Friday 6th February 2026, a seasoned potpourri, with extra gas from Midlake

MIDDLE OF THE LAKE

Well, it certainly felt like a lake in downtown Camden on what feels the wettest week on record, with the wisdom of walking London’s streets in the dreich seeming a dank and daft enterprise. Especially for what seems such integrally bright and breezy music. However, once inside, such was the buzz in the building, surely close to capacity, that any gloom swiftly evaporated, praise be.

The Electric Ballroom is one deceptive mother, looking little of note from the outside. However, up a few steps and down rather more, it becomes a spacious cavern, somewhere between a derelict cinema and a provincial theatre, rigged out in black, with a large, yes, ballroom as the main space. A mezzanine floor runs around the upstairs fringe, including a natty high rise section that abuts over the floor below, offering the best views in the house. (This, I soon discovered, was wristband only, a VIP or guest section. Boo.) Bars seemed plentiful and the merch area was well-demarcated and busy. A good vibe.

IN THE OLD MONEY

Arriving between 7.30 and 8, there was already a lone figure on stage, plugged in, with a guitar, singing and playing. This was, I gather, Family Stereo, but, beyond acknowledging a moderate swelling of applause, he was off almost as quick as I had arrived, so I can’t comment more.

With rather a jolly selection of motorik rock playing on the per-show playlist, it seemed very little time before the main support appeared. Featuring Midlake guitarist, Joey McClellan, on guitar and vocals, this was the Bretheren, with that spelling, and rather good they were too. Bass, drums, keys and the aforementioned, they put up a decent racket of melodic hard rock, as it would be called in the old money. With often paired vocals, McClellan and keysman, Moose Sherman, displayed an attractive looseness of style, their voices reminiscent of Weir and Garcia, if fronting a sound midway between the Doors and, oddly, Boston. A highlight was a song with a shabopbop bv line, provided by Sherman, the drummer and a guest, for that song only, Joana Serrat. Definitely a band of promise.

IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Given the drum kit and keyboards were to be shared with Midlake, the gap between sets was pleasingly brief, with house lights dimming shortly after 9, cuing a frenzy of applause. Any qualms I may have had about sitting down music in an all standing venue were instantly dismissed, showing my need to keep up. This was a partisan crowd and ready to party, little akin to the cerebral musos I might’ve been expecting. It is true, after the initial kerfuffle, back in the days of The Trials of Van Occupanther, it is only again with latest release, A Bridge Too Far, that I have again become acquainted with the band, needing gaps to be filled and dots to be joined. I was in the right place.

It was thus that a couple of songs from my blind spot opened the show, Bethel Woods, from the almost titular album, and Children Of The Grounds, from 2010’s The Courage Of Others. No such issue for those around me, clearly and indelibly grounded in the back catalogue, singing along from the start. Annoyingly, the sound balance, at the front at least, was too harsh, too loud and unforgiving, needing a swift retreat further back. This allowed a far greater appreciation of the nuances in the sonic balance.

Already it became clear that McClellan was now applying a different palette here, exhibiting more lyrical salvos between the strong and clear vocal of Eric Pulido. The keys of Jesse Chandler floated somewhere midway between them, this writer excited to see the Mellotron brand name exhibited on the smaller keyboard above his larger Nord. Eric Nichelsen stuck mainly to secondary guitar, with the basement well served by Scott Lee’s bass and McKenzie Smith’s pounding drums.

WHICH TRIALS?

Pulido, de facto leader of the band, handled the bulk of between song chat, most of which was peppered with anecdotes around his pleasure to be back again in London, citing it the spiritual home of the band, offering up a dedication of thanks to their label, Bella Union, and the longstanding support this UK based business continues to give them. He promised a show to cherry pick their entire two decade. and counting, career, as aghast as the audience that it was nearly 20 years since that breakthrough, The Trials Of Van Occupanther. Indeed, he cited that the eventual title of said album was largely down to the label, who felt “The Trials” offered it a little more prog sensibility!

MORE FLUTE!

By the time that Chandler picked up his flute, for It Covers The Hillsides, the sound had settled. An instrument with, Tull apart, a vexatious relationship with rock based musics, he really has a delightful tone in his lyrical playing, the words “more flute” bidding their way to my mind, each time he applied it. Plus, of course, the swathes of fauxchestrated strings billowing from his console. Pulodo then made reference, his only reference, to the near fatal blow dealt the band, or what was widely anticipated to be, when initial frontman and principal songwriter, Tim Smith, upped and left the band,. “And then, in 2012, something happened“, leaving a pregnant pause……….

Thankfully, of course, the band, redesigned in vision and reinvigorated by Pulido picking up and dispensing with any slack, played on, arguably all the stronger for it. This was emphasised by following Acts Of Man, from Smith’s swansong, with Antiphon, the phoenix rising release that came next. But this wasn’t all a setlist writ in the past; Young Ghouls, from the 2025 record, had appeared earlier and, with 4 songs in the set, from that album, featured near as strongly as the 5 from Van Occupanther.

As the set progressed, you could sense the band relaxing and loosening, the solos becoming freer and less coupled to the studio iterations. Any concerns around sitting down music became maladroit, with a surprising amount, or at least unexpected, given the levels of jigging going on around me.

BUBBLING TO BOILING POINT

Further songs from A Bridge To Far, notably the title track, swapped swords with a selection from those before it. Feast Of Carrion, in part by virtue of its name, might seem an odd favourite to have, but warranted that opinion, at least to these ears. Inserting fan delighter, Roscoe, between two of the very newest songs, The Calling and Days Gone By, was an especially effective run, the feel now of a band bubbling to boiling point.

It was with another consummate oldie, Head Home, that the band, um, headed home with. This gifted McClellan with an extended guitar work-out, where he displayed his full range. In an extraordinary minute or so, he revealed quite what might happen if the contrasting styles of Mark Knopfler and Neil Young could come together, their bastard love child proceeding to be a thing of no small wonder. If a moment could be bottled etc etc.

SATIATED

This is a traditionally minded band, don’t forget, rooted in values of another day. So, of course they left the stage. And, of course they came back, leaving most this heaving ballroom well satisfied and well served. With that encore being a choppy and challenging The Old And The Young, it provided just the right way to leave London behind. The crowd hungry for more, yet satiated, as well as being a timely reminder that, yes, they may be the bastions of a timeless psych-folk, but that it is in jazz that the band first came together. It was still raining outside, but few were capable of caring any more.

Midlake: Website

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