Only The Poets started the Ireland and UK run of their ‘One More Night Tour’ with a night at the KOKO in London on June 5th. The band from Reading, consisting of Tommy Longhurst (vocals), Andy Burge (bass), Marcus Yates (drums) and Clem Cherry (guitar), recently released their EP One More Night, which the tour is named after.
Really, Only The Poets are playing two shows on this same night, as they start off the evening with a funeral for older songs of theirs, songs they’re not likely to play live in the future.
The second show of the evening is opened with an acoustic set by Frankie Beetlestone, a London-based singer. This show is the first one Beetlestone did after 7 months!
He starts his set with ‘Something To Say’, which is his latest release, and during this song, you can hear people singing it back to him. The second song he does is the unreleased track ‘Adults’. He notices the claps starting at the beginning of the next song ‘Slowly Break My Heart’ by exclaiming “audience participation!”. Continuing his set, he plays a cover of ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ by Tears For Fears, letting the crowd sing the lyrics “Nothing ever lasts forever, everybody wants to rule the world” at the end of the song.
Frankie introduces the next song ‘Ignorance Is Bliss’ by announcing that it’s the title track of his upcoming EP, which will be released at the end of July. During the song, he asks the audience if they’re alright, and the fans cheer as a response to that. After the song, he says that it has been fun playing and goes over to his last song of the night. Before he goes off the stage he expresses his gratitude once more, saying “Thank you so much guys”, and also wishing everyone a wonderful evening.
After this opening, it’s time for Only The Poets again with their second set of the night. The band reappears on stage and starts with ‘Crash’, the room immediately filling with cheers.
They continue with ‘Every Song I Ever Wrote’. After this Tommy says “London, how are we fucking feeling tonight, it’s so good to be back, we are Only The Poets”, and introduces the next song by saying “This next one, from our brand new EP, it’s called ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Your Friend’”. Going on with ‘Forget Your Name’, then followed by ‘Mindset’, which is an unreleased song of theirs that they introduced during the second run of mainland Europe shows in March and April. Next to released songs, they also played ‘Bump In The Night’, which is another unreleased song of theirs.
Only The Poets highlight mental health awareness during their gigs, online and in their songs, which Tommy briefly talks about before playing ‘It’s Okay (Not To Be Okay)’, a song that touches on said topic. He mentions that they want to spread positive messages with their music, mental health awareness in particular, that there shouldn’t be judgement if someone is having a hard time and as the song title suggests, that it is okay not to be okay. ‘Waking In The Dark’, the following song, is about this same topic.
Tommy then says “Alright then Koko, who’s ready to have a party now”, starting to play ‘Nana’s House’, during which the crowd raises their arms to wave whenever “goodbye” is sung during the song. For ‘Looking At You’, fans at the back can be seen doing a conga line. Next up is a special moment in the show, ‘Black And Blue’, a physical EP-only track, as for this track, the band goes off the stage and Clem and Tommy appear on the floor to play in the middle of the crowd, while people wave their flashlights.
After the band goes back to the stage, they continue with ‘Even Hell’, in which the band sings the lyrics “feels like home”, and one can see that for their fans, they feel like home when they’re at Only The Poets’ shows, back with the friends they’ve met through the band and seeing them live together. Tommy introduces the song after this explaining “This one is all about missing that special someone, it’s called ‘Over & Over’”, the song goes on and during the lyrics “Cause I’d do it all for you” the crowd points at the band.
Tommy concludes “London you’ve been absolutely beautiful tonight, thank you for continuing to make our fucking dreams come true man, we love every single one of you”, moving on to their song ‘JUMP!’ and leaving the stage after this.
Before the band appears on stage again for the encore, the fans suddenly hear audio that teases a new song. After this, the encore starts with ‘One More Night’, where the band lets fans sing “Where my heart got broken, where I lost that fight, where I found my purpose”, during the end of the song. Tommy expresses the band’s gratitude for nights just like the one at KOKO was, before the next song ‘Ceasefire’, where the crowd lights up the room with flashlights again. Fans show more participation during ‘Emotional’, forming a moshpit in the middle of the crowd. Towards the end of the song, Tommy asks the whole room, whether on the balconies or on the floor, to go down and jump up on the count of four, “In 1, in 2, in 1, in 2, everybody fucking jump”, the crowd let loose one more time during the night.
During their set one can notice that all these songs mean a lot to the fans. Only The Poets put a lot into the show, and the fans return this energy, singing the songs back to them by heart. Their fans have a huge passion for their music, clapping during their set, cheering, dancing along, showing emotions during the rather slower songs, all in all visibly happy to be there, just as the band does on stage.
Written by: Nora Jarach
Photographed by: Nora Jarach
Edited by: Marieke Weeda
