Black Country, New Road | Palace Foreshore | Melbourne | 26th February
Life has been busy lately, as it often is during summer, so I was more than ready to spend an evening welcoming Black Country, New Road back to Melbourne on Thursday, 26 February at the lovely Palace Foreshore in St Kilda.
It really could not have been a more perfect afternoon. Twenty-six degrees, sunny, right by the beach, Luna Park beside us, and a cool breeze lifting everyone’s hair wildly into the air. As my partner and I made our way into the venue, not forgetting a cheeky pass through the bar of course, we arrived just in time for the first opener, Melbourne’s very own Mouseatouille. Following the September 2025 release of their third studio album DJ Set, the nine-piece outfit was such an inviting introduction to the evening. With interchangeable singers and an array of instruments from clarinet and trombone to trumpet and violin, their sound felt like a warm hug on a cool day. Needless to say, they are now in my Spotify rotation, and I definitely recommend checking out their latest album, particularly the songs ‘Theme from 2021’ and ‘Today Will Be the Greatest Day of Our Lives’.
After a quick intermission and refuel, another Melbourne-based act, Way Dynamic, took to the stage, much to my delight. The brainchild of songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Dylan Young, the witty and charming alt-folk pop project worked its way straight into my ears and into my heart. Already being a big fan, I am proudly biased when I say their set was excellent. It was all feel-good energy as the venue filled out, with the crowd treated to standouts from 2025’s Massive Shoe. It felt like Sgt. Pepper’s-era Beatles meeting Vulfpeck by way of Wilco. And boy, can Young play guitar. If you have not yet, listen to Massive Shoe from top to bottom. You will thank me later.
Then, just like that, Black Country, New Road entered stage right. The English experimental rock band treated the packed-out foreshore crowd to a full-album performance of their baroque pop and alternative indie rock record, Forever Howlong. The band, made up of Tyler Hyde, May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, Lewis Evans, Charlie Wayne, and Luke Mark, proved themselves to be an outrageously talented bunch.
They opened with ‘Two Horses’, and it immediately set the tone for an intimate experience. The eager crowd reflected that feeling, falling almost completely silent as Ellery’s vocal range and control held everyone in place. Blurring solemnity and anticipation, it felt like the kind of song that should one day find itself in a film soundtrack. Dramatic and profound, but still playful in its storytelling, it captured exactly what I have come to love about Black Country, New Road.
That same feeling carried into ‘Big Spin’, which further revealed the album as something like an artist’s abstract skyline: intimate yet vague, full of colour, shape, and sudden sharpness. Even with a brief pause to help someone in the crowd, the audience stayed locked in, holding onto every silence and shift in movement. Hyde then led ‘Salem Sisters’, a bright piano-led number, before my personal favourite, ‘Besties’, brought some of the biggest cheers of the night. An unreleased track, ‘Strangers’, followed, giving the crowd a little extra to treasure, before ‘Socks’ arrived in a delightful blur of stream-of-consciousness charm. Kershaw’s effervescent vocals shone here, with hints of Regina Spektor in the song’s playful theatricality.
Halfway through the 13-song set, Wayne told the crowd the band had only arrived in Melbourne 12 hours earlier. In that time, he joked, he had somehow already learned about a newly discovered fossil and the possible merger of three municipal councils. He also made it clear how appreciative the band were to be back in Australia, calling it their favourite place to visit. One of the biggest standouts of the night was ‘Nancy Tries to Take the Night’, which felt beautifully haunting. Hyde’s classical acoustic guitar gave it a dark, fragile quality, like a soundscape on a broken planet, and it perfectly embodied the band’s self-described “melo drama”.
As the night grew colder and the wind picked up, the band moved into the title track, ‘Forever Howlong’, which saw Kershaw simultaneously singing, playing accordion, and conducting the rest of the band as they each played recorder. Slow-building and distinctly pastoral, it carried a medieval, chamber-folk quality that set it apart from the rest of the set. Their final stretch, ‘Goodbye (Don’t Tell Me You’re Sorry)’ into ‘For the Cold Country’, was a stunning way to close. The latter, with its huge orchestral and choir-like swells, felt dramatic and unsteady in the best way. As my partner pointed out, it even carried flashes of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in its scale and theatricality. It was a fabulous ending to a Thursday night performance that felt as thoughtful, strange, and quietly spectacular as the band themselves.