W: Oliver Rose

I hate early doors gigs.

I know some people love them; finish up early, home at a reasonable hour, probably wake up on Saturday and go for a fucking jog or something weird. Nah! If a gig starts at 7, I immediately feel like I’ve been asked to attend a work meeting. Which is ironic because that’s how this gig pretty much started to feel.

I arrived at The Lexington expecting to be fashionably early. Instead I’d somehow managed to become the first person there. Not first in the crowd. First. Full stop. I seemed to have arrive before any bands.

The Lexington is one of those venues I have a strange relationship with. On gig nights, I usually like it, it’s one of the better venues in London. But on other nights… The Lexington feels like if David Lynch directed freshers week and it never fucking ended.

I walked upstairs and found about 10 people scattered around the room. That’s not an exaggeration either. You could’ve comfortably hosted a family dinner up there and still had space left over. For a ‘sold out’ launch party, it felt less like a gig and more like I’d accidentally arrived for soundcheck.

The strange thing about empty venues is that they make everyone look nervous. Even if they’re not. Gingerella looked nervous. I felt nervous. The handful of people scattered around the room even looked nervous! We all seemed to be waiting for somebody else to arrive and confirm this is actually a gig and not some elaborate misunderstanding.

Thankfully people started filling in. Slowly… and I mean very fucking slowly. Enough that by the time Gingerella eventually took the stage it started to resemble somewhat of a live music venue rather than a hostage situation…

GINGERELLA (Stripped Back)

I forgot to mention this wasn’t your regular run of the mill Gingerella, oh no. This was Gingerella: Stripped Back! 

(And before you ask, no it wasn’t a Full Monty thing. They kept all their clothes on!)

The set was acoustic. So that means, no drummer and no bass player coming to save them here. Just Tommy, Noah and two guitars. Could they recapture the ‘Gingerella energy’ without the foundation?

Well even stripped back, Gingerella have something a lot of bands spend years trying and failing to manufacture. They're effortlessly cool. Compared to the other bands on the bill there was very little trying involved. No forced swagger. No rehearsed rockstar shit. They just walked on stage and got on with it!

The sort of band who look like they've already got somewhere better to be afterwards.

The problem was there weren't many people there to see it.

Watching Gingerella play to a nearly empty room felt wrong. The songs deserved more people than that! The crowd slowly started filling out as the set went on; particularly after Charlie Don't Swear, which was one of the strongest songs of the night, but for the first few tracks it felt oddly intimate even in such a large venue like The Lexington

Tommy deserves a lot of credit here! Frontmen often rely on the energy of a packed room. Tommy didn't have that luxury so he improvised and instead he carried the set himself, chatting to the audience, keeping things moving and generally acting as though the room was twice the size it actually was!

The obvious comparison is The Kooks. Not because Gingerella are copying them, but because they occupy a similar space. Big melodies, long romantic songs and a very British sense of indie optimism! Twenty years ago they'd probably have been absolutely massive. That's both their biggest strength and potentially their biggest challenge.

What I was listening to felt like definitive Britpop for 2026!

The songs themselves did have a habit of stretching their legs. A few of them felt longer than they needed to be, although that's partly the nature of an acoustic set. Without drums and bass pushing things forward, everything naturally breathes a little more.

That said, Gingerella are unquestionably better with a full band behind them. Pointing this out though feels slightly unfair. It's like saying 10 pints is better when you don't have to operate heavy machinery afterwards; of course it fucking is!

The standout tracks for me were ‘Charlie Don't Swear’ and the closing song, ‘Knocking On The Doors of Wandsworth’. The latter was the perfect ending. Warm, funny, distinctly British and exactly the sort of song that reminds you why Gingerella have built such a loyal audience in the first place.

By the time Gingerella finished, it felt like the crowd had finally caught up with them. It was an impressive performance from a band that deserved more people in the room than they got! If you’re into The Kooks, early Arctic Monkeys or just good old-fashioned British indie music, I’d genuinely recommend catching them live!

Shooting Gallery

After Gingerella's easy-going indie charm, Shooting Gallery felt like being hit in the face with a brick.

DICE describe them as a mix of CBGB-era New York, The Strokes and London grit. Personally, I was getting something closer to Primal Scream.

From the moment they walked on stage everything felt incredibly deliberate. Every movement looked rehearsed; every turn, every pose, every glance towards the crowd seemed timed to the second. Normally I hate this. Rock music is supposed to feel a little messy, a little dangerous, a little loose! Like it could all fall apart at any moment!

But Shooting Gallery never looked remotely close to falling apart.

The music itself was tight. Credit especially has to go to the bassist, who brought more energy than anyone else on stage and felt like the band's secret weapon throughout the set. Over time I'd like to see some of that energy spread to the rest of the group because there were moments where the performance felt almost too controlled for me.

Then again, Shooting Gallery are still a relatively new band and I’d rather watch a group that’s slightly over-rehearsed than one that’s completely falling apart. The foundations are clearly there. The songs are strong, the musicianship is strong and they already know exactly what sort of band they want to be. A little more confidence and looseness on stage and they’ll be a much more dangerous proposition.

Shooting Gallery aren’t big talkers either. There wasn’t much crowd work, no long stories or attempts to win the audience over between songs. Just the occasional “How we doing Lexington?” before launching back into the music. Personally, I found the silence between tracks more intimidating than the actual fucking music!

The music itself sat somewhere between post-punk, alt-rock and outright noise. There were moments where I was reminded of Killing Joke, particularly that same dark, driving heaviness.

As the set went on, the sound became heavier and heavier until it occasionally crossed the line between music and pure noise. Sometimes that worked brilliantly, but most of the time it sadly didn’t… 

Either way, Shooting Gallery never lacked conviction. You might not love every song, but you'll never be left wondering whether they believe in what they're doing.

French Dog

By the time French Dog took the stage, I finally believed this gig had actually sold out!

The room was rammed! Looking back, I think everyone in London had simply decided arriving to a gig during daylight was beneath them. (Fair enough!)

If Gingerella felt intimate and Shooting Gallery felt intense, then French Dog felt like Friday night!

DICE describe the band as turning poor decisions into pure momentum. French Dog don't sound polished and they don't sound careful. They sound like a band that's figured out how to turn their own personal energy into something quite catchy.

The obvious comparison is Oasis, although that's mostly down to the swagger. The lead singer occasionally drifts a little too close to Liam Gallagher territory for my liking, but he's got enough confidence to pull most of it off. Thankfully, the songs themselves have more going on than simple shitty Britpop nostalgia.

There are hints of Fontaines D.C. in places, hints of Oasis elsewhere, but what surprised me most was how American some of it felt. Not literally American, just that same big, open, driving quality you get from certain US indie bands. It felt like an American remake of Arctic Monkeys.

Most importantly, I had fun. And so did the audience which was very clear.

The bloke next to me was having a fantastic time. Unfortunately, so was his elbow. After being repeatedly introduced to both, I moved further into the crowd and immediately found myself in a sweatier, stickier and somehow even shittier part of the room. I guess French Dog aren’t the only ones turning poor decisions into pure momentum…

The strange thing about French Dog is that despite all the confidence, the performance never felt forced. French Dog seem to have an accidental cool quality to them. There's a scrappiness to them that works in their favour.

By the end of the night they were comfortably the band I was most likely to go and see again. Their debut album, ‘Here's To Pretending’, has some genuinely strong tracks in ‘Tucker's Having A Baby’, ‘Love Don't Change Enough’ and ‘Treasure’, even if the latter occasionally wanders a little close to Oasis tribute territory.

Still, that's only a minor complaint. By the end I didn't care. Nobody cared. The room was sweating and French Dog were playing like they had something to prove to every single person in that room individually. Job done.

Verdict

Three bands and what felt like three completely different evenings somehow crammed into one.

Gingerella proved they've got the songs. Some songs that even make you slightly annoyed you didn't write them yourself! The stripped back format didn't hurt them, it just made the whole thing feel oddly intimate for a launch party, but also felt like accidentally walking in on someone's rehearsal and realising they're actually pretty good!

Shooting Gallery proved they've got the foundations. Whether they've got the looseness to go with it remains to be seen. Right now they're a band that looks like they've been told fun is a liability. Sort that out and they'll be something to look out for!

French Dog proved they've got the crowd and the energy and the swagger… and that bloke’s elbow… and most importantly had more stage presence than half the bands I've seen this year!

As for the night itself, it started with 10 people standing around wondering if they'd made a terrible mistake and ended with a sold-out crowd sweating through their shirts not wanting to leave.

Honestly? Not a bad way to spend your Friday.