As 2025 draws to a close, it’s impossible not to marvel at just how rich, varied and boundary-pushing this year has been for music. From bold reinventions by established heavyweights to fearless debuts and long-awaited returns, artists across genres have stretched...
It’s a homecoming tonight. The Last Dinner Party step onto the stage at O2 Academy Brixton for the first of two sold-out shows, closing out their 2025 tour in the city where much of this story began. Outside, December gloom hangs over Stockwell Road; inside, the room...
Kelsy Karter & The Heroines stride onto The O2 Arena stage like they own every inch of it. The Australian–British four-piece — fronted by Los Angeles-based, Melbourne-born firecracker Kelsy Karter, with Derby natives Sebastian Boyse on drums, Matt Peach on guitar,...
Six albums and more than two decades into their career, Halestorm are still renowned for their near constant touring, but they've never played a headline show at London's O2 Arena – until tonight. It’s been a big year – particularly in the UK – as the band, with their...
The O2 Forum Kentish Town doesn’t feel like a gig venue tonight. Instead, as the lights drop into a deep rose glow, the space transforms into a surreal faux chapel. A fabric backdrop shaped into gothic arches hangs behind the band, framing an illumiated cross that...
The lights fall to black inside the Roundhouse and a ripple of anticipation rolls through the crowd. When Cassy Brooking — better known as Cassyette — steps into the shadows, the room shifts. There’s no gentle warm-up, no easing into the night. Instead, she and her...
“Are we having a nice time so far? Are we getting a bit warmer?” Amy Macdonald grins, peering out at a Hammersmith Apollo audience bundled into coats and scarves. It’s a question that becomes a running joke throughout the night — because despite the November chill and the decidedly frugal heating, Macdonald sets about warming the 5,000-capacity venue the only way she knows how: with humour, heart, and a powerhouse performance that leaves no seat unshaken.
On a bitterly cold Wednesday night in Camden, Manchester hard rockers Hot Milk turned London’s Roundhouse into a sweat-soaked pressure cooker of chaos, catharsis, comedy and pure community. Fronted by the unstoppable duo of Han Mee and Jim Shaw, with Tom Paton...
If Sophie Grey’s intention was to bring a dose of retro-futurist electro-pop to the second of Sting’s three-night stand at the Hammersmith Apollo, she certainly committed to the bit. Appearing through laser-like synth pulses, dressed in a silver metallic bodysuit with...
For an artist whose world seems stitched together from silver-screen glamour, smoky jazz clubs and the afterglow of heartbreak, Luvcat – the stage name of Liverpool-born Sophie Morgan Howarth – is every bit as cinematic live as her debut album Vicious Delicious suggests. At KOKO, Camden on Wednesday night, the rising star turned the storied venue into a dreamscape of old Hollywood, haunted romance and camp theatre – a show that was equal parts cabaret, confession and carnival.