On the flipside to Harry Styles’ 12-night Wembley mega residency, this summer there’s something rumbling underground. Sweaty basement venues and messy music (think unclean vocals, and loud guitars you can feel in your chest) are all the rage right now! But why do the kids yearn for live music?

Tiny pub venues like The Windmill pub in Brixton and The Lexington in Islington are producing some of the most talked about bands right now. The likes of Keo, Bleech 9:3, the north, and tooth have gained their popularity by playing tiny these sweaty, sticky floored venues and creating a community before releasing any music.

Keo and Bleech 9:3 are two bands I’ve been lucky enough to see before at
Norwich’s very own Waterfront; I noticed both bands reject clean cut corporate music and embrace emotionally driven indie anthems like “I lied amber” and “ceiling”. Both bands have gained a loyal following throughout the past year with Keo now having over 200,000 monthly listeners whilst only having 6 released songs and they are still opting for small venues!

While clean cut pop music is still thriving today with artists such as Harry Styles and Ariana Grande are still topping the charts, somewhere in London (probably the Elephants head pub) massive up and coming bands like Keo are still performing to huge crowds out of pub windows.

In covid no one could perform and independent music venues began dying out according to the independent venues trust’s annual report 16% of independent venues closed their doors for good thanks to covid. And now, AI is seeping into the music industry, and people are polishing their personalities for social media. But the pot has finally boiled over and it’s time for authenticity and vulnerability in music. The kids yearn for authenticity.

Image credit: Erin Heffernan