Electric Ballroom, London May 28, 2026
If the two-part extravaganza into their football references didn’t give it away, Los Campesinos! are my all-time favourites. This review is not going to be unbiased.
I first saw LC! back in 2012 in the same venue, brought there by a friend who had already fallen in love. I was immediately head over heels with their brand of off-kilter emo-indie, and knew it was going to be a lifelong obsession. So, when I heard they were returning to Camden’s Electric Ballroom for their Vicennial Cringe tour, I knew I needed to be there.
Before the gig even started, you could tell the atmosphere was going to be amazing. The queue to get in snaked through the streets of Camden, with almost every one of the eighty merch designs on display in the crowd. One of our recent favourites, Other Half, were on duty as openers, and their blistering forty minute slot was dissonant, loud, and emotionally charged in the best possible way. Imagine Gilla Band if they listened to more early 2000s hardcore, and you’re about there.
One of the hallmarks of a Los Campesinos! gig is the crowd singing along to every single word, and as they took to the stage and launched into ‘This Is How You Spell “HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics”’, tonight was going to be no different. Despite the fact they hadn’t played this song in eight years, the crowd was already screaming at the top of their lungs, fists raised in the air, bouncing along.
And it didn’t let up. Making their way through a setlist of deep cuts and fan favourites, the band barely paused for breath. Los Campesinos! have been playing live shows for twenty years, and they’ve figured out how to hold the crowd in the palm of their hand, expertly going from upbeat early songs like ‘I Just Sighed…’, into the quiet beauty of ‘Long Throes’, into songs like ‘Romance is Boring’ that made me worry half the crowd might pass out from heat exhaustion.
Every member of Los Campesinos! plays to perfection, with seven insanely talented musicians blending together to make noise that is cacophonous, beautiful, and joyous, while singer Gareth reels between coy self-deprecation and outright anger at the state of things. At the same time, there’s something in LC! lyrics that just bring hope to the world… hope that our found family of community can maybe make the world a better place, even if only for one night.
Despite not playing many of the songs that have made them almost famous over the years, the crowd weren’t disappointed. There was the debut of ‘Got Stendhal’s’, despite being released almost ten years ago, as well as the cathartic singalongs of crowd favourites ‘The Sea is a Good Place…’ and ‘Baby I Got the Death Rattle’.
Coming back on stage for four last songs, and finishing with the perennial favourite ‘Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks’, the crowd was left drained, smiling from ear to ear, and kicked out into the balmy summer air of Camden.
This wasn’t a gig, it was a religious experience.
Setlist:
- This Is How You Spell “HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics”
- Holy Smoke (2005)
- I Broke Up in Amarante
- There Are Listed Buildings
- I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know
- Long Throes
- What Death Leaves Behind
- A Psychic Wound
- kms
- Romance Is Boring
- Allez les blues
- Feast of Tongues
- The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future
- Songs About Your Girlfriend
- Got Stendhal’s
- Frontwards (Pavement cover)
- Clown Blood; or, Orpheus’ bobbing Head
- Baby I Got the Death Rattle
- 0898 HEARTACHE
- To Hell in a Handjob
- We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
- Straight In at 101
- Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks
