Black Country, New Road

“Look at what we did together / BCNR, friends forever”, the lines on the chorus Black Country, New Road’s track “Up Song” go. For May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, Charlie Wayne, Lewis Evans, Luke Mark, and Tyler Hyde, the band has been almost all they’ve known for the start of their careers. When original vocalist Isaac Wood departed the band just a few days before the release of their critically acclaimed album ‘Ants From Up There’ in 2022, it left a lot of questions about whether the band could still hold up on its own. A quick listen to the band’s first studio album as a six-piece released in April last year, ‘Forever Howlong’, tells you all you need to know. While they’ve continued to move further away from their post-punk Windmill origins, their adoption of art rock and chamber pop has fit them like a glove and continued to bring the best out of a set of supremely gifted musicians. Tonight’s backdrop of the gorgeous Somerset House was the perfect complement to what was a gorgeous 90 minutes of music.

Rather than opening the show with a track of their own, the band decided to kick things off with an inspired cover of ‘Band On The Run’ by the Paul McCartney-fronted Wings. While Hyde and Kershaw take up the majority of the vocal parts on their cover, there was also a rare glimpse of a spirited Lewis Evans providing backing vocals — while he sang on two tracks on their 2023 live album ‘Live At Bush Hall’, he’s stepped away from those duties since. The band start their show off with a set of more uptempo tracks from the latest record — ‘The Big Spin’ is every bit as whimsical as it is pure fun, while ‘Two Horses’ feels like a hybrid of progressive and country, written and performed brilliantly by Ellery. It was after this song that drummer Charlie Wayne shed light on a shocking incident regarding the band’s equipment, which were all stolen the day prior. Wayne detailed that after a “Sherlock Holmes-esque operation that involved their tour manager and monitor engineer searching around warehouses in Enfield,” they were able to retrieve everything stolen and thankfully deliver this show to a crowd of nearly 3,000 adoring fans.

As the set goes on, you really get a vision of their musicianship and quality at several moments. Whether it’s Kershaw, Hyde, and Ellery’s gorgeous harmonies on ‘Mary’, or the powerful outro perfectly executed on ‘For The Cold Country’, the group balance the moments of noise with the moments of peaceful bliss well on stage for the most part, though it did lose the crowd at a few points. This was evident on the band’s new live arrangement of ‘Dancers’, a track off of ‘Live At Bush Hall’, which unfortunately strips things back too much to the point that it took away from what made the original version so great. 

Despite this, it didn’t take away from some of the shining highlights of the night. ‘Strangers’, a track released as part of the War Child album ‘HELP(2)’, is some of their finest work post-Isaac Wood, with an epic structure and flow that rivals some of their finest work to date. Then came the moment that many were hoping for in the back of their minds, as a loud cheer was sounded when the opening melody of ‘Turbines/Pigs’ was elegantly played on the piano. A fan favourite and what many consider their standout tune, this 10-minute track is more of a journey than it is a song, and the interplay between Ellery on the violin and Kershaw on the piano is truly astonishing. As more musicians come in and the track builds up to its emphatic end, a few people around me wipe the tears from their eyes as they are overcome with emotion. Before ending the set off on a more positive note with the uplifting ‘Happy Birthday’, Tyler makes a plea and reminds the crowd to remain vocal in their support to the ongoing Palestinian genocide. Chants of “Free Free Palestine!” bounce around the Somerset House courtyard, in what was a truly unifying moment. While it may not have been their strongest performance, it was certainly a memorable one given both the venue’s significance as well as the unprecedented circumstances in the lead up to the night. Let’s just hope that the thieves make the band’s lives a bit easier from now on!