians. She sings while lying face down on the stage. She has her band freeze in awkward positions. She struts and pouts and high kicks. She chats with the audience as if she’s known them forever. She tries to get the security guards to do the two-step.

But her good-time theatrics and self-deprecating humour would amount to nothing without a fistful of fantastic, meaningful pop songs delivered by crack musos and a spectacular voice. Understandably there’s quite a lot from her brand-new album, EURO-COUNTRY, including bouncy opener The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station, which takes a swipe at the celebrity chef (“That man should not have his face on posters”) before getting rather confessional (“Let me try to explain myself in a few words”). On the surface, When A Good Man Cries is a beautifully crafted love song; she undersells the message of the instantly hummable Take A Sexy Picture Of Me as “women: good, internet bad”; and the cinematic title track is dedicated to all those in the audience living in London because there’s nothing for them at home. Of course, the old favourites aren’t overlooked. Honkytonk hoedown Have Fun! is still, well, fun; Stay for Something really showcases her powerhouse vocals; and I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby briefly turns Victoria Park into a  Nashville dance party.

Almost as celebratory is Bombay Bicycle Club’s performance, which plays out against a backdrop of red curtains and “MY BIG DAY” spelled out in gold balloons. As if the streamers at the end of a bounding Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You) don’t reinforce the festive tone, singer-guitarist Jack Steadman’s steady grin forces it home. Obviously thrilled to be playing just their fourth gig of 2025, he announces: “We’re very happy to be here. We haven’t played a show for such a long time, so thank you guys for coming out and watching us.”

The audience do a lot more than watch: they cheer, they dance, they sing along as the group (complemented by a keyboard player, backing singer, and three-piece brass section) rummage through their back catalogue and pull out one gem after another. There’s Feel‘s mariachi madness, afro-folky jam Always Like This, an utterly joyous Shuffle, the choral bliss of So Long, See You Tomorrow, and even glitchy orchestral drum ‘n’ bass outing Rural Radio Predicts the Rapture (featuring the return of CMAT, clearly intent on being today’s MVP).

But, try as she might, the day undoubtedly belongs to The Maccabees. Their first big London show since that farewell at Alexandra Palace in July 2017 begins, fittingly, with videos and photos from their past on the huge screens, before cutting to live footage of them walking out. The black and white coverage, mostly shot from the stage, continues for the first few minutes and creates a sense of intimacy. The first few songs — short, urgent bursts of energy from debut album Colour It In: Latchmere, Lego, X-Ray—performed in rapid succession, create a sense of immediacy.

As their set progresses, they add dashes of elegance with the likes of Feel To Follow and Toothpaste Kisses, moments of light and shade with Can You Give It and Grew Up At Midnight, and snatches of drama on Kamakura and Silence. But they never lose momentum, frequently diving back into the urgency of songs like Love You Better, Precious Time, Spit It Out, and especially Marks To Prove It (featuring an enthusiastically welcomed guest appearance by Jamie T, who sticks around to lead the band through his own Sticks ‘N’ Stones).

The epic Pelican ends The Maccabees‘ epic return, which, judging by Felix White’s next-day Instagram post, was as important to the band as to “the gamblers” in the audience: “Last night at @allpointseastuk was like living out a childhood dream, but being old enough to actually take it in. Still not sure what else to say about it, other than thank you.”

Live review of All Points East 2025 featuring The Maccabees @ Victoria Park, London on 24th August 2025 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Ethan Jones.

All Points East 2025: SAULT, Cleo Sol & Chronixx Deliver Provenance Amid A Day Of Powerful Female Voices

Matt Berninger @ Troxy

Matt Berninger @ Troxy (Abigail Shii)

Ronboy’s back too, on keyboards and vocals during Berninger’s set and as show opener. During her 30-minute slot, the musician born Julia Laws showcases the full range of her work, from the emotional vulnerability of tender piano ballad Your Way to the ethereal, synth-driven Oceans Of Emotion with its sudden, emotionally fraught outbursts that point to the heavier sound of her most recent singles. These end the set on an intense high: the ominous Disaster (which sees Berninger come out to perform his largely spoken parts) is all droning bassline, buzzing guitar, feverish drumming, and Laws repeating “I’m a disaster”; the scuzzy Get Rich Fix is Ronboy at her most unashamedly confident and unfiltered.

Berninger starts his set a little more quietly, with the gorgeous No Love, the first of 10 Get Sunk tracks aired tonight. It’s followed by the equally elegant Frozen Oranges, one of several songs on the album set in Indiana in the 1980s, shares the singer, before revealing that oranges don’t actually grow there. Such typically dry, deadpan commentary continues throughout the evening and only helps make this sold-out 3000-capacity venue feel more intimate. After fronting The National for more than two decades, he knows that being personable, conversational, and truthful makes a connection with audiences of any size.

So between a running joke about Fleetwood Mac cover versions, we get admissions like the part-spoken, part-shouted, part-sung, completely desperate (and fantastic) Nowhere Special being several sub-par songs “squished together”. Before the defeat and beauty of Little By Little, we get a heartfelt shoutout to its co-writer and Berninger’s lifelong friend Mike Brewer, in the audience tonight with his family. After a slightly convoluted explanation of Junk (something like: we’re all just stuff, a combination of stuff that happens to be able to write songs or tell jokes,  but we’re also not just stuff), there’s a grinned “I didn’t explain that very well.” And after playing some harmonica on a wistful Distant Axis, from debut solo album Serpentine Prison, the singer declares with mock bravado: “I’ve been taking up instruments. Instruments are easy.”

Also unchanged from the day job is the degree of animation and vigour with which he performs, as if trying to reach the back rows of an arena. Physically he’s all about acting out lyrics, pointing, hitting his head, tugging at his collar, slow-motion running, Nick Cave-style preacher gestures, leaning forward or crouching into the weightier lyrics. And vocally, he does exactly what each song demands: crooning and confessional restraint on the Ronboy duets Silver Springs and Silver Jeep; unhinged intensity during the crescendos of The National’s Terrible Love (“It takes an ocean not to break!”) and tonight’s standout Bonnet Of Pins (“I know that you miss me!”)

As the jacket comes off, the night ends with a celebratory Blue Monday — the New Order classic gleefully interpreted by Berninger and his band — and Get Sunk opener (and Indiana-referencing) Inland Ocean, which starts out as a tranquil duet and swells into a wave of transcendence that washes over the audience.

Live review of Matt Berninger at Troxy, London on 27th August 2025 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Abigail Shii.

Olivia Rodrigo Proves That London Is Her Favourite City At BST Hyde Park 2025

The singer may have calmed down a little since the band played O2 Forum Kentish Town back in early 2016. He no longer spends half the gig crowd surfing or in the photo pit. Diving into the audience from the fire escape stairs has also been relegated to the past.

Cage The Elephant @ O2 Academy, Brixton

Cage The Elephant @ O2 Academy, Brixton (Abigail Shii)

Yet the hyperactive Shultz remains one of the most watchable performers out there. Rarely standing still, even while singing, he leaps, prances, bounds, and hotsteps from one side of the stage to the other as if the floor’s lava. When he does slow down, it’s to move towards the audience and sing at them with intent or to get on his knees and push his voice further still. Even his time at the mic stand is punctuated with launching himself off it and into the air.

But Shultz’s oversized personality — which extends to between-song banter about the band’s rough early days in London and drinking Strongbow and gin on the tube — never overpowers the songs. Performed with enthusiasm and obvious joy tonight, they represent all six of the band’s studio albums and show how the Kentucky six-piece have always balanced volume and raw power with big choruses and hugely singable melodies. And they’ve never been afraid to try on different styles.

So newer songs like strutting set opener Broken Boy, arm-swaying Rainbow, and hip-hoppy Good Time, have no trouble sidling up to the older stuff. And they sound just as good. Exhibit A: 2019’s paranoid House Of Glass is the perfect lead-in to an absolutely ferocious Sabertooth Tiger, which feels even more carnal than it does on 2011’s Thank You Happy Birthday. It closes the main set with the kneeling singer shouting “Run away” as the music descends into feedback.

Absolutely brilliant, just like the jittery Spiderhead and pretty Telescope, which brings out the mobile phone lights and a chorus of audience voices that almost drowns out Shultz.

Just as impressive is the run of songs that kicks off about an hour into the set with melodic thrasher Halo. Mess Around, with its “oh no” refrain, is faster, chunkier, and even bigger with the crowd. An incredibly beautiful Trouble starts out slow and restrained, gradually growing into a massive audience chorus of “Trouble on my left, trouble on my right/ I been facing trouble almost all my life”. And blues stomp Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked, with a furious solo from lead guitarist Nick Bockrath, gets the room bouncing.

But it’s all just been building up to the encore: four songs, each greeted with even more cheering and singing. Back Against The Wall is scuzzy good time country rock that demands to be danced to. The fast-slow Shake Me Down is all about shouting along with Shultz during the quiet bits and throwing shapes during the loud parts (with the singer’s hip shaking leading the way).

The sunny Cigarette Daydreams, based around rhythm guitarist Brad Shultz‘s acoustic strumming, is an open invitation for the night’s biggest audience singalong; Brixton delivers throughout, but especially when the band drop out to let the crowd take over. And Come A Little Closer, with its rousing chorus and lines like “Time flies by, they all sang along” is an uplifting, unifying end to a night that began hours earlier with Girl Tones.

Sisters from Bowling Green, Cage The Elephant‘s hometown, Laila (drums) and Kenzie Crowe (voice and guitar) uphold the tradition of The White Stripes: two people can play with as much attitude and volume as four. They add punky aggression and spiky songs to the mix, making for a punchy set bookended by their first two singles, both produced by Brad Shultz. Again and Fade Away both pair beefy riffs, no-nonsense drumming, and take-no-prisoners vocals with subtle shifts in tempo and intensity. Raw but real.

With their in-your-face sound and a set almost as eclectic as the headliners, Sunflower Bean are the perfect bridge between the openers and Cage The Elephant. The trio from New York City, fronted by the bass-wielding singer Julia Cumming, swerve from moments like the gritty Lucky Number to the psychedelic Shake by way of perfectly poised ballads like Who Put You Up To This?.

No matter the song’s style, each features a bristling guitar solo courtesy of Nick Kivlen, an approach that extends to the new tracks from forthcoming album, Mortal Primetime. Lead single Champagne Taste is especially potent and a real promise of the celebration yet to come tonight.

Live review of Cage The Elephant at O2 Academy, Brixton, London on 17th February 2025 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Abigail Shii.

Garbage Push It At Wembley Arena