Essex's finest Britpop revivalists, The Bracknall, arrived at Rescue Rooms in style, performing a beautiful, blissful set drawing heavily from their latest album...
First support band Paradise Circus are a fantastic indie act of the highest standard. They have such a unique, fun and powerful stage presence, with frontman Dave charmingly dancing with effortless coolness.
As fun as they are though, their talent really shines through; theguitars are bright, cutting through the room’s lively atmosphere with tremendous ease. In fact, I’d attribute Dave’s dancing as a major high point of the set, with his puppet-like movements throughout the set leading to a large dramatic moving climax in which he collapses during the final song. This level of performativity for an indie band is rare but I love it, its unique but not too much and matches the music and vibes of the set perfectly, adding to it all in a really major way. As a band, they’re really tight, and that shows. Everything ties together and no one part interferes with another; they perform as a well- oiled indie machine. I’d absolutely love to see an extended, headline-worthy set from these, as their songs are resonant and are extremely well-written, especially with the vocal melodies and lyrics.
Paradise Circus are really worth checking out for a quality sounding indie vibe.
Blues-rock is a tough genre to understand enough to expand on it in a new, inventive way, but River Drive do it to a great extent. The East-midlands-based outlet push it into nostalgic britpop and modern indie territory, a welcome innovation.
Frontman Matt Shaw has beautiful and powerful vocals that hold up fully throughout the set’s 30 minutes. The songs are uplifting, positive and draw from the band’s lives and experiences in a great way. Their songs have anthem capabilities and I’d love to see them in an arena someday. Musically, their very creative with chord structures and riffs and voicings and its good to see a band that promote musical postmodernism, the transforming of the older concepts and sounds into something new and beautiful.
River Drive are an absolutely brilliant live act and I expect really big things for them this year, and if you can, you definitely should go to watch them, this act need to to seen to be believed.
There’s always online chatter nowadays about Britpop revival bands – with Wunderhorse being the most mentioned, but honestly, The Bracknall should be at the forefront of any conversation like this. Never before have I seen a band that truly capture the feel of the 90s Britpop scene with such vigour, passion and love for the genre and atmosphere it creates, whilst also doing their own thing and building on the vibes to make an incredible live set.
The audience are clearly here for The Bracknall; everyone contributes to a powerful, sublime triumphant roar when the band walk out and begin to play. The opener is No Way Back For Me, which also serves as the opener for the latest album, Fall out of View, which they are on tour promoting. The striking piano intro is truly potent live, every note furthering a sense of suspense which just feeds into the song perfectly. When the chorus hits a mass wave of bliss encases the audience, the band’s presence really taking shape here, which is amazing to see with it being the first song.
The new album’s tracks are the majority of the set but this works; for me it's The Bracknall at their best. The songs are heartfelt, uplifting, sing along, everything you want in a Britpop anthem. The execution is key though, with the band really putting in 100% effort to deliver these songs, old and new, as best they can in the live setting. It all really pays off, for me. The whole set is near perfect in delivery and frontman Jack’s vocals are insane live.
Feeling Blue is a beautiful highlight of the set. Its themes of being lost and finding something new in this world resonate extremely well live.
Picking out songs as highlights for this set is a hard job, finding ones that sum up the band perfectly whilst also being live gems, but Feeling Blue is a complete no-brainer. It feels like The Bracknall’s strongest songwriting talents all went into this track and the instrumental arrangement serves to fully back this up and elevate to new levels. Everyone sings along to Jack’s musings on this song and it fills the room with a beautiful feeling of being found amongst the lost.
However, when Jack picked up his acoustic guitar, I knew the next song would hit completely different. We all know how good acoustic-led britpop songs can be (take Walk Away by Cast as one of many examples), so I had a strong feeling that what was coming would be next level. I was right. This live version of Say You Won’t Be Gone was perfect in every single way. Its a sing-along classic already, no one isn’t screaming it out at the top of their lungs.
The Bracknall have all the makings of a stadium-ready band and I’d absolutely love to hear this song live at an arena; it feels big and is so emotionally charged it would fit perfectly.
My overall favourite song of the set was This Music, purely because of how good the structuring is. The first minute-or-so has a familiar, rigid chord progression that holds, the lyrics match the tone and this creates a song, solid basis for the song, but then this is completely thrown out the window by the pre-chorus. For some reason, this part makes the entire song and is easily the best musical section of the whole set - and that’s certainly saying something. It has that familiar chord progression seen in Wunderhorse’ Midas and Pixies’ Catfish Kate, added to by Jack’s soaring, beautiful vocals. The section captures the song’s entire essence in under 15 seconds. It's truly amazing to see this level of talent.
Overall, The Bracknall are Essex’s finest band for me. This set showcases all their music in the environment its truly built for: the live setting. The new album’s songs are a cut above the rest for me, their sound evolving and honed perfectly. For any fans of Britpop, especially Oasis and Cast, The Bracknall will be both familiar and different but lovable nethertheless. I was truly blown away by the shear scale and execution of their whole works.
The Bracknall performed at Rescue Rooms on 13th March 2025, with support from Paradise Circus and River Drive.
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
