She Loves London

Tag: Music

Archive: 10 gigs I went to 10+ years ago

Updated a bit in Feb 2026

2015 was the year I decided to start making the most of London, beyond the pubs and hangovers (although there were plenty of those, too. I’m not dead).

I started playing tennis on Saturdays. I did a bit more yoga during the week. And when I wasn’t lying on a mat, breathing, I went to lots of events and gigs. Not the huge stadium jobbies, but the little ones; or, at least, anywhere that doesn’t cost £50+ per ticket and sell binoculars at the bar.

Thing is, you usually remember a gig. You might remember it because it was very very good, or because it was bad, or because you were excited, or mildly disappointed, or because you’d had a crap day followed by three incredible hours in a magical, strobey, packed, loud, laser-filled room.

And if you’re 5ft 3, you will also remember, in exacting detail, the thread count of the t-shirt belonging to the very tall man who stood in front of you.

So, in order of gigs attended since January, here’s who I saw in 2015 – and why it was good.

1. Ghostpoet at Chats Palace, Homerton (28th January 2015)

Ghostpoet did this show in a no-frills, library-turned-arts centre in the middle of Homerton. And you know, it’s these little venues – full of history, converted from something else, saved and staffed by the local community – that make seeing live music in London so bloody good. And Ghostpoet was excellent: he tested the new album on us, threw in some old favourites, and basically, all hail a venue that’s at capacity with 250 people in it. That’s 10000 less people to get in my way.

2. TOKiMONSTA at Oval Space, Hackney (12th February)

Oval Space is another really cool venue next to the huge, imposing gasholders by the Regent’s Canal. We went to see LA DJ / producer TOKiMONSTA, and what I’m about to say isn’t a reflection on her, honestly, because it was really good. But it was one of those nights where you say, 9 months later, “Remember that Thursday when we went to Oval Space and got really pissed and danced loads? That was a really good night.” and sort of forget who you were dancing to. The photo is blurry, and rightly so. No time for photos when you’re dancing yourself better.

3. Jon Hopkins at Brixton Academy (24th April)

This man. This man. Musician / producer behind what’s been the soundtrack to most of my waking activity since 2013, Immunity. Brixton Academy is also one of my favourite venues in London, so mix that with some mesmerising music, lasers and strobes, massive projections, and a slanted floor (seriously, the tall people, they find me every time) and you’ve got a pretty much perfect night. PS. Jon, call me.

4. The Prodigy at Alexandra Palace (15th May)

Is this how it ends? I wondered, between the hours of 12am and 2am, is this how I go? Crushed between a sweating mass of men raving to Smack My Bitch Up? Turns out, the average audience at a Prodigy gig is now either 32+ (Jilted Generation, your time) or under 20, and young enough to be most of the other half’s children. In fact, one woman in the loos had ticked both boxes and was there with her son. Either way, when this is the result, you can’t really complain. A+ show, Keith. Keep it up.

5. Kwabs at Somerset House (17th July)

I hadn’t listened to much of Kwabs’ music before, but then that’s the best thing about seeing anything and anyone at Somerset House. Whether it’s a film or a gig, or people falling on their arse ice skating – the setting is so beautiful, and atmospheric, and has a magical way of timing the good bits just for when the sun starts to set a lovely pink colour, that you’ll end up having a really good time anyway. And so I do not remember much of Kwabs, but I remember that is what we did.

6. Knife Party at Brixton Academy (Halloween / 31st October)

Putting aside the potential pitfalls of marketing an event called Knife Party in Brixton, we should probably acknowledge the disconcerted feeling of walking out of the tube to find fake blood dripped on the pavement and what look like victims of a zombie apocalypse stumbling down the main road. I think we were the oldest at this gig by about five years, but that’s ok. We danced. We sweated a lot. It was fun. I got to wear my skeleton onesie again. Also, I have never seen so much traffic on the way home at 5.30am. Seriously, London. Take a break, you’ll wear yourself out.

7. Lapsley at The Dome, Tufnell Park (4th November)

Fun story: the last time I went to The Dome was a Saturday when I was about 16, for an indie / rock night, and my friend’s parents picked us up at 3am at the end. This time, it’s Wednesday, I’m 31, me and Harriet drink our weight in cider then go up the road for an ill advised night cap, then get an Uber home. Hangovers ensue. When will we learn? We will not learn. Conclusion: Lapsley is very talented. And me and Harriet have no regard for a school night.

8. Talib Kweli at the Jazz Cafe, Camden (19th November)

Where to start? This was the best gig of the year, maybe one of my favourites ever. Seeing a hip hop legend who’s worked with pretty much every producer and artist you love is one thing, but also seeing him on this tiny stage at the Jazz Cafe with only about 400 other people is another level entirely. After a few gigs this year where the crowd was… not unfriendly, but perhaps indifferent, this time it definitely felt like we were surrounded by like-minded, chatty, happy people who were all there for exactly the same reason: for good times and amazing music. Mr Kweli was on for about 2 hours, did a big encore, and we went home with Get By in our heads for the next week. I loved this night. I loved it very much.

9. Four Tet / Chvrches at Alexandra Palace (27th November)

Disclaimer: we missed Four Tet because I was eating a pie. In other news, Chvrches were good – I think we decided that Lauren Mayberry’s stage chat was endearing (some in our group said “annoying”) – but… ah, I don’t know. Despite it being a sold out show, and the tunes being good, and her voice being amazing, the atmosphere was a bit flat. Then again, the last time I’d been in Ally Pally I’d basically feared for my life, so maybe this was a safer alternative.

10. Elliot Moss at Moth Club, Hackney (4th December)

Getting into Moth Club involved walking through what is essentially the bar area at an old folks home, going through more doors, and then entering a sparkly glitter ceilinged alternative universe. If that sounds unlikely, welcome to Hackney. Anyway, after a week of binge-listening to Elliot Moss I now knew at least four songs, which enabled me to dance and even sing along with assured competence. My mate Yas was right. I did like his music. It was an excellent end to the year.

And so endeth 2015. Thank you to the friends who came with me to gigs, and the friends who made me their +1s too.

2nd January 2026
An Illustrated Summary Of My Weekend At Lollapalooza Festival in Berlin

As we established a few months ago, advance planning isn’t really my thing.

But there are limits to this rule, and perhaps deciding to go to a music festival in another country a week before it happens is one of them.

It’s a good idea right up until you realise airlines are complete bastards and will happily charge you triple the amount you’d normally spend on flights, and that most of the decent places to stay are already booked.

Which is why we spent a lot of time researching our options and carefully weighing up the pros and cons.

But at least we weren’t paying for the tickets.

Work had given me a couple of VIP passes for free, plus £200 towards getting there, which sounds well good until you consider it was 7 days until the festival and flights were £200… each.

But luckily Ryanair took this extortionate fare hike into consideration by delaying our flight for an hour and a half, giving us ample time to mainline Prosecco in Stansted Airport Wetherspoons and allowing us to really get into the festival mood before we arrived.

And anyway, sod it, we were off to Berlin. A city where Even if it’s 1am by the time you land and the next train isn’t for another hour, forcing you to spend what you’re fairly sure is an entirely made up taxi fare getting to your Airbnb so the host can go to sleep, the bars will still be open by the time you’ve dumped your bags, said hello and met the cat.

On which note, meet our host, aka the world’s most perfect cat:

The next afternoon we woke up early, ready for the day ahead.

lol, just kidding.

We woke up at some point on Saturday afternoon feeling like death because we stayed out til 5am, and it was also raining, and a bit chilly.

So after a slow start and a lunch that saved me from eating my own hand, we went to Ostkreuz bahnhof to make the half hour S-bahn journey out to Hoppegarten, the racecourse-turned-festival site to the east of Berlin.

When we arrived, there were a couple of things I noticed straight away.

The first thing was that Germans take instructions very seriously.

And by this I mean there were frankly admirable levels of dedication shown to one particular item they’d listed on the website:

Because let me tell you, when you haven’t seen a drawstring sack bag since the Nike ones were big in 1998, it’s really quite something to suddenly see several thousand in one weekend.

I mean, there were a lot of drawstring bags.

So many that I would frequently just stop and look around me and say “I can’t believe it, look!”: because where, apart from JD Sports, GAP or the Apple Store, do you even get a drawstring bag in the year of our lord 2017?

Ask the people of Lollapalooza, because trust me. They know.

And even though it was raining a bit, the other thing I noticed was the absence of a muddy, peaty, welly-sucking, soupy pit of ground-churned bog.

Because with this not being a summer festival in the UK, it was completely normal to experience being able to walk across a festival, in the rain, without getting stuck.

It was… strange.

And anyway, by the time we’d had a few beers in the (sheltered) VIP area and slathered our faces in a sparkly hangover disguise, aka glitter, the sun was almost – almost – coming out.

Then the Vaccines were on, so off we went to the Alternative Stage.

And apologies if you’re here to read about the music, because during this set I was distracted by the only person in the entire festival who’d inexplicably come dressed as Princess Jasmine.

It was a proud moment: not only because one of my fellow Brits was repping in stellar fashion, but also because his really IDGAF attitude succeeded in making every jeans-and-trainer clad man in that field feel slightly uncomfortable.

And that’s good enough for me.

Be the Princess Jasmine you want to see in the world

After that we went over to Perry’s Stage.

We nicknamed this stage my Spirit Animal Tent even though it wasn’t a tent, but a techno / dance / raving / very good vibes stage where there were no queues for the bar because most of the people were on drugs.

Then, fuelled by copious amounts of beer, we spent the rest of the evening alternating between there and a structure which was essentially thousands of glittery plastic strips waving about the wind.

Naturally, being all sparkly natural light and soft, it was full of people staring at digital reflections of their own face.

So after a minute of standing outside taking the piss, in we went.

Stand out acts for the rest of the night included Two Door Cinema Club and Galantis, and also this couple who, in honour of seeing EDM producer and DJ Marshmello, had placed a white bucket on their kid’s head.

Marshmello didn’t turn up.

Awkward. But for everyone who wasn’t leading around a child wearing a bucket helmet, Boyz Noize made for a truly excellent night.

But I’m not going to lie.

There were some issues getting home because apparently getting several thousand people back into the city via one train line which only runs once an hour after 12:39am is what some would call an absolute heaving ballache, and what festival organisers would call “challenging”. We spent at least an hour packed in a packed crowd outside the station waiting for helicopter rescue, or more ambitiously, a train.

But we got home in the end, and this being Berlin it’s never too late to – if you’ll allow me to go all Time Out – “soak up the cold war vibes” of a dark, candlelit bar and rehash the moment you were one stampede away from death by post-festival crush just an hour before over 3 Euro beers.

Ah, change for a fiver. Ah, 3 euro beer.

The next day was Sunday, and Lollapalooza day 2 beckoned.

At least it did, once we’d dragged ourselves up and out of bed by the frankly heroic time of 1pm.

We arrived to find yesterday’s ponchos and rain jackets had been left at home. Belongings were safely stowed in drawstring bags. There was a determination to make the most of the day ahead in the air.

Also, the sun was shining.

This was going to be a good day.

We’d gone for a couple of drinks in Friedrichshain the night before, which is German for “stayed out drinking beer until 5am again”, so we were feeling a little bit slow, a little bit… a little bit…tired.

But somehow, I don’t think we were the only ones.

The first act we saw were the very excellent Metronomy.

Then it was time for London Grammar.

Which I was totally going to take a photo of, but then I got mildly distracted by this Octopus balloon.

And then finally, it was time.

Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins came on just in time for sunset.

The Foo Fighters had arrived.

All in all, it was an excellent weekend.

We rounded the night off with a strobe-happy wonder-show from the xx, and had three hours sleep before going to airport at 5am on Monday morning and flying home. And for some of us, straight to work. Because if you’re not going to plan ahead, you might as well suffer the consequences.

Same time next year? Yeah. I reckon so.

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14th September 2017
Everything You Need To Know About Going To Sonar Festival In Reykjavik

In February, me and my housemate went to Iceland.

It was the weekend after Valentine’s Day, so naturally our trip had all the hallmarks of your average romantic break: music so loud you can’t hear the other person speak, copious amounts of duty free rum, an inability to get out of bed before 1pm, and fancy dinners including a 3am trip to Subway and an incident we will only refer to as “milk pasta”, which involved an unsuccessful attempt at using mozzarella to make cheese sauce.

Luckily we weren’t in Iceland for the food, we were there because at some point in December, Sonar Reykjavik drifted onto my radar in the midst of a coma brought on by Christmas excess and one too many episodes of Monkey Life on freeview.

It’s in these vulnerable, sofa-bound moments when the urge to travel usually gets me, and this time was no exception. I’ve wanted to go to Sonar for years – the Barcelona version has a reputation as being one of the world’s best festivals for music, technology and creativity – and Iceland is one of the best countries ever, so pairing the two could only ever go to go one way.

Four days of roadtrips and raving? Off. We. Go.

If, like me this is pretty much your ideal holiday, let’s be friends. And here’s some stuff you might want to know before you get there.

1. As far as music festivals go, this one is tiny

You’ll be one of 3,500 people, most of whom are Icelandic, very excited, and have the sort of exquisite Nordic cheekbones you only find on people who survive without daylight for half of the year.

2. It all happens in one big venue by Reykjavik harbour

Everything goes down across four stages in the Harpa Concert Hall, which they helpfully cover with flashing lights so even if you’re drunk you know where to go.

Harpa at night.

3. Keflavik airport is the best place to stock up on booze

Iceland has a pretty weird history with alcohol. Beer was actually banned until 1989 – and even though these days Reykjavik goes pretty hard on the partying front (the bars will deffo still be going well after the festival closes at 3am) you can’t buy booze in supermarkets. Vínbúðin (literally “wine shop”) is the only place you can buy booze in Reykjavik, but you won’t find any special offers and the opening hours are limited. So do your booze shop at the airport – it’s cheaper, and easier than trying to get some when you’ve just arrived and want to get the pre-game started.

4. No, there isn’t any camping involved – it’s February are you mad

Accommodation will probably be your biggest expense – but the good news is that Reykjavik’s a pretty small city, which means it’s hard not to be within stumbling distance of Harpa wherever you end up. We found an Airbnb about 10 minutes away (around £78 per night – one of the cheapest I found) and it was the cosiest, loveliest, warmest little back-garden out-house ever. This also means you don’t have to eat out every night, which saves £ and means you can schedule regular disco naps between meals.

The crash pad.

5. You won’t have to spend ages trekking between stages

Because the whole festival is spread across four different rooms in Harpa, you won’t spend an hour schlepping between stages only to find that you’ve missed half the set because you got stuck in a crowd, lost your mate, had to dig your welly out of the mud and then couldn’t get anywhere near the stage because it was full. There’s even escalators between floors if you’re struggling with the concept of stairs, which, by the third night, you probably will be.

6. …but there’ll still be a bit of this

Even in a relatively small festival venue like Harpa, you’ll still find yourself writing surprisingly detailed text messages trying to explain exactly where you’re standing within a featureless, loud room which is packed full of constantly moving people. It’s just the inevitable festival way.

7. You won’t have to queue for the bar

Even compared to London, alcohol is expensive in Iceland – and by that I mean you’ll be paying around £7-8 for a can of beer and more for a glass of wine in Harpa. On the flip side, not many people really seemed to be going hard on the booze front, so at least you won’t have to queue to get it. From the second night onward we took advantage of the non-existent bag searches and brought in our own sneaky supplies of rum. No one seemed to mind. We saved money. Job done.

8. There’s not a port-a-loo in sight

Just in case you were wondering. Which you definitely were.

Up the front for De La Soul

9. You’ll find yourself going batshit to music you’ve never heard before

Iceland’s music scene is banging anyway, and the headliners were all bonafide pros (De La Soul, Moderat, Fat Boy Slim in 2017), but probably the nicest surprise was finding myself going nuts to acts I’d never even heard of before Sonar. In fact, I would now absolutely make a beeline for any of the following if I saw them on a line-up: Sleigh Bells, Gus Gus, FM Belfast, Kerr Wilson, Dillalude, and a woman whose name I can’t pronounce but will always remember for her sparkly mermaid dress.

10. If you manage to get out of bed, you can spend the day doing roadtrips

The festival doesn’t kick off until about 9pm each night, which means theoretically you’ve got the day time to actually go and see more of this ridiculously good looking country. I say theoretically, because there’s no way in hell we were getting out of bed for a 8am tour bus and neither will you. So instead we rented a car (Sonar festival ticket holders get a discount) and took ourselves out to thermal spas and the black sand beaches of Vik on the south coast at our own pace. Warning: if you’re feeling fragile, an encounter with an Icelandic horse might legitimately send you over the edge.

Me harassing one of Iceland’s very therapeutic horses

11. And if you can’t be bothered to move, Reykjavik has excellent cafes

Between the hot dogs and soup served in bread, Reykjavik pretty much has your morning-after-the-night-before munch covered. Special mention to our mid-afternoon chill spot of choice, Sandholt Bakery: to me, you are perfect.

12. But PSA: thermal spas are A+ at curing hangovers

Most people are all over the Blue Lagoon, which is a very nice place to spend a few hours on your way to or from the airport if it’s not fully booked. But if planning ahead isn’t your strong point then don’t worry, it’s ok, because if there’s one thing Iceland goes completely mental for, it’s swimming pools. So instead we went off to the Secret Lagoon, which isn’t that secret but was a very nice, chilled, slightly quieter (definitely cheaper) alternative. And after a night of jumping about to techno in an underground car park, a steaming hot, open air bath is exactly what you need.

13. You’ve got a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights

Yeah, the big one: February is peak Aurora Borealis time in Iceland. You’ll be at the festival Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, so the best idea is to stay until Monday, then that leaves Sunday night to cross your fingers for good weather and a clear sky. The trick is not to book your tour until you get there, or you could end up paying to see nish all. If all else fails and you happen to be there when it’s cloudy and rainy all week like us, you can make do with staring in wonder at the other pretty lights: of which – I can assure you – there will be plenty.

And if that doesn’t convince you: seriously. Look at this place. Look. At. It.

Þingvellir National Park

Iceland, I’ll be back. You’re ridiculous.

6th March 2017