The queue for Holly Humberstone’s Bristol gig loops around the Beacon’s foyer long before doors are due to open. It is not dissimilar to waiting for a major pop act’s arena show; a mix of ages, younger audience members carrying homemade signs and dressed in Holly’s trademark y2k grunge aesthetic.
The BRIT award-winning singer-songwriter was last in the city in 2022 when she played across the road at the slightly smaller O2 Academy. Since then, she’s released her debut album ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ which entered the top 5 in October and this week she played her biggest headline show so far at Hammersmith Apollo.
An intensive touring schedule has clearly improved Holly’s confidence as a performer. Any nerves or shyness apparent at earlier shows have vanished as she delivers an arena-ready set of polished indie pop to an enthusiastic sold out crowd.
The gig opens in the same way as the album does – with the title track followed by cinematic single ‘Into Your Room’ which was recently updated with American pop group MUNA. It’s euphoric, 80s feel makes them the perfect collaborators.
You can see and hear similarities to a number of Holly’s other contemporaries throughout the show. There are shades of Olivia Rodrigo as she strides across the stage, elements of Lorde in the synthy ‘Flatlining’ (there’s a mashup of this and ‘Supercut’ waiting to happen), aspects of Griff in the infectious choruses of ‘Falling Asleep at the Wheel’ or ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’ and characteristics of Caroline Polachek in ‘Antichrist’.
Support act Medium Build joins Holly for ‘Cocoon’ and helps it to sound like a long lost Blink 182 song. The crowd scream out the Real Housewives sound bite in ‘Dive’ and sing to every word of proven anthems ‘Vanilla’ and ‘Sleep Tight’ but are attentively quiet for tender moments like ‘London Is Lonely’ and ‘Elvis Impersonators’; Holly explains that the latter was written following a trip to Japan to see her sister who had moved there.
Backed by a tight three-piece band, it’s a glossy and proficient set that you can tell has been well rehearsed for big rooms. Over a month into the tour, Holly’s voice is croaky at times and often more coarse than on the recorded versions but if anything it just adds gravitas to these neatly crafted pop songs.
The main set ends with a roaring version of ‘Ghost Me’ which has the hallmarks of a Sam Fender festival banger. Despite having played for almost 90 minutes, the crowd were keen for more and Holly duly returns to the stage to play two songs from her ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’ EP; ‘Friendly Fire’ which she starts solo on guitar before being joined by the rest of the band and then an explosive rendition of ‘Scarlett’. It’s impossible to not chant along and the emotionally-charged chorus “I just cried all this Summer away” will no doubt be bouncing around our heads for days to come after this superb show.
