Support slots can be thankless. The room’s still filling, the pints are still being poured, and the headliner’s name looms large on the bill. So it’s not every day a support act can hold a crowd’s attention from the opening note — but Luna Bay aren’t just any opening act. On 5th June 2025, the London-based trio returned to The Garage, a venue they last headlined just last October, to open for Welsh rockers Himalayas. This time, the billing was lower, but the energy and purpose were just as palpable.
Performing as a three-piece — with bassist Sammy Penniston absent — Connor O’Mara (vocals & guitar), Rye Milligan (lead guitar), and Alex Ross (drums) delivered a set that didn’t just fill the space — it owned it. Stripped back slightly but never bare, the band leaned into their strengths: crystalline melodies, tight musicianship, and a compelling emotional through-line that cut through the usual pre-headliner chatter.
Luna Bay @ The Garage
Opening with breezy You, the trio cast an immediate spell over the early crowd. Built around O’Mara’s plaintive vocal delivery and Milligan’s glistening guitar lines, it set the tone for a set rich in mood and subtle intensity. There was no posturing, no hurry — just a confident ease that comes from experience and trust in the material. From there, the tempo picked up with infections summer anthem All In, which brought a slicker energy, and newer tune Video Star, a track that shimmered with nostalgic synth tones and hooky refrains. Even without a bass player on stage, the mix felt surprisingly full. Ross’s drumming was clean and spacious, giving the songs room to breathe while driving them forward with just enough urgency. Milligan’s harmonies adding layers atop O’Mara’s lead that just make these songs.
There was an unmistakable sense that this band knows how to work a stage — not by commanding it with volume, but by drawing the room in with texture, dynamics, sharp songwriting and a humbleness for the audience paying attention.
Midway through the set, the trio eased into a more introspective pocket with Foxglove—peppered with a gorgeous guitar motif—and Sleeping Alone. “We’re the warm up, after the warm up” Milligan stated, pointing out that it was London-based Juju who’d got the music started tonight. “So we’re going to slow it down, so you can be fully warm.” These weren’t just slower songs — they were tone-shifters. Both gave the band time to stretch their sound and create something more atmospheric. The crowd, initially chatty as is often the case for early sets, fell noticeably quieter. O’Mara’s vocals were particularly affecting here, navigating themes of isolation and emotional distance with a delicate sincerity.
Luna Bay @ The Garage
It’s moments like these that separate Luna Bay from their peers — their ability to create intimacy in a live setting, to resist the temptation to overplay, and to allow emotion to rise naturally from the arrangement. In these tracks, the absence of a fourth player seemed less like a gap and more like an intentional decision to let the silence speak.
The energy returned with Better, a breezy, uplifting track that brought some of the most obvious movement in the room so far. Its effortless chorus and optimistic tone provided the perfect counterweight to the moodier middle of the set, and from there the band didn’t look back.
Engaging with the crowd to determine what the origins of his audience were, O’Mara discovered that more cheers were to be for non-Londoners, but also the crowd was made up of those from as far as Tennessee and Johannesburg. That’s a night out in London for ya! Hometown followed — and it landed with the weight of a song that means something. Whether the audience knew the lyrics or not (or indeed were wearing the t-shirt), there was a collective lean into its soaring chorus, and a sense of shared memory hanging in the air. It was the kind of song that makes people feel seen, even if they’re hearing it for the first time.
The band closed with early single Call The Night, their final statement of the evening — widescreen, confident, and laced with a late-night, wind-in-your-hair kind of freedom. It was the perfect closer: polished yet raw, emotionally satisfying but never overwrought. You didn’t need to know Luna Bay walking in — by the end of the set, you understood exactly who they were. Noticeably so, as I witnessed travellers on the tube home sporting their new Hometown emblazoned t-shirts mixing easily with those donning Himalayas merch.
Luna Bay’s return to The Garage was technically in support of another band, but this set never felt secondary. If anything, it was a quiet reassertion of their identity — of a band that continues to refine its sound, weather setbacks with style, and move forward with a kind of graceful persistence. Where their October 2024 headline show was a celebration, this was a showcase — of resilience, range, and the power of songwriting to connect even in a reduced format. O’Mara’s men reminded us that the size of the slot doesn’t matter. It’s how you use it — and on this night, they made every minute count.
Live review & photography of Luna Bay @ The Garage, London by Kalpesh Patel on 5th June 2025.
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