“Let’s have the most fun possible pleeeeease,” begs Ellie Rowsell as she takes to the stage on Sunday night for Wolf Alice‘s biggest gig of their career and something of a homecoming for the North London band. The stage is dolled up like Moth Club’s silvery sister, but it’s been a long time since they’ve played a venue that modest.
Wolf Alice have made it here the hard way – through relentless touring, starting in the grassroots venues that are now fewer and farther between and building a following one gig at a time. Four albums in and now signed to a major label, they are starting to reap the rewards – and it’s a joy to see.
The night begins with the opening piano bars of ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ – one of seven tracks the band play from their latest LP, 2025’s ‘The Clearing’. Rowsell sounds flawless, springing around the stage like the commanding frontwoman she’s become, laughing somewhat maniacally between songs. For those who remember the early shows, it is quite LOL that we’re all here together, in this massive field.
Then we’re into the Squeeze-adjacent ‘White Horses’, and it’s drummer Joel Amey’s turn to take the lead on vocals, building to a crescendo before taking us back a bit with the sultry ‘Formidable Cool.’
At many points throughout the night, we’re reminded of the diversity of this band’s back catalogue – from the timeless and sprawling sounds of the last two records, to the ferocious punk of early tracks and the big singalong choruses peppered in between. Unlike many groups of their size – the ones that give guitar music a bad name – they haven’t got here with a rinse-and-repeat formula. And it’s masterful hearing them mesh it all together.
“Let’s hear it for the big ball!”, exclaims Rowsell as a giant mirror ball descends from the top of the stage. “A guy called Mirrorball Paul made that – I’m not even joking,” she quips.
After the huge singalong that is ‘The Sofa’ and an explosive bellow of the line “Feels a little like I’m stuck in Seven Sisters, North London” (we’re on Seven Sisters Road), Rowsell reappears having swapped her exquisite white two-piece for an identical one in black, clutching a Gibson Flying V guitar, and ready to rock.
‘Yuk Foo’ and ‘…Greatest Hits’ prompt calls from bassist Theo Ellis to ‘Open up the pit!’ The crowd oblige. The snarling ‘Smile’ is in a similar vein before another change of pace with the gorgeous ‘Lipstick on the Glass’.
A huge hug-your-friends rendition of ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’ leads us into the encore but before long the band are back and – proving, not for the first time tonight, that they’re a bunch of silly billies – they treat everyone to a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ aka the most overplayed rock song of all time.
One of many excellent things about Wolf Alice is you can see how much it all means to them. From the many times their eyes well over the course of the night, to the ear-to-ear grins they have at every bit of crowd participation, they’re perhaps one of the last bands that will earn their way to great heights in a time before TikTok streams and social media followers were a reason for an A&R to check out your show.
As they play us out with ‘Giant Peach’ – a fitting ode to the place you grew up – that thing we’ve been saying for quite a while: that one day soon they’ll headline Glastonbury, feels just over the horizon.
