Tonight was a night of reflection. Of celebration. Fifteen years in, Bastille sound as good, and appeal to more people than ever. The fourth time the London band have played the biggest arena in the capital and they feel at home on this stage this size, with their visuals, their anthems and their devout relationship with their fans, they belong here.
Bastille @ The O2
Bastille’s ascent was rapid. Having started as the solo project of Dan Smith writing and recording demos in his bedroom to having a number one debut album and a number of the catchiest hit singles of the 2010’s.
It’s a deliberately measured start to the show as the frontman begins by singing alone; with the spotlight on him, with just a piano accompaniment to the first verse of Things We Lost In The Fire. There’s a solid orange background with the houselights down leaving the rest of the band in shadow but as Chris Wood, more commonly known as Woody, comes in with a pulsating rhythm that’s present in so many well known Bastille tracks, the lights come up and the crowd screams along.
“We’re Bastille, tonight is the last night of the tour and we been excited about tonight for a long time. This is Day 10 of a 10-day tour and every night is a different set list. If you don’t like it, blame Kyle” to which the camera cuts to keyboardist Kyle Simmons who playfully gives the middle finger. What becomes apparent throughout the evening is just how robust their back catalogue is. Shut Off The Lights feels euphoric whilst 2016’s Good Grief got the limbs of everyone thrown into the air and it really felt like the party was starting.
The premise to Bastille’s third album, Doom Days, was to document the stages of a night at a wildly emotionally-charged party and Quarter Past Midnight, the opening song of that record, fits in to the start of the show and the band effortlessly move through these upbeat killer tracks. “This is one of our earliest songs and I’d like to introduce one of our favourite people to the stage, Myles Smith,” as the Stargazing singer joins the band and appeared to have a fantastic time exchanging verses on the groups first single.
Frontman Smith sat down at the edge of the stage and performed Oblivion with a single acoustic guitarist and an emotive violin accompaniment from AK Patterson, which was unequivocally haunting. This seamlessly moved into a brief excerpt of Sleepsong, which appears on disc 2 of the expanded debut All This Bad Blood.
Bastille @ The O2
“Now’s time for the most depressing part of the set” Smith says before heading into a Hope For The Future performed with Patterson. The foursome love drama and they do it well. There’s an innocence to them as individuals but they can stir up the most emotive narratives. There’s a push and pull to the set, modal shifts and interchanging tempo’s; songs that offer insights into dystopian worlds and songs that encourage optimism and faith in humanity.
Halfway through the evening, the LED screens that have projected lyrics and imagery throughout are shut off and replaced with bright colourful laser beams from the stage to the back of the arena as DJ decks are bought on to the stage and we are treated to a medley of tracks from the mixtape series Other People’s Heartache. Dan once described it as “to create a fictional film score or film soundtrack using cover versions of songs.” Think of it as the group’s moody dark side project where they can expand their way of making music to new and interesting takes on covers and mashups including En Vogue’s Don’t Let Go and Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams before the iconic Of The Night which turns The O2 into the biggest nightclub in town. The 2013 mash-up combines Snap!’s Rhythm Is A Dancer with Corona’s The Rhythm Of The Night.
With 5 top 20 singles, 3 number 1 albums, Bastille have been consistent in their output in quality and quantity over the last decade and a half. In fact there’s only been one year in the last 10 where they haven’t released any new music. If you were thinking you could add 2025 to that year, you’d be mistaken as they performed new song Save My Soul dueting with rising star Ruti. Smith split the arena down the middle with those on the right singing the melody and on the left singing the chorus line to yet another one of their arena sized anthems.
When some sort of medical emergency in the crowd is spotted by Dan midway through an acoustic rendition of Glory, he handles things brilliantly by asking for security’s attention and repeating for the rest of the audience to focus on him. How many old Bastille songs can I cram into this section?” he quips as he improvises snippets of Bad Blood, The Anchor, Weight Of Living, Pt. 1 and Another Place which despite a few forgotten lyrics along the way, goes down really well with the capacity crowd and buys time for the incident to be sorted.
Ending on Pompeii in which the band brings their extended entourage on to the stage as well as Myles Smith, Ruti and the two support acts, Bradley Simpson and Sofia Camara to sing what is probably the most successful song about a volcanic eruption in music history.
Fifteen years into their career, Bastille show no signs of slowing down. They’ve got a back catalogue that most artists would be envious of, they’re playing the biggest stages of their career, they collaborate and showcase upcoming talent and still have the ability to write arena-sized anthems. Tonight was a night of looking back, of reimagining past hits. Of connection and community and that is something that is needed now, more than ever.
Live Review of Bastille at The O2 Arena on 18th November 2025 by Chris Lambert. Photography by Louise Phillips.
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