Dream State in London

Dream State brought their headline tour to London, starting off the evening with Hell Hotel opening. Hell Hotel are an up-and-coming emo/ alternative/ rock band that formed last year, releasing their first single ‘Chandelier’ earlier this year. ‘Chandelier’ was a great start to the evening with Tom Marfield’s catchy guitar riffs and Demi Jay’s heartfelt vocals so perfectly combined. ‘Jennifer’s body.’ really portrayed their early 2000s emo inspiration throughout this song. They then covered Sugababes’ ‘About You Now’ while putting their own signature spin on it and it sounded incredible and really got the crowd hyped up and singing along before rounding out their set with their debut single ‘smile.’. Their set was full of emotion and energy, and it was really refreshing to see them bringing back emo music and introducing it to the younger generation. Having already supported artists like Kid Brunswick and Dream State, they are definitely one to watch in 2025 and I can’t wait to see where they go next. 

Next up was Australian band RedHook who describe themselves as “screaming rap rock electro pop mutants”. Having released their latest album ‘Bomb.com’ just over a week ago, they came back to Europe to play it for us. They started off their set with a bang with ‘Pyromaniac’ with lead singer Emmy Mack in an orange boiler suit with a hand puppet. The entire band brought all their energy to their performance and interacted with the crowd so much, they were even better than I remember them being last year. They continued to mix every genre together throughout the rest of their set. They also replaced ‘Dr. Frankenstein’ with ‘Kamikaze’ after a fan asked if they could play it, showing just how much they care about their fans. Emmy Mack conveyed a very powerful message about sexual assault to the crowd before playing ‘Jabberwocky’ which documents her experience, in hopes of helping other survivors. Emmy Mack continued to fully embody every song with multiple outfit changes and getting in character for each song helping her to convey the emotions of each and every song. This included a dress and walking on stage like a zombie for ‘Dead Walk’. They finished off their set super strong with ‘Cannibal’ and ‘Bad Decisions’ while Ned Jankovic (bass) and Craig Wilkinson (guitar) continued to hype the crowd up while spinning around the stage and encouraging circle pits. 

And last but not least was Dream State, a Welsh Rock band who have just released their mini-album ‘Still Dreaming’. They started off their set with ‘Bloom’, their latest release before leading into ‘Comfort in Chaos’ and ‘Help Myself’. I hadn’t listened to their music before the show but I did really enjoy it. They combine post hardcore with rock and pop punk to create interesting and enticing tracks. They brought so much energy to stage and lead singer Jessie Powell had an insane vocal range that really complimented their music. Their bright flashing lights highlighted all the crowd surfers and mosh pits throughout the night. The energy continued to ramp up more and more all evening while they performed the rest of their latest album including ‘Anxious State of Mind’, ‘Calling Out’ and ‘Chin Up Princess’, before ending their set with a solid three song encore consisting of ‘Still Dreaming’, ‘Taunt Me’ and ‘Primrose’.