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Eterna @ Club Cheek, London (Live Review)

Eterna

Club Cheek

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Baptised in Feedback, Crowned in Fog

This one goes out to the accommodating Kester at Club Cheek; the quietly benevolent doorman who let us duck past the velvet rope and into the pulsing furnace of Eterna’s sold-out July set. Without that favour, we’d have been stuck outside, ears pressed to brick.

The night was sweltering. One of those scorched evenings where the pavement sizzles and every underground stop feels like a war crime. We half-considered swimming the Thames just to cool off. But south of the river, Club Cheek; a fresh, labyrinthine venue tucked under Brixton's railway arches, offered shelter and sound. Think Scala with a lower ceiling and a better soul. There’s viewing from every angle, beams overhead for hanging lights or people (depending on the gig), and a strobed-out, giddy laser show that looked like someone let Aphex Twin into the lighting booth.

At first, it was a handful of us rattling around the place. Then, like a fever dream, it filled. Fast. “I think they’re mainly friends,” Will, an artist/poet, tells us between bands. He’d clocked my book (Les Paul’s autobiography, alright, mate?) and leaned in conspiratorially. But if this was just mates of the band, they must’ve all skipped work, dumped dates, and left boiling curry on the stove to get here. That’s commitment. Try getting a Londoner to reply to a group chat, let alone turn up en masse.

And what a crowd it was. Not a single mobile screen lit up. No shouty pints-over-the-music merchants. Just pure attention. During the breaks between bands, strangers chatted, introduced themselves, asked what brought you here; like a past life version of the scene had been summoned up for one night only. Maybe it’s a south-of-the-river thing. Whatever it was, it worked.

Then came Eterna.

Fresh off their debut LP Debunker via the ever-ascendant Section1 label, the band emerged in silhouette. Their frontman hunched over a cabinet of speakers where his keyboard was balanced like a tray of drinks on a wobbling tray table. The moment they started playing, the air changed. Smells of sweat, smoke and spilled lager mixed with the deep thrum of synths and guitar. People started to push forward, yelling “LOUDER” as if it were a request and not a warning. Like sardines, both live and tinned.

Eterna draw comparisons to the more devotional end of shoegaze; think Slowdive’s early heartbreak colliding with the shadowy electronics of Seefeel. But they’re not interested in nostalgia. They take their time, slow-cooking every build-up until it simmers under your skin. No bravado. No posturing. Just the steady work of a band who trust the atmosphere to speak for itself.

A personal highlight? That moment in the opener where each instrument, each in its own alternate tuning, somehow met in the same key. A shimmering, accidental unity. A sonic car crash that healed itself mid-collision. It was either divine intervention or finely tuned chaos. Either way, it landed like thunder.

They played late. And nobody cared. Club Cheek, cradled under Brixton’s railways, didn’t need to worry about noise complaints; the trains overhead drowned out even the loudest cymbal crashes. But that didn’t stop the band from trying to outdo them. They very nearly did.

Eterna didn’t just fill a venue. They transformed it. For one night, the usual fatigue and cynicism of London’s live scene evaporated. In its place: a sweaty, hypnotised room, moving as one. If this is what the post-Debunker era looks like for Eterna, the rest of us better catch up. Fast.

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The Sick Man of Europe @ The George Tavern, London (Live Review)

 

The Sick Man of Europe

The George Tavern

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

 

We were told to see the light. Nobody mentioned the strobe lights and migraines. Yes, it’d be a night of unexpected horrors and delights inside The George, drenched in retinal red, The Sick Man of Europe (a man the spitting image of Buffalo Bill) took to the stage not like a band but like a warning. A man in sleeveless black, howling into the void, backed by players who looked more like revenants than musicians. The lights flared like police raids. The air hung thick and sour from the ghost of the warm-up acts, sweat pooling before the first bass note landed.

What followed wasn’t a set so much as a not so ubiquitous initiation into a cult. This wasn’t the usual charming DIY fare the George offers up; there were no winks, no whimsical solos, no clever banter between songs. This was darkwave initiation. Cold, exact, and weirdly religious. It felt like being buried under dry ice (cold but burning) and waking up fluent in post-industrial dread (making ends meet in London).

The recorded material hadn’t prepared us for this. At home, TSMOE can come across like a monologue muttered through a vent; minimalist, maybe even too studied. But live, it hit like revelation. The guitars weren’t just strummed; they slashed and came at us. Drums, even when programmed, punched like they’d been sharpened beforehand. The vocals were there, in the room with you, moving air. No distance. No polish.

 

They played ‘Obsolete’ early, or maybe it just felt early, time was already melting, and it landed hard; a hymn to everything we discard in ourselves and each other. “At what point do we become obsolete?” asked the track. Fair question. By that point, my shirt was sticking to my spine and the couple next to me had stopped trying to talk over the music and simply stared, rapt.

The songs blurred, not due to sameness, but because of momentum. You could feel it in your gut: the set was speeding up. Each track felt faster, leaner, more aggressive than the last. Whether that was by design or delirium didn’t matter.

By the time they hit ‘Sanguine’, the supposed centrepiece of the record, we were all in it together; drenched, blinking, locked in. On record, it’s almost clinical in its restraint. Here, it hurt. The kind of song that drags you through the mirror, tells you you're already someone else, and leaves you to deal with the consequences.

There was no encore. Nobody needed one. Not for lack of want but because anything more would’ve broken the spell. The heat, the pace, the sheer intensity of it… mercy looked like the better ending. Two gigs in a night, one city across; it was enough.

And here’s the thing: we almost didn’t stick around. We talked about ducking out after the openers, grabbing a drink somewhere with airflow. But we stayed. And The Sick Man of Europe reminded us why you stay. Why you sweat. Why you let your eardrums take the punishment.

Because it’s the ones you don’t expect that get under your skin. That re-write the music you thought you already knew. That make you listen to the album again the next day; not for the first time, but like it is.

 

 

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Later Youth @ Rough Trade, London (Live Review)

 

Later Youth

Rough Trade

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Wurlitzer and wilted carnations

There’s losing your objectivity, and then there’s clocking a pristine 1967/68 Wurlitzer electric piano on stage before the first chord’s even been struck. One glimpse of that glistening artefact and any critical distance we’d planned to maintain was quickly thrown under the tour van. Later Youth, the musical alter ego of Jo Dudderidge (pronounced like “poetry,” if poetry came from Manchester and loved The Beatles), knows exactly how to disarm a room and this in-store at Rough Trade, Denmark Street was less a gig, more a séance in sunshine.

Before a single note, Jo laid a wreath of funeral flowers spelling out “Later Youth” in front of the Wurlitzer, the blossoms visibly wilting in the sticky London heat. Death’s always been a minor character in Dudderidge’s world; present, yes, but usually with a pint and a piano and, in case that wasn’t poignant enough, a small child with no known comprehension of mortality gave unsolicited stage design advice. There’s a darkly comic metaphor buried in that, but we’re not clever enough to dig it out.

Then came the call to arms or, more accurately, a warm wave of reverb-drenched delay that summoned the growing crowd closer. The set opened with ‘Apple of My Eye’, a track so chirpy and sinister it could only have come from a man smiling while singing, “as you punch me to my death with your hands around my neck.” It was a bouncing, piano-led lurch into baroque pop noir, a maraca shaking somewhere in the mix like an eerie carnival held inside a teacup.

Track two saw Jo giving heartfelt thanks to the room. A moment ago, we were one of three ghosts rattling around the shop, but now the space was fully alive and very much sweating.

By track three, the full Later Youth sonic identity began to unfurl: soft towel-muted snares, a soapbox kick drum, upright basslines that walked rather than ran. It all felt faintly like a late-night lounge act at the back of a dusty ole pub in a parallel 1972; refined, yes, but still willing to get a bit weird round the edges.

Track four gave us pure Beatles energy; Jo yelling into the mic channeled a young Lennon. It was the most Fab Four the set got, and it wore the influence proudly: plucky chord work, creamy harmonies, and that slight sense of knowing it’s all a bit ridiculous, really.

Then came “Lurker”; perhaps the most telling moment of the set. “These songs sound better with a band,” Jo admitted, and while that might be true on record, live there was something charmingly exposed about it all. He swapped spots with backing vocalist Hannah Nicholson for this one, trading piano for acoustic guitar. The two voices, brushed together like old photographs, made the song feel both intimate and distant, befitting a track named after someone who prefers to linger in the background.

‘Hotel Venezuela’ followed, all Wes Anderson melancholy and Kinks-ian charm; that plucky rhythm guitar and organ interplay calling to mind lost summer holidays and sepia-soaked postcards never sent.

By the penultimate track, Dudderidge introduced something “never played in this configuration before.” It was ghostly, sepia-toned again, like being in the back room of an old Western saloon where the piano plays itself and someone whispers, “what’s happened to your eyes?” Whether that was the lyric or our overheated imagination is hard to say.

The final takeaway? Later Youth isn’t just one man and a piano; it’s a whole attic of sounds, half-remembered influences, and beautiful imperfections. Much of the studio polish was left behind for this set, revealing a different angle to Dudderidge’s songwriting: looser, rawer, but no less intricate. It was less fine dining, more rural cooking, and like any great homemade meal, it stuck to the ribs.

 

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Christian Lee Hutson @ St Matthias Church, London (Live Review)

Christian Lee Hutson

St Matthias Church

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Pews, patter, and a soft-spoken sermon from the school of sad lads

There’s something fitting about the sermonising of Christian Lee Hutson landing in a place built for sermons. On a wet Tuesday in Stoke Newington, the old bricks of St Matthias Church stood stoic, the flying buttresses throwing Gothic silhouettes across the grey sky, while inside, the pews felt like penance for sins you can’t even remember committing. We're all here, willingly numbing our tailbones in the name of indie-folk.

First, a heart-on-sleeve warm-up from Matthew Herd, who turned the keys into something soft and syrupy, like a slow-motion hug. He slipped between deadpan romanticism and cutting humour with ease: one moment lamenting the British Museum's habit of hoarding colonial loot, the next reminiscing about scrapping shirtless and snogging strangers. Earnest and awkward in equal measure but never overcooked.

When Christian Lee Hutson finally appeared, flanked by his band in coordinated track jackets, the vibe was more cultishly wholesome than rock'n'roll, like a very pretty youth group. “Never played in a church before,” he offered, as though it wasn’t the most obvious setting for a man whose songs sound like quiet confessions to an old diary.

Things kicked off with some acoustic offerings soft enough to be mistaken for sighs, his hair a gravity-defying monument to grooming discipline, his voice a clear, lilting tenor that could've floated through the stained-glass windows. If only he'd let it.

Instead, Hutson, ever the storyteller, quickly slipped into his comfort zone: talking. Anecdotes rolled in thick and fast. A tale about a snake-handling Southern Baptist uncle. A bit about wine. Then a longer one about his modern family life, which started quaint and ended up somewhere between a pillow showroom and a Netflix pitch. By the time ‘After Hours’ crept in, we’d sat through so many semi-connected tangents we were unsure if the gig had properly started or if we'd wandered into a live taping of a very sensitive podcast.

The songs, when they came, were… nice. Melodic. Pleasant. ‘Strawberry Lemonade’ and ‘Pinball’ floated by like mid-afternoon naps. But more often than not, the lyrics wandered like his stories; intriguing setups, not always followed by a payoff. There were moments where it all sagged under the weight of his own voice. Not the singing, which was immaculately delivered, but the constant need to explain, decorate, or justify the art we were all quite content to listen to on its own.

Yet somehow, in the final third, something shifted. Maybe he wore himself out. Maybe we did. But like a boxer who'd taken too many early jabs, Hutson rallied. He dropped the patter and leaned into the music, really leaned. By the second-to-last song, the room was glowing. People who’d spent half the show blinking into the rafters now whooped like they'd found religion. Which, for a set that opened in a church and nearly got buried under its own verbosity, felt like a minor miracle.

He didn’t leave the stage, but he did give us an encore, a non-encore encore, as he wryly framed it. Three extra songs slipped in at the tail end as a quiet reward for those who stuck it out through the sermonising. And honestly? It worked. No big gestures, no theatrical re-entrance; just a gentle exhale to close the night, and a reminder that when Christian lets the music speak, it often says just enough.

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Wide Awake 2025: Brockwell Park Part Three (Live Review)

Wide Awake 2025:

A Sonic Manifesto In Brockwell Park

Part Three

An Alternative Take with Kenny McMurtrie

Pics by Captain Stavros

You've read the headlines: Kneecap closed Wide Awake 2025 with a set that was as politically charged as it was musically compelling. But to focus solely on their performance would be to overlook the rich tapestry of talent that graced the stages throughout the day.

Wide Awake isn't just a festival; it's a statement. This year, the grounds of Brockwell Park were dry and sunlit; a stark contrast to the storm of ideas and sounds that filled the air. From overt political declarations to subtle social commentaries, the festival was a crucible of contemporary thought and artistry. So, let’s dip right into it. 

What was it actually like at May's most controversial alldayer? For the most part, pretty normal, just an ordinary six stage music event, and reasonably priced to boot, given the number of acts appearing. Although, you may have felt a bit put out by the email which came in 24 hours before, asking you to try to flog a reduced-price ticket to any mates who were dithering about attending. Those legal bills don't pay themselves.

Living in Edinburgh, the extraction of cash from public places is a regular thorn in the side of various groups and residents. What ameliorates things are the advance consultations and opportunities to alter or reject markets etc. being set up (most recently a proposed city centre six-month ferris wheel erection was rightly shot down in flames). One council over from Brockwell Park, that process seems to be in place but the event, and others in the Brockwell Live grouping, seem to now be on a shaky peg for 2026.

In the here and now though, plenty of people were making an honest living from it and although you could hear it a couple of miles away disturbance, other than to the parkland, was probably minimal. Nearby pubs no doubt did alright from those wanting to offset the cost of an onsite beer too (only a difference of around £1.50 as it turned out).

Performance-wise, my first port of call was the MOTH club stage to catch Gaye Su Akyol and her massive platform shoes. A pretty funky way to kick things off. In relatively quick succession afterwards Hello Mary, Sextile and Mermaid Chunky all got a look in, so a burst of engaging indie, one of seemingly unoriginal, retro dance music, and the main stage filled with a rake of costumed dancers and a crowd pleasing, buoyant, and bouncing performance featuring more musical elements than I can name ('jazz' doesn't really do it justice). An early highlight for sure.

Back to the MOTH club stage then for W.I.T.C.H., paying particular attention to Jacco Gardner's basswork which stood out well in the mix. They've a new album out next month so something to look forward to if the UK summer fails to arrive. Next up at the Shacklewell Arms stage were one of the highlights of my 2024; Gurriers. A great act who, at least in the small halls I'd seen them in previously, break the barriers between performer and audience on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, today they started with the worst sound of the event and the stage height, along with its having actual barriers, limited their ability to engage too much for my liking. Seeing them in the stage's namesake venue would have been so much better. Over on the Bad Vibes stage, Warmduscher were similarly underwhelming but then having only previously seen them on a similar sized stage elsewhere, I was prepared for that. Probably little chance of seeing them in a small room nowadays though. The singles were good but much else feels like filler and they're choice of all wearing black was hardly original.

Marie Davidson, in Daniel Avery's dance tent, successfully livened things back up strutting her stuff in between tweaking the knobs and dials to keep the tempo high. Last thing before being joined by my co-reviewer there was time to take in the mainstream as Nadine Shah was on the main, Wide Awake stage. As solid and polished a performance as ever saw the inclusion of Spider Stacy on one number (which was apparently "mental" for Nadine). Global politics started to get a mention now, setting the scene for later sets wherein the bleeding obvious was stated to the already like-minded throng with no solutions being proposed, turning things into the usual ego-massaging echo chamber.

Skipping ahead to the final act, I took in solo it was possible to easily get right down to the front at Bad Vibes for Peaches, coming on twenty minutes after Kneecap as she did. Adorned in what looked like the contents of a shredder she put in an energetic performance for the 100 or so folk who preferred her over the headliners & was at one point joined on stage by two dancers dressed as vaginas. Say no more.

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Wide Awake 2025: Brockwell Park Part Two(Live Review)

Wide Awake 2025: A Sonic Manifesto In Brockwell Park

Part Two

Words by Captain Stavros

Pics by Captain Stavros & Garry Jones

 

You've read the headlines: Kneecap closed Wide Awake 2025 with a set that was as politically charged as it was musically compelling. But to focus solely on their performance would be to overlook the rich tapestry of talent that graced the stages throughout the day.

Wide Awake isn't just a festival; it's a statement. This year, the grounds of Brockwell Park were dry and sunlit; a stark contrast to the storm of ideas and sounds that filled the air. From overt political declarations to subtle social commentaries, the festival was a crucible of contemporary thought and artistry. So, let’s dip right into it. 

 

 

Sprints

Stage: Main Stage | Evening

The wind had started to bite by the time Sprints took the stage, but the Irish quartet brought the kind of furnace-level energy that made you forget all about jackets and chill. If English Teacher were the simmering thesis, then Sprints were the footnote written in blood and all-caps: feral, direct, and completely unbothered by subtlety.

They kicked off with ‘How Does The Story Go?’ and from that moment, the tone was scorched earth. Karla Chubb, vocalist, guitarist, and absolute lightning rod, charged around the stage like someone who’s been told this set might be their last. She roared through each track with the rawness of someone testifying rather than performing. Her delivery is less about notes and more about nerve: shaky in all the right places, cracking open on the high notes just to show you it’s real.

We caught about four tracks, each one sharper than the last. ‘Adore Adore Adore’ turned the entire front half of the crowd into a sweaty, jostling sermon circle. It’s a song that’s half confessional, half primal scream rage against misogyny, performance, and the industry that expects women to package pain like it’s a brand. Chubb didn’t preach, she punched it through with every chorus.

What made their set hit hardest was the balance. Sprints aren’t just fast and loud. They’ve got this unpredictable dynamism, building a track slow and smouldering, then snapping the neck of the tempo without warning. Drummer Jack Callan was a particular standout, pounding the kit with such precision it sounded like the heartbeat of something colossal.

Sprints felt like the band you see in a pub right before they explode. Except this wasn’t a pub. This was the main stage. And they belonged on it.

Where English Teacher intellectualise the collapse, Sprints scream as it’s happening. They're not post-punk as trend, they’re punk as necessity. And as the bassline of ‘Literary Mind’ bled out into the wind, the crowd didn’t so much applaud as whoop; exhausted, elated, stunned.

Next up: CMAT — an orange fever dream with a steel guitar and a mouthful of glittered mischief.

 

CMAT

Stage: Main Stage | Evening

If anyone could chase the dust clouds kicked up by Sprints and turn them into glitter, it’s CMAT. Arriving on stage in a haze of surrealist camp and singalong swagger, the Irish-born pop-country superstar-in-the-making delivered a set that felt like Dolly Parton at Eurovision after one too many cans of Monster. In other words: completely unhinged, totally fabulous, and just the gear change the festival needed.

The sun had begun to dip, catching on the school-uniformed band (we never did quite figure out the theme, St. Trinian’s on acid? King’s Day in drag?). The crowd had bulked out massively by this point, and if anyone wasn’t yet a disciple, they were quickly won over by opener 'California’. CMAT’s voice; impossibly rich, stretching from belt to twang to full-body sob, bounced over distorted steel guitar and bouncing keys like it owned the park.

There’s a kind of theatrical chaos to her show. She’s self-effacing and whip-smart, cracking jokes between songs about Jamie Oliver lawsuits (yes, she did play ‘Jamie Oliver at the Petrol Station’) and the state of UK tap water, “Is this water? It looks like piss!”, she quipped, before taking another swig. It’s this balance of knowing absurdity and total emotional sincerity that makes her so disarming. She’ll have you crying to ‘I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!’ and laughing through the lump in your throat.

CMAT doesn’t skirt around the political either. Her new track ‘Take A Sexy Picture Of Me’ took direct aim at the BBC’s body-shaming commentariat, flipping the finger at all the ways the industry tries to shape women’s art, image, and size into something palatable. She made no big speeches, she just performed the rebellion, joyfully and defiantly. There was something radical in how unbothered she was by the wind, by the cold, by the bullshit. She danced through it all with a smirk and a middle finger dipped in rhinestones.

The crowd, by this point, was a field of flailing arms and DIY butterfly wings. From our precarious perch atop two bean bags stacked against a piece of festival plywood art (bless the windbreakers), we had a bird’s-eye view of the kind of mass catharsis most artists would kill for.

Where Sprints had electrified, CMAT enveloped. Her set was glitterbomb therapy. A yeehaw answer to every cynical talking head that doesn’t understand why pop can be protest too.

 

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets

Stage: MOTH Tent | Evening

By the time Psychedelic Porn Crumpets hit the MOTH tent, we’d already been knocked sideways by sonic intensity a few times, but nothing quite prepared us for the sheer force of their set. Think: Ty Segall after a power-nap on speed, King Gizzard if they'd taken a wrong turn into Mad Max territory. The Perth outfit didn’t just play loud, they played vivid. Like staring directly into a lava lamp being launched into the sun.

Opening with the fuzzed-out riffage of ‘Hymn for a Droid’, they didn’t bother easing us in. The guitars hit like whiplash, drummer Danny Caddy absolutely pummeled his kit, every crash of the cymbal felt like bin lids being slammed together in perfect, chaotic harmony. Frontman Jack McEwan, hair swinging wildly as he let rip, led us through a dense, layered trip that blurred the line between jam session and meticulously sculpted psych odyssey.

The tent was absolutely rammed, with bodies jammed shoulder-to-shoulder and heads bobbing in mesmerised synchronicity. Smoke filled the air, thick and vaguely suspicious. “What the hell is in that smoke machine, man?”, McEwan hacked between songs, coughing profusely while the crowd howled with laughter, “I can see sound.

The band snuck in a few deep cuts and new tracks from an upcoming album. While some of that newer material didn’t hit quite as hard as the tested crowd favourites like ‘Bill’s Mandolin’ or ‘Cubensis Lenses’, the transitions between songs were seamless. Their set flowed like one long, frenzied acid spiral, complete with tempo dropouts, false stops, and guitar solos that could melt the enamel off your teeth.

It felt less like a festival set and more like being handed the keys to a malfunctioning spaceship, strapped in whether you liked it or not. And we liked it. A lot.

 

Patriarchy

Stage: Shackwell Tent | Evening

If Mannequin Pussy were punk’s bleeding heart, Patriarchy was the abyss that stared back. Walking into the Shackwell Tent felt like stepping into a goth-industrial séance: hooded silhouettes, latex glinting under deep crimson strobes, and a smoke machine working overtime to exorcise whatever polite indie ghosts might’ve been lurking.

Hailing from Los Angeles, Patriarchy are less a band and more a sensory experiment in controlled menace. Frontwoman Actually Huizenga, draped in black and bathed in shadow, conjured the ghosts of Marilyn Manson’s mechanical days and the lascivious unease of early Nine Inch Nails. Behind her, drummer The Drummer (yes, that’s the name) beat with a ferocity that made the tent’s flimsy scaffolding feel like it might buckle.

We caught them deep in a set that mixed thudding industrial beats with cinematic vocal delivery, alternating between ghostly coos and violent howls. ‘I Don’t Want to Die’ hit like a club track dragged through a horror film; propulsive, disorienting, erotic and terrifying all at once. The sound was surprisingly pristine for such a murky vibe: heavy but not muddy, synthetic yet surgical. Hats off to the engineer, it’s no small feat making decadence sound this precise.

The tent wasn’t full, but the crowd inside was locked in. A few people near the front were visibly stunned, as if they'd wandered in expecting a standard synth act and got hit with an unholy ritual instead. There was little banter, no nods to topical politics, but Patriarchy doesn’t need to sermonise. Their mere existence, a high-concept, female-led industrial act that flips the male gaze on its leering head, is political performance art at its most weaponised.

Their set didn’t go viral. They weren’t trending on festival TikToks by nightfall. But those who caught even a sliver of it walked away rattled in the best possible way. In a lineup that had its fair share of joyous chaos and singalong catharsis, Patriarchy offered something far rarer: transgression.

 

Kneecap

Stage: Main Stage | Closing Set

You’ve all read the headlines. The terrorism accusations. The controversy. The refusal to be silenced. Kneecap didn’t just play Wide Awake, they claimed it. Their closing set was less a performance than a confrontation, equal parts party and provocation. And yes, it was absolutely, unequivocally the most talked-about moment of the day.

They opened with 'Kashmir’ and from the first bass throb, it was clear: the sound was flawless. Like being trapped inside a bombastic, bouncing studio session with nothing but low-end and bile. The visuals popped with the cinematic bombast we’ve come to expect; all street-lit menace and grayscale Belfast noir, but it was the tension in the crowd that made it electric. We weren’t watching a show. We were watching a reckoning.

Mo Chara didn’t waste time. Four songs in, the crowd is heaving. Then: “Be careful, plain clothes cops right next to you.” A ripple of paranoia. Another moment later: “You don’t know how close we were to being pulled out of this lineup.” Everyone already knew, but hearing it hit like a lead weight.

The humour cut through too, especially when Mo Chara asked the BSL interpreter, “How do you say ‘cunt’ in sign language?” With a deadpan flash of the fingers, the crowd lost it. Punk theatre at its most profane.

But through all the politics, controversy, and (let’s be honest) paranoia, what stood out was the performance itself. The beats slapped. The flows were as tight as they’ve ever been. And through the long, strange pauses where the set seemed to stall, then snap back into gear, there was a palpable sense of danger. Of risk. This wasn’t polished rebellion. This was the real thing.

Final thought? Kneecap didn’t follow anyone. Everyone else came before them. And when they walked off stage, they didn’t bend the knee. They left a crater.

Closing Thoughts

Wide Awake 2025 was more than a festival. It was a manifesto. One stitched together by artists who know exactly what they’re up against — austerity, censorship, occupation, cultural rot — and play like they’re still not backing down. Support for Palestine pulsed throughout the day, whether shouted between songs, stitched into T-shirt stalls (like Warmduscher’s donations to War Child and Médecins Sans Frontières), or simply implied in the acts of artists who refuse to shut up.

That political edge bled into the local too. Lambeth residents, many locked and priced out of the parks they help fund, were there in force. It’s a strange irony; paying council tax, then a ticket fee, just to see the spaces you sustain become fenced-off playgrounds. But Wide Awake acknowledged that tension, didn’t sanitise it. This wasn’t a glossy Instagram dream. It was real, raw, defiant.

We covered what we could. Former Muso’s Guide chief Kenny McMurtrie stepped in for the sets we missed (working weekends still doesn’t pay in t-shirt merch), and between us, we pieced together a day that felt less like a music festival and more like a broadcast from the near future; volatile, noisy, and alive.

And that future sounds loud as hell.

 

 

Next up: An alternative take on the festival with Kenny McMurtrie.

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