Bilk Electric Ballroom 070225-029
It looks like a low-budget disaster movie: shaky, blurry, out of focus shots of bodies being thrown around by some seismic force. The shouting only adds to the impression.
But this is typical fan footage of a bilk gig where the moshing, crowd surfing, roared choruses, and Ali G impersonator are almost as important as the riotous soundtrack. Tonight’s no different as the Essex trio and their followers set off audio dynamite inside Camden‘s Electric Ballroom.
Isle Of Wight duo The Pill light the fuse. Their 30-minute set is packed with feisty “jank” punk anthems that mask big issues beneath their three chords and winking, self-effacing lyrics. Sharing vocal duties (and the occasional scream), Lily on guitar and Lottie on bass blitz through the likes of stereotype-shaking Woman Driver, blonde experience Bale Of Hay, and one about Leonardo DiCaprio‘s age-inappropriate girlfriends, while drummer Rufus keeps the bpm in the red.
Bilk pack even more punch. Leaning into new album Essex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, they kick off with its opening track, swaggering Britpop homage RNR (“I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star today”) before hurtling straight into Slag, a bright ’90s Cali-punk anthem about shagging. Go is all muscle, with singer/guitarist/songwriter Sol Abrahams channeling his love of hip-hop into the grimey flows of the verses. He even name checks Biggie Smalls, The Smiths, and Oasis over the sounds of his crashing guitar, Luke Hare‘s gallumping bass, and Harry Gray‘s apocalyptic drumming.
By the fourth song, the raging slice-of-life Brand New Day, the fans up front are already so amped that Abrahams encourages them to make the mosh pit as big as they can (while looking out for each other). Be Someone, also from 2023’s self-titled debut, positively rages. Dropped into the set after the crowd chant for it, gritty early single CM2 has lost none of its edge, both musically and lyrically (“We’ve got nothing to do, living in CM2”). And the stomping On It, with its long instrumental intro and outsized bass groove, is an all-out good-time party anthem that incites mass synchronised pogoing.
But it’s not all balls to the wall; with Essex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, bilk have widened their horizons. Summer Days, a love song about Abrahams meeting his current girlfriend, is dressed up in shimmering indie-pop. The bouncy Very Nice Life is positively cheery. F Up, which Abrahams has said is “about living free, not taking life too seriously, having a laugh”, cleverly pairs the attitude of (say) Oasis with the dexterity of (say) Blur. Band Life Blues tells their origin story as a swampy blues classic.
There’s even a mid-set unplugged bit, with the frontman performing solo on acoustic guitar. While Beatriz is genuinely heartfelt and earnest, the brutally direct Skidmark comes with bilk‘s signature edge. A no-nonsense kiss-off, its chorus turns into a cheery mass fireside-style singalong that prominently features “a word that the radio would definitely bleep”.
The acoustic guitar comes out again during the encore (the melancholy Turning Pages with its refrain of “what’s it all for?”), but that’s a brief breather in the band’s final sprint of songs. The thrashing This Room Is Caving In On Me perfectly matches those chaotic fan videos. Fashion, with its message of “being yourself no matter what anyone else thinks”, is just as wild. But nothing matches the absolute pandemonium of Daydreamer as band and audience together escape the harsh reality of what it means to be young in the UK in 2025.
Live review of bilk at Electric Ballroom, London on 7th February 2025 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Simon Reed.
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