Live Show: The Royston Club takes London by storm at their sold out Headline.

May 9
4 min read

The Royston Club have spent the last few years building up what has proven to be a sensational career. From touring as support for Miles Kane back in 2024 to sold-out legs of their headline tours across the UK & EU. Their most recent being the Songs For The Spine tour, which has proven to be a phenomenal success for the band. On Thursday night, they played to a sold-out Roundhouse in London, just around 6 Months after selling out the O2 Kentish Town Forum in 2025. Their growth since then has been evident from watching the lines grow down the street and fans rushing to be the first ones to grab merch at their pop up stores just down the road.

Before any act even stepped foot on the stage, fans were chanting “Roystern!” in the crowd, anticipating what the night ahead of them has to offer. The Wrexham four-piece took to the stage, opening up their set with Shivers, a clever choice to slowly build up anticipation & then bursting into the full band giving it their all.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing The Royston Club many times throughout the years, and something that always stands out about them to me is their stage presence and crowd control, and as these rooms get bigger and bigger with each tour, the band gets better and better at filling up these venues with energy. Three thousand people packed into one of London's most iconic venues, and not a single one of them looks like they'd rather be anywhere else. The band is also impressively tight live. Guitars that sound big on their recorded songs sound enormous bouncing off the Roundhouse's walls. The rhythm is locked in and relentless, keeping everything driving forward with the kind of confidence that only comes from years on the road together. It's loud, it's physical, and it's an enormous amount of fun.

The set moves brilliantly too, flowing from tracks from Songs For The Spine to fan favourites from Shaking Hips And Crashing Cars and mixing the kind of punchy, uptempo tracks that turn a crowd into a moshpit with slower, more vulnerable moments that somehow land with just as much energy. Those quieter stretches are where you notice just how good the songwriting actually is. Melodies that stick instantly, lyrics that feel deeply personal, like they were written about someone you know. Between those moments, The Royston Club performed a cover of Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks & an unreleased track Puddles, teasing to the crowd that they still have more to say.

But the moment everyone had been waiting for came towards the last couple of songs of the night. When the opening notes of The Ballad of Glenn Campbell rang out, the Roundhouse seemed to collectively hold its breath. The six-minute track is something of a different beast to the rest of their catalogue, and has become a favourite amongst their fans, which had patiently been waiting for the song to be added to the live set. The song unfolds slowly & deliberately, like a song that knows exactly how great it is. Live, it hits ten times harder. They poured everything into it, and the crowd gave it the reverence it deserved, hanging on every word until the final note faded out into a roar of applause as the band walked off. If there was any doubt that The Royston Club are capable of more than rousing indie anthems, this was a moment that proves otherwise.

As the end of the night approached, the band came back to deliver 3 of their most beloved tunes, kicking their encore off with The Patch Where Nothing Grows & 52. The crowd, already running on fumes from a night of non-stop energy, somehow found another gear entirely. The riffs of these songs became lyrics, each song landing like a greatest hits moment, the kind where you look around the room, and everyone is wearing the same massive grin. They sent off the night with Cariad, the entire room seemed to melt, every word was sung back with the kind of passion that only comes from a song that has genuinely resonated with people. It was a tender and yet simultaneously huge moment. As the final chorus finished and the lights slowly came up, there was a moment of stillness before the rest of the band walked off, and Vocalist Tom Faithfull was left alone on stage with just an acoustic guitar, playing the hook of Cariad one last time. Just the crowd, his voice and six strings in one of the most iconic rooms in London. A moment where you could hear and feel the sheer love and respect their community has for their art. A perfect send off to a perfect night.