Orville Peck @ Roundhouse

Orville Peck @ Roundhouse (Emma Stone)

The reason is simple. Orville Peck is finally back in town. After seven long years, everyone’s favourite masked cowboy has brought his rodeo back to UK shores, and the excitement inside the venue is almost tangible. This is not simply an audience waiting to watch an artist they like. It feels like a reunion between Orville Peck and a British fanbase that has spent years waiting for another chance to hear these songs in the room they were made for.

The anticipation is palpable. Every eye is fixed on the stage. The band members take their places one by one to the sound of The Kinks‘ Waterloo Sunset, stretching the anticipation even further. The crowd waits, knowing exactly who is still missing. Then, finally, he appears. The response is enormous. Dressed for the occasion and guitar in hand, Johannesburg-hailing, US & Canada-based musician strides into the spotlight to a roar of approval before launching into Turn To Hate, immediately followed by C’mon Baby Cry. The seven-year wait is over. And judging by the volume inside The Roundhouse, nobody is planning to waste a second of it.

What becomes immediately apparent is just how deeply these songs have embedded themselves in the lives of the people standing in front of the stage. Every song is met with voices singing along word for word. Everywhere you look, people are smiling, dancing, shouting and simply soaking up the fact that the man behind the mask is finally standing in front of them again. There is a particular kind of joy in seeing an artist return after such a long absence, but this feels more profound than that. There is genuine gratitude in the room. After all, seven years is a long time.

During that period, the songs have remained, becoming part of people’s lives while the opportunity to experience them live has remained frustratingly out of reach. Tonight, that gap finally closes. And Orville Peck understands exactly what the occasion means.

Between songs, Peck takes his time talking to the crowd, offering stories and insight into the experiences that inspired the music. Rather than simply moving from one song to the next, he creates a sense that the audience is being invited further inside the world behind the mask. He speaks about Hexie Mountains, explaining how it was the first song where he felt able to be genuinely open and vulnerable about his struggles with anxiety and depression. The response is immediate. There is a sense that the admission is not simply being heard but understood.

Then comes Blush, a song written about a man who ghosted Peck while he was living in London. The story prompts another enormous reaction, and suddenly the distance between performer and audience feels almost non-existent. For an artist whose public persona is so deliberately constructed, these moments of vulnerability are particularly effective. The mask may remain, but the person behind it feels remarkably exposed.

The set then moves across Orville Peck‘s catalogue, drawing from older releases alongside more recent material. Atchafalaya, from his Appaloosa EP, provides the first outing of the evening for material from that release. Originally featuring Noah Cyrus, tonight the vocal is taken by one of Peck’s oldest friends, Emily Rose, adding another personal dimension to a song that already feels rooted in friendship and connection.

Then it is back to Bronco with Any Turn, a rousing celebration of life on the road and the relentless nature of touring. It also gives Peck an opportunity to let loose. He storms around the stage as the fringed tassels of his outfit fly behind him, his signature White Falcon guitar catching the stage lights as he throws himself into the performance. It is a reminder that beneath all the mystique, melancholy and storytelling, Orville Peck knows exactly how to put on a show. And the audience is more than willing to join him. There is dancing everywhere. The atmosphere inside The Roundhouse has become less like a conventional gig and more like a long-delayed celebration.

Orville Peck @ Roundhouse

Orville Peck @ Roundhouse (Emma Stone)

At one point, Peck apologises for the length of time since his last UK visit before explaining just how much has happened in the meantime. The band have not even spent much of the recent period touring the US, with Peck instead appearing in Cabaret, filming the new Street Fighter movie and working on a new album. Each revelation receives its own enormous cheer. But when Peck tells the crowd that the new album will arrive “way sooner than you think”, the reaction is something else entirely.

Then comes the real treat. A brand-new song, Too Little, Too Late. It is a tantalising glimpse of what comes next, and the reaction suggests that the appetite for a new chapter of Orville Peck‘s music is already enormous. For an audience that has just waited seven years for this night, being handed a previously unheard song feels like an especially generous gift.

Then the atmosphere changes. The room falls quiet. The sound of crickets chirping fills the venue. For a moment, nobody moves. Then comes that unmistakable opening note. Dead Of Night. The reaction is immediate and deafening. It is, by some distance, one of the defining songs of Peck’s career and arguably the track many in the room have been waiting all evening to hear. Now, with the first notes ringing around The Roundhouse, the entire audience joins in. Thousands of voices become one.

For a song that helped establish Peck’s particular blend of country, Americana, cinematic melancholy and masked mystique, hearing it performed in this setting feels almost inevitable. It has travelled a long way from its original release, but tonight it belongs entirely to the people singing it back to him.

The encore provides another surprise. As has become customary on this tour, the first song of the encore changes from night to night, and tonight London gets Let Me Drown. It is another reminder that this is not a simple greatest-hits exercise. Peck is constantly reshaping the show, keeping an element of unpredictability for audiences who have followed the tour from one city to another.

Finally, he returns to Bronco for the title track. And with one final cry of “Yeehaw, London!”, the rodeo comes to an end.

For seven years, the UK has waited. Tonight, Orville Peck makes the wait feel like a distant memory. The cowboy hats will disappear back into wardrobes. The boots will eventually come off. The tasselled jackets will return to their usual place in the cupboard. But the feeling inside The Roundhouse tonight will take considerably longer to fade.

This is more than an artist returning to a country after a long absence. It is a reunion. And judging by the reaction, everyone in the room is already counting down to the next one — while simultaneously hoping that it will not take another 2,555 days.

Live review and photography of Orville Peck @ The Roundhouse, London by Emma Stone on 29th June 2026.

Garth Brooks Has Friends In Hyde Places At BST Hyde Park 2026

Across three days, the anniversary brings together established names, emerging artists, local talent and performers from considerably further afield. Super Furry Animals, The Dead South, Frank Turner, The Wonder Stuff and Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle are among those helping mark the milestone, alongside a bill that stretches far beyond any narrow definition of folk. And that has always been part of Moseley’s charm.

The setting helps too. Hidden away behind the streets of Birmingham, Moseley Park feels remarkably removed from the city surrounding it. The lake, trees and natural slope towards the Main Stage give the festival an intimacy that is increasingly difficult to find elsewhere.

For its twentieth birthday, Moseley does not try to become something bigger. It simply reminds everyone why what it already has works.

Moseley Folk and Art Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @ finneganfoto)

Moseley Folk and Art Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @ finneganfoto)

Friday – Here for the Weekend

Friday provides the first glimpse of what the anniversary weekend has in store, and you do not have to wait long for one of its first surprises. Over on the Janice Long Stage, Shropshire boy Pete Hubbard has the honour of opening proceedings. Despite it being barely midday, the dungaree-clad performer manages to draw an impressive crowd.

There is an infectious energy about Hubbard’s performance, with Here For The Weekend proving a massive early highlight. People are dancing and bobbing along in front of the stage and, for an artist handed the potentially difficult job of getting a festival crowd going at lunchtime, he makes remarkably light work of it. Not bad going for midday on day one.

Over on the Main Stage, Morgan Nagler provides a very different introduction to the weekend. The Los Angeles singer-songwriter might be releasing music under her own name now, but she is hardly a newcomer. Nagler previously fronted Whispertown and has spent years writing and collaborating with artists including Phoebe Bridgers, HAIM and Madi Diaz. Her Moseley appearance comes in the year she finally steps forward with her own debut solo material.

There is something fitting about having an artist who has spent so much time behind other people’s songs standing alone on the Main Stage at Moseley. Her plaintive voice and understated songwriting ease the festival into life rather than trying to kick the doors down – the sort of booking that rewards people who turn up early.

Then comes Damien Dempsey. Raw, powerful and unmistakably himself, Dempsey brings things firmly back towards storytelling, his performance carrying the conviction of someone who genuinely means every word he sings.

Back at the Janice Long Stage, Dave Lofts is another example of Friday’s particularly strong Irish contingent. The former Irish Defence Forces soldier has taken an unusual route into music, but his raw indie-folk songwriting has been building a considerable audience. By the time he arrives at Moseley, he has already sold out 25 consecutive Irish headline shows and a debut UK tour, while songs including Holy and Mary have arrived in 2026.

Lofts’ storytelling fits the smaller Janice Long Stage particularly well. He is part of an increasingly exciting wave of Irish artists for whom folk is not something preserved behind glass; it is something to pull apart, modernise and make personal. On a Friday featuring Dempsey, Dermot Henry, Madra Salach and eventually Kingfishr, Lofts helps make Moseley Park feel increasingly Irish as the day goes on.

Then Birmingham’s own Katherine Priddy demonstrates why her reputation as one of Britain’s most compelling contemporary folk songwriters continues to grow. There is a quietness and intricacy to Priddy’s music that could easily disappear on an enormous festival stage. Here, surrounded by the greenery of Moseley Park, it works beautifully. And music is not the only thing competing for attention.

Over at Speakers Corner, David O’Doherty demonstrates exactly why the word Arts deserves its place in the festival’s name. Armed with the deliberately lo-fi keyboard that has become such a familiar part of his act, the Irish comedian brings his mixture of stand-up, songs and wonderfully silly observations to a festival already refusing to stay in one particular lane.

A regular at the Edinburgh Fringe since 2000 and familiar from appearances on QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Would I Lie to You?, O’Doherty is a substantial name to find away from the music stages. His appearance is part of Moseley’s collaboration with Birmingham Comedy Festival and shows that wandering away from the Main Stage can lead to something completely different.

Then Friday starts getting considerably louder. BIG SPECIAL may not immediately spring to mind when you think of a folk festival, but that is exactly why their inclusion works. The Black Country duo bring punk, poetry and social commentary crashing into Moseley Park. Joe Hicklin commands the stage while Callum Moloney attacks the drums behind him, providing one of the day’s biggest changes of pace. Twenty years in, Moseley clearly is not interested in being constrained by what a folk festival is supposed to sound like.

The Janice Long Stage continues to reward anyone willing to wander away from the Main Stage, with Family Stereo, Dermot Henry and Dublin six-piece Madra Salach completing a line-up that gives Friday a surprisingly strong Irish flavour.

And that balance between the established and the still-to-be-discovered remains one of Moseley’s greatest strengths. You can leave a major Main Stage performance, wander through the trees towards a smaller stage or Speakers Corner and find something entirely different waiting for you.

Kingfishr Arrive

As darkness settles over Moseley Park, Friday ultimately belongs to Kingfishr. The Irish trio have enjoyed a remarkable rise, and Moseley represents another significant milestone – their first UK festival headline performance.

Eddie Keogh, Eoghan McGrath and Eoin Fitzgibbon have built their reputation on songs that lend themselves perfectly to festival crowds: huge choruses, folk instrumentation and emotional songwriting that quickly turns individual songs into communal experiences.

At Moseley, you can see why their trajectory has been quite so steep. This does not feel like a festival taking a chance on a band stepping up to headline. It feels like a headline band arriving. There is also something fitting about it. On a weekend celebrating a festival with twenty years behind it, Friday night ends by looking firmly towards what might come next.

Twenty Years Celebrated Across Three Days

Kingfishr may have brought Friday to a close, but Moseley’s birthday is only getting started. Across Saturday and Sunday, the anniversary line-up continues to demonstrate the breadth that has come to define the festival.

Super Furry Animals are among the weekend’s biggest names, bringing with them a catalogue stretching back three decades, while The Dead South offer their distinctive Canadian take on bluegrass and folk.

Moseley Folk and Art Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @ finneganfoto)

Moseley Folk and Art Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @ finneganfoto)

Elsewhere, Frank Turner brings the sort of songwriting and live energy that has made him an enduring presence on festival bills, while Birmingham’s own The Wonder Stuff add another connection to the region’s musical history.

There is also a particularly fitting appearance from Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle. Pentangle appear at the inaugural Moseley Folk Festival back in 2006, making their return for the twentieth anniversary a neat link between the festival’s first chapter and where it finds itself today.

Johnny Flynn, Lillie Flynn and Jane Weaver are among the many other names filling out a weekend that moves between generations and genres without ever feeling like it has wandered away from Moseley’s identity.

That is important, because longevity alone is not necessarily something worth celebrating. Still being relevant is.

Here’s to the Next Twenty

Over the course of its anniversary weekend, Moseley Folk & Arts Festival demonstrates why it has made it to twenty. There are bigger festivals. There are louder festivals. There are certainly festivals where getting from one stage to another feels like you have accidentally entered a half-marathon. Moseley is not trying to be any of them.

Its greatest strength remains the atmosphere it has created inside Moseley Park: big enough to attract artists capable of commanding huge audiences, yet intimate enough that someone opening a smaller stage at lunchtime can draw a crowd and become one of the discoveries of the weekend.

That is why Pete Hubbard happily belongs on the same weekend as Kingfishr, Frank Turner, Super Furry Animals and The Dead South. It is why a punk duo like BIG SPECIAL does not feel out of place alongside Katherine Priddy or Damien Dempsey. And it is why a comedian with a tiny keyboard can be just as much a part of the Moseley experience as the bands playing a few hundred metres away.

Twenty years after it first opened its gates, Moseley Folk & Arts Festival still feels like somewhere you go as much to discover who you have never heard of as to see the name at the top of the poster. Twenty years down. Here’s to the next twenty.

The Moseley Folk & Arts Festival 2026 — Finnegan for Rockshot Magazine

Live review & photography of The Moseley Folk & Arts Festival 2026 @ Moseley Park, Birmingham, by Henry Finnegan on 4th September 2026. Instagram: @finneganfoto | Facebook: @finneganfoto

The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day Two: Who Needs Sunshine When You’ve Got Ronnie Wood?

No running for shelter. No nervously checking the sky between songs. No photographers desperately trying to keep cameras dry. For the first time all weekend, Stanford Hall can simply get on with being a country festival, and with Maren Morris, Emmylou Harris, Kezia Gill, Ryan and Rory, The Felice Brothers, Anne Wilson, Jim Lauderdale and plenty more still to come, there is a lot to squeeze into the final day.

The Long Road Festival 2026

The Long Road Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

There is also a familiar face with some unfinished business. Liam Price has spent Saturday gathering people around a rain-soaked VIP Stage, but he has already told me where his attention really is. Sunday means the Rhinestone Stage.

Having earned his opportunity at The Long Road Festival by winning the festival’s competition the previous year, this is the moment he has been working towards. The Rhinestone Stage is a very different proposition from the smaller stages around Stanford Hall. It is enormous, exposed and there really is nowhere to hide, particularly when you are the artist tasked with opening the final day. But Price has earned his place there, and he looks like he knows it.

There is something satisfying about seeing that journey completed. Twenty-four hours earlier, people have been huddled around him trying to avoid the rain; now he is standing on the biggest stage at the festival. The Long Road Festival talks a lot about supporting emerging talent, but moments like this are where you actually see what that can mean.

Errol Linton offers something entirely different, bringing his blues pedigree to the festival before attention turns back towards two artists who are impossible not to enjoy.

Ryan and Rory bring exactly the sort of energy Sunday needs. Both come into country music with previous careers in pop, and you can hear some of that instinct in their songwriting. These are two guys who know how to write a catchy tune, something their new song BEER WANTS ME proves almost immediately. Even the title feels designed to lodge itself in your head, and live it has exactly the sort of instant singalong quality that festival crowds thrive on.

What makes them particularly entertaining on stage, though, is how much they throw into delivering those songs. Switching between multiple instruments, bouncing off one another and seemingly incapable of standing still for very long, their infectious personalities quickly spread across the crowd. Add in the harmonies, obvious chemistry and, of course, the good looks, and they are something of a dream to watch on stage, particularly through a camera.

But underneath all that personality is genuine musicianship. Their pop backgrounds have clearly given them an understanding of how to construct something immediate and memorable, while country has given them a space where their personalities seem completely at home. BEER WANTS ME feels like a perfect example of that combination: fun, ridiculously catchy and not taking itself too seriously. They are one of my highlights of Sunday because there is simply something joyful about watching them. Ryan and Rory look like they are having the time of their lives, and before long everyone watching is having a pretty good time too.

Oliver Hazard shifts things towards indie-folk before another of my Sunday highlights arrives on the Rhinestone Stage.

Kezia Gill has become one of the most recognisable figures in British country, and her performance shows exactly why. There is a confidence to Gill now that comes from years of doing this, but crucially, it has not removed the warmth and personality that helped people connect with her in the first place.

Even what she is wearing tells you something about the artist she is. Gill walks onto one of the biggest stages at The Long Road Festival in an outfit she has made herself, every detail put together by her own hands. There is something rather poetic about that when you consider her career has been built in much the same way: piece by piece, detail by detail, doing the work herself and gradually creating something unmistakably hers.

And then comes perhaps the most perfect moment of the set. After two days in which the British weather has seemingly declared war on The Long Road Festival, Gill speaks about her late father and how she has prayed to him for some sunshine during her set. And, lo and behold, the sun comes out. Stanford Hall suddenly seems to light up around her, the sunshine arriving almost perfectly on cue. You can believe whatever you want about moments like that, but standing there watching it happen, it is difficult not to smile.

It gives an already emotional performance another layer. Gill commands a stage without making it feel like she is trying to command it. The big vocals are there, the songs are there, but so is the person behind them. On Sunday, dressed in something she has made herself and finally standing in the sunshine she has asked her dad for, it feels like we are seeing a little snapshot of her entire journey. She has built the outfit, she has built the career, and for a few minutes even the weather seems willing to play its part.

Around the rest of Stanford Hall, Lily Fitts brings a softer touch to proceedings, while Henry Grace and Dan Byrne offer still more reasons to keep wandering rather than planting yourself in front of the main stage for the entire day.

That remains one of the joys of The Long Road Festival: you can have a list of artists you absolutely need to see and still end up losing half an hour to somebody you have barely heard of simply because you happen to walk past at the right moment.

Jim Lauderdale is another artist who feels completely at home in the more intimate surroundings of the festival. A GRAMMY®-winning songwriter and one of those names whose fingerprints can be found across American roots and country music, Lauderdale does not need enormous production to make an impact. Give him songs, an audience willing to listen and a stage that allows both to breathe, and there is not much else required.

Emily Scott Robinson provides another reminder that some of The Long Road Festival‘s best performances do not necessarily need to be the loudest. Her songwriting-led approach rewards anyone willing to stop moving between stages for a while and simply listen, while Anne Wilson brings a more contemporary country sound as the afternoon moves towards evening.

Then there is Hayley Jensen. I have already caught Jensen on Saturday, but her Sunday appearance on the Front Porch is something else entirely. Calling it a Front Porch performance almost undersells what happens because the crowd seems determined to turn the whole area into one enormous dance floor. Jensen absolutely tears into the set and people pack around the stage, dancing wherever they can find enough room to move.

This is exactly why I love that stage. On paper, it is one of The Long Road Festival‘s more intimate spaces, but when the right artist catches fire, it can suddenly feel enormous. Jensen has already demonstrated the power of her voice the previous day, but here she seems to feed off the crowd and the crowd feeds straight back. By the end, the Front Porch feels less like somewhere you have wandered across at a festival and more like a party you have accidentally discovered and do not want to leave.

The Felice Brothers and The Brothers Comatose continue to demonstrate the depth of Americana, folk and roots running through the weekend, while Emmylou Harris brings something altogether different: genuine country music history.

Seeing Harris on the Rhinestone Stage is always going to be one of the most significant moments of the weekend. Her influence stretches far beyond country into folk and Americana, and simply having the opportunity to see an artist of her stature feels important. Musically, she is everything you would expect. That voice remains unmistakable and there are moments of genuine beauty throughout the set. Yet, if I am being critical, there is something slightly distant about the performance.

For all the history and significance surrounding her appearance, Harris does not always seem particularly thrilled to be there. Perhaps that is simply her understated stage presence, but from where I am standing there is a noticeable lack of connection with the occasion. It creates a strange contrast. I know I am watching a legend. I know how important those songs are and how rare the opportunity is. The performance itself is beautiful. Yet I cannot quite shake the feeling that Harris would rather be somewhere else.

That does not take anything away from what it means to see her. If anything, it makes the experience slightly more complicated. This is not a triumphant, arms-in-the-air festival performance; it is quieter, more restrained and perhaps one to appreciate for what you are witnessing rather than how loudly it demands your attention.

Outpost Drive and Jonny Morgan & The Moral Support help keep the music flowing elsewhere as the final hours of The Long Road Festival begin disappearing.

And then it is time for the final Rhinestone Stage headliner of 2026. Maren Morris arrives at Stanford Hall with a catalogue containing some enormous songs and a career that has increasingly refused to sit comfortably within a single genre.

Morris is an interesting artist for me because, personally, quite a lot of her music drifts beyond what I would normally consider country and into pop and R&B territory. The lines between genres have become increasingly blurred anyway, and Morris has spent much of her career happily walking across them, but there are certainly moments where this feels quite a long way from the traditional country and Americana heard elsewhere across the weekend. The crowd could not care less. They love her. And ultimately, that is what matters at a festival.

From the moment Morris arrives, the field in front of the Rhinestone Stage belongs to her. Whatever your personal opinion on exactly where her music sits within the country landscape, watching the reaction around Stanford Hall makes it impossible to question the connection she has with her audience.

For me, some of the material may sit closer to R&B and pop than the country music I naturally gravitate towards, but thousands of people singing and dancing around me clearly feel differently. That contrast is part of what makes The Long Road Festival interesting. The same festival that can give you Jim Lauderdale and Emmylou Harris can also end with Maren Morris, without feeling the need to tell you which version of country you are supposed to prefer.

And suddenly, that is it. Three days earlier, people have arrived at Stanford Hall beneath threatening skies. Since then, we have had thunderstorms stop performances, First Time Flyers turn an evacuation into a singalong, The Shires battle technical problems, Bec O’Malley step up, Josh Ross look every inch a future headliner, and Ronnie Wood and Imelda May somehow turn a replacement booking in the pouring rain into arguably the performance of the weekend.

Sunday has been different. For once, the weather has not become the enemy. Instead, we have watched Liam Price complete the journey from competition winner to the Rhinestone Stage, Ryan and Rory demonstrate that catchy songs, serious musicianship and infectious personalities are a pretty formidable combination, Kezia Gill stand in an outfit she has made herself as the sunshine she has asked her father for arrives almost on cue, and Hayley Jensen turn the Front Porch into one enormous dance floor.

We have watched a genuine legend in Emmylou Harris, even if the connection between artist and festival does not quite feel as strong as I had hoped, before Maren Morris shows exactly why country music’s boundaries continue to be debated — and why her audience does not seem particularly interested in debating them.

The Long Road Festival 2026

The Long Road Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

But the big names are not necessarily what stick with you most about The Long Road Festival. It is the smaller moments. It is being squeezed into shelter while a band starts singing. It is watching an emerging artist step onto a stage they have spent a year trying to reach. It is thousands of people refusing to leave while Ronnie Wood plays in torrential rain. It is a woman asking her late father for sunshine and watching the clouds seemingly listen. It is discovering someone you had not planned to see and immediately making a note of their name.

That is what The Long Road Festival does better than almost any festival I have attended. You arrive with a schedule full of artists you want to see and leave talking about half a dozen you did not know you needed to. By Sunday night, the boots are destroyed, the camera has survived more water than I would ever willingly expose it to again, and my legs are very aware that Stanford Hall is considerably bigger when you have spent three days repeatedly walking across it.

The Long Road Festival 2026

The Long Road Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

The Long Road Festival has given us pretty much everything: rain, lightning, sunshine, technical failures, surprise performances, new discoveries, genuine legends and one Rolling Stone standing in a field in Leicestershire while the heavens open. There is really only one thing left to face. The Long Road home.

Live review & photography of The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day Three @ Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, by Henry Finnegan on 30th August 2026. Instagram: @finneganfoto | Facebook: @finneganfoto

The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day Two: Who Needs Sunshine When You’ve Got Ronnie Wood?

Evanescence @ The O2

Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)

Instead, Evanescence use their past as a launchpad for their future, with a set that leans heavily — emphatically so — on their sixth studio album, Sanctuary. Twelve of the record’s 13 songs appear across the evening, an unusually bold commitment for a band carrying a catalogue containing songs as culturally entrenched as Bring Me To Life, Going Under and My Immortal. The result is a show that feels less like a victory lap and more like a declaration: Evanescence are not simply preserving what they have built; they are still building.

Before that declaration arrives, the evening gets two very different injections of energy. Kristine Flaherty – AKA K.Flay – wastes little time establishing her ability to make the vast arena feel like a club. Scratch and Raw Raw immediately bring a restless physicality, while Tomboys Don’t Cry and Blood In The Cut push the set into a heavier, more abrasive territory. There is a deliberately unruly collision of rock, electronic textures and hip-hop attitude throughout, with Rabbit Hole, Blood Cells and High Enough demonstrating the breadth of an artist who refuses to sit comfortably inside one genre. Ants brings the short, sharp set to a close with the room properly warmed up.

K.Flay with Evanescence @ The O2

K.Flay with Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)

Then comes Poppy, who operates in an entirely different kind of strange. Opening with have you had enough?, she moves between industrial metal, electronic pop and something altogether more theatrical, with the cost of giving up, Bruised Sky and Scary Mask establishing a set that continually shifts shape. crystallized and vital lean into the heavier side of her sound, while Public Domain and Time Will Tell further underline her refusal to be predictable. A particularly effective V.A.N — her Bad Omens collaboration track — provides another sharp change of direction before If We’re Following the Light and new way out bring her set to a suitably dramatic conclusion.

Poppy with Evanescence @ The O2

Poppy with Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)

By the time the lights fall for Evanescence, the scale changes completely. The stage erupts into a vast, cinematic environment of towering screens, shifting imagery, moving platforms, smoke, fire, strobes and carefully timed bursts of spectacle. Yet the production never manages to overwhelm the person at its centre. Amy Lee remains the focal point.

Behind the piano, at the microphone or moving across the stage, she possesses the kind of presence that makes an arena feel intimate. Her voice remains the defining instrument of Evanescence, capable of moving from vulnerable restraint to a full-bodied roar without ever sounding like an exercise in vocal gymnastics. Around her, Troy McLawhorn, Tim McCord, Emma Anzai and Will Hunt provide a formidable wall of sound, the five-piece sounding every bit as muscular as the production surrounding them.

And then comes the new material. Sanctuary, the title track, opens the headline set, followed by Tell Me When You’ve Had Enough, Afterlife and Rapture. It is an audacious opening sequence because it asks an audience steeped in the band’s history to immediately embrace the present. They do.

The decision to play all but one of Sanctuary‘s songs gives the evening a very particular identity. Rather than dropping a couple of new tracks between the greatest hits, the Little Rock five-piece effectively build an entire second chapter of their live history around their sixth LP. The songs are not treated as unfamiliar interludes; they are given the same enormous production, conviction and emotional investment as the material that made the band a household name. That makes Sanctuary feel less like an album being promoted and more like the next essential chapter in the Evanescence story. With only How Do I Heal absent, this is emphatically not a band looking backwards. The classics are still here, but they now sit inside a much larger, evolving picture.

When Going Under arrives, the response is predictably enormous. Lithium follows, its melancholy given plenty of space before the evening takes a particularly poignant turn.

“So, believe it or not, this year makes 20 years since our second album, The Open Door,” Lee tells the crowd, sounding almost as surprised by the passage of time as everyone else. To mark that anniversary, Evanescence perform Like You — a song from The Open Door that Lee explains is the one track from the album they had never previously performed live. It is a beautiful choice, and one that gives the anniversary more meaning than simply revisiting the obvious singles. The heavier material then takes over again. Self Destruct and Calm Down hit with punishing force before Call Me When You’re Sober turns the entire arena into a chorus.

When K.Flay returns to the stage for Fight Like A Girl, the chemistry is immediate. The song provides a welcome reminder that this new era of Evanescence is also about collaboration and a willingness to step beyond the band’s established boundaries. Beautiful Lie and Wasted On You follow, but it is Forever Without You that changes the atmosphere most dramatically.

K.Flay with Evanescence @ The O2

K.Flay with Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)

The Arkanasas-hailing frontwoman moves behind the piano, stripping away much of the machinery around her and allowing the emotional core of the song to take centre stage. Introducing it, she speaks directly to anyone who has found themselves trapped in a damaging relationship. She tells the audience that they are not “bad” or “stupid for loving someone”, but that they do not have to stay. “It is terrifying and impossible, as it may seem, to take that first step out of the door with a bad situation,” she says.

Evanescence @ The O2

Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)

It is one of the night’s most affecting moments because Lee does not present the song simply as a performance. She turns it into an act of solidarity. For an artist whose music has always dealt in emotional extremes, there is something particularly powerful about seeing that connection between performer and audience become so direct.

Then the arena explodes again. Bring Me To Life is, inevitably, colossal. The opening notes are enough to trigger an almost physical reaction from the crowd amid a growing sea of phones raised to film every second, and Lee rides the song’s familiar peaks with the same authority she has brought to the new material. Imaginary follows, before Better Without You and About Us drive the set forward.

Evanescence @ The O2

Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)

Then comes one of the night’s biggest surprises. Poppy appears alongside Lee for collaboration track End Of You, but this time there is another unexpected presence: Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox. The three voices converge on the song together, making this the first time the trio have performed it live as one. It is an extraordinary collision of three distinctive vocal personalities, and the moment feels completely at home within a show that has spent the evening refusing to be confined by its own history. Lee makes sure to acknowledge both guests, praising Poppy as an “amazing, amazing, amazing” friend of the band before the arena erupts once again.

Courtney LaPlante & Poppy with Evanescence @ The O2

Courtney LaPlante & Poppy with Evanescence @ The O2 (Kalpesh Patel)

The final stretch is emotionally devastating. Who Will You Follow brings the evening back to Sanctuary, proving once more that the new material has earned its place alongside the classics. Then My Immortal arrives and the enormous arena suddenly feels remarkably small. Thousands of phone lights rise into the darkness.

Lee stands before them, taking in the sight, before encouraging the audience to hold their lights aloft. For a song that has lived in the public consciousness for more than two decades, it still possesses the ability to stop the room in its tracks. There is no attempt to manufacture the moment. Lee simply lets the song breathe.

Before the final song, she takes time to thank the people who make the whole operation possible — the crew, whom she jokes “never sleep”, and her bandmates Tim McCord, Troy McLawhorn, Will Hunt and Emma Anzai. Most importantly, she thanks the audience. She talks about the last 24 years of returning to the UK, about the light and life the fans have given back to the band, and about how they have shared “your best, your pain, your loss”.

Because Evanescence are no longer simply the band who made the songs that defined their earliest years. They are now a band able to look back at The Open Door with affection, revisit My Immortal without being trapped by it, and still devote the overwhelming majority of a headline set to a brand-new album. That is what makes the Sanctuary tour so compelling. It is not a museum piece. It is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is a living catalogue.

And when Wide Open Heart brings the night to its conclusion, the title Sanctuary suddenly seems to mean more than an album, a song or a tour. For these fans and for the band themselves, it represents a place they have spent 24 years building together — somewhere to return to, somewhere to scream, grieve, celebrate and, ultimately, feel understood. At The O2, Evanescence do not simply provide shelter from the world. They make the entire arena feel like home.

Live review and photography of Evanescence @ The O2, London by Kalpesh Patel on 13th September 2026.

Violet Grohl Brings Raw Intimacy To Camden’s Barfly For Second London Night

The Long Road Festival 2026

The Long Road Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

Saturday at Stanford Hall was wet. Properly wet. The sort of rain where waterproofs stop being an accessory and become part of the official country music uniform. But after Friday’s thunderstorms, evacuations and technical gremlins, there was a feeling around the site that it would take considerably more than another downpour to stop anyone now.

There was something else hanging over Saturday too. For months, this had been sold as Bailey Zimmerman’s night. His withdrawal had left The Long Road Festival with a rather sizeable hole at the top of the bill and the festival’s solution was about as unexpected as replacements get: Rolling Stones legend Ronnie Wood and his band, joined by Imelda May.

It was a booking that inevitably raised eyebrows. Bailey Zimmerman represents exactly where mainstream country is right now, while Ronnie Wood comes from a very different musical world. Was a Rolling Stone really the right person to headline The Long Road Festival? Was it an inspired last-minute booking or simply the biggest name available? After ending Friday wondering whether Baylen Leonard and his team could actually pull this one off, Saturday was finally going to give us the answer. First, though, there was an entire day of music to get through.

Hayley Jensen kicked things off with plenty of country-rock energy and the sort of voice capable of waking up even the dampest of early festival crowds. The Australian singer has spent years building a following both at home and internationally, and there was an assuredness to her performance that made an early slot feel considerably bigger.

Then came one of my highlights of the entire weekend. Bec O’Malley had already appeared on Friday, but Saturday felt like another step entirely. The Stockport singer-songwriter has been steadily making his mark on the UK country scene, blending modern country and Americana with storytelling that feels distinctly his own. There’s an honesty to what he does that immediately makes him likeable, without ever feeling as though he is trying too hard to convince you of it.

Seeing him take to the Rhinestone Stage was particularly impressive. It’s a big stage and one that can easily swallow an emerging artist, but O’Malley never looked lost on it. The songs carried, his personality connected and there was a sense that you were watching someone taking another significant step forward in real time.

Having already caught him across the weekend and then sitting down with him for an interview later in the day, he became one of those artists who seemed to encapsulate what The Long Road Festival does particularly well: giving emerging British talent a genuine platform alongside established international names. By the end of Saturday, Bec O’Malley wasn’t simply someone I’d enjoyed seeing at the festival; he was one of my discoveries of the entire weekend.

Brennen Leigh brought things back towards the traditional end of country. Her music has one foot firmly planted in the genre’s past, drawing from classic country, bluegrass and Western swing, and it provided a welcome contrast to some of the more contemporary sounds filling the festival. The Long Road Festival has grown considerably, but it has thankfully never forgotten the music that all of this grew from.

Noah James continued the day before Liam Price managed to gather a crowd around the rain-soaked VIP Stage. It wasn’t exactly the most inviting of conditions, but people stayed, huddled around the stage as Price played through the weather. His appearance carried a little extra significance too, having won The Long Road Festival’s competition the previous year to earn his opportunity at the festival.

But while Saturday gave Price a chance to introduce himself, his attention was already turning towards something considerably bigger. This was only the warm-up; tomorrow he would be stepping onto the Rhinestone Stage. From winning a competition to playing the biggest stage at The Long Road Festival — with a rain-soaked VIP Stage set somewhere in between — Sunday would be another big step on that journey.

Then came First Time Flyers. Twenty-four hours earlier I had been squeezed into a room with them while thunder and lightning brought the festival to a standstill, watching them keep everyone’s spirits up with an impromptu rendition of Coming Home. Now they were out of the shelter and back where they belonged: on a stage.

It was a nice continuation from one of Friday’s strangest and most memorable moments. That is one of the joys of a multi-day festival like The Long Road Festival; artists start appearing throughout your weekend rather than simply existing as isolated slots on a timetable.

Simon Howard offered another change of pace before Uncle Lucius brought some Texas grit to Stanford Hall. The Austin outfit have always occupied that space where country, southern rock, blues and Americana collide, and their heavier sound suited a Saturday afternoon that was becoming increasingly grey overhead.

Twinnie brought things firmly back towards contemporary country. She has become one of the most recognisable British artists to make the jump into the Nashville world, and that experience shows. There is polish to what she does, but enough personality and attitude underneath it to stop the performance feeling overly manufactured.

Shaylen was another Saturday standout. The Nashville-based singer brought a confident mix of modern country, pop and rock to the Rhinestone Stage, with the kind of big vocal that immediately feels built for a main stage. There was attitude to the performance, but also plenty of warmth, and she quickly won over a crowd that had spent much of the day battling the weather. On a Saturday packed with strong performances, Shaylen was one of those artists who perhaps arrived with a few people not knowing her name and left with considerably more remembering it.

Susto Stringband demonstrated once again how broadly The Long Road Festival is willing to interpret the term country. That variety remains one of the festival’s biggest strengths. Within a few hours you can move between traditional country, bluegrass, Americana, rock, folk and something considerably harder to categorise without any of it feeling out of place.

Hitching Post added another stop along the way before Ken Pomeroy brought something quieter and more intimate to the day. Those moments matter at The Long Road Festival. When the larger stages are getting louder and the site busier, there is something refreshing about finding an artist whose songs make you stop rather than shout. Although Ken had to pause while main stage music bled onto the Front Porch.

Jason Scott & The High Heat brought more grit and groove into the mix, another reminder that Saturday wasn’t simply a conveyor belt of interchangeable country artists. There were different sounds coming from every corner of Stanford Hall, and that sense of musical discovery remained even as attention inevitably started turning towards the night’s bigger names.

Before Ronnie Wood could answer the question everyone had been asking, though, there was Josh Ross. And Josh Ross was superb. The Canadian arrived at Stanford Hall with the sort of momentum that makes you wonder how much longer his name will continue appearing beneath other artists on festival posters. His music sits firmly in the modern country world, blending country storytelling with rock-sized choruses and radio-ready production, but live there is considerably more muscle to it.

What impressed me most was how effortless Ross made everything look. There was charisma without the constant need to demonstrate it and he worked the Rhinestone Stage crowd naturally. Even with the weather doing its best to make life difficult, the connection between stage and field never disappeared.

It was one of those sets where you can almost feel an artist outgrowing their position on the bill. The songs sounded huge, Ross looked completely at home on the main stage and, for much of his performance, I found myself thinking this might be Saturday’s set to beat. I was wrong.

Because now it was time to answer the question that had been hanging over The Long Road Festival since Bailey Zimmerman pulled out. Ronnie Wood and Imelda May.

When Wood was announced as Zimmerman’s replacement, there were inevitably doubts. Of course there were. One represents the current explosion of mainstream country, while the other has spent more than half a century as one of the most recognisable guitarists in rock ’n’ roll. On paper, it was a curveball. In reality, it was inspired.

From the moment Ronnie Wood walked onto the Rhinestone Stage, any lingering doubts about whether he belonged there began disappearing. Wood’s musical roots have always stretched far beyond The Rolling Stones into blues, roots, rock ’n’ roll and the American music that helped shape all of those genres. Add Imelda May into the equation and suddenly the whole thing made complete sense.

And then the rain really came down. Not drizzle. Not the annoying festival rain you can pretend isn’t happening. It poured. Yet hardly anybody seemed interested in leaving. If anything, the worse the weather became, the better the atmosphere got. Wood looked like he was having an absolute blast, while May was phenomenal. Her voice cut through the rain with astonishing power and the chemistry between the two of them made this feel nothing like a hastily arranged replacement show.

That was perhaps the greatest compliment you could give it. At no point did this feel like Plan B. Nobody was standing there thinking about who should have been on that stage. Nobody cared that this wasn’t the headline performance originally printed on the poster. Thousands of people were standing in the pouring rain watching a genuine rock ’n’ roll legend tear through a set alongside one of the finest voices of the weekend.

The Long Road Festival 2026

The Long Road Festival 2026 (Henry Finnegan / @finneganfoto)

Any doubts about Ronnie Wood headlining The Long Road Festival after Bailey Zimmerman were gone. Completely. Wood and May’s take on Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 was one of those brilliantly unexpected festival moments that somehow summed the whole thing up. Around me were thousands of people singing and dancing while ponchos fought losing battles, Stetsons slowly surrendered to the rain and boots disappeared further into the Stanford Hall mud. And nobody cared.

There are festival sets you enjoy and then there are performances where, while you’re still standing there watching them, you realise people are going to be talking about this one afterwards. This was the latter. Not to get ahead of myself, because there was still another full day of The Long Road Festival to come, but Ronnie Wood and Imelda May may well have delivered the best performance of the entire weekend. And perhaps the most remarkable part was that it came from the booking people had questioned the most.

Friday night had ended with me asking whether Baylen Leonard and The Long Road Festival team could really pull off replacing Bailey Zimmerman with something so completely unexpected. By the end of Saturday, the answer was obvious. They hadn’t simply found someone to fill an empty headline slot; they had turned the loss of their Saturday headliner into one of the defining moments of The Long Road Festival 2026.

The pouring rain somehow made it even better. Under perfect blue skies it still would have been a great show, but there was something wonderfully unhinged about Ronnie Wood and Imelda May playing while the rain hammered down and thousands of people simply refused to go anywhere.

Saturday had given us Bec O’Malley taking another step forward, Liam Price looking ahead to his biggest stage yet, Shaylen winning over the Rhinestone Stage, Josh Ross looking every inch a future headliner and, against all expectations, Ronnie Wood and Imelda May producing something genuinely special. Friday had belonged to the thunder. Saturday belonged to Ronnie. And somehow, we still had Sunday to go.

Live review & photography of The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day Two @ Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, by Henry Finnegan on 29th August 2026. Instagram: @finneganfoto | Facebook: @finneganfoto

The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day One: Come Rain, Shine Or Biblical Thunder