Katacombs arrived in Birmingham with a sound that felt both breathless and ethereal, the sort of thing that seems to hover in the air even as it digs its heels in. She mentioned she has been playing since she was four, and there is something in that which makes perfect sense: even when the songs drift into strange places, they feel lived in.
There is plenty of character here, too. A tale about swapping a wood shop building furniture for this life says plenty about commitment, while “Buck Or Bust” lurked in the shadows with a delicious sense of menace. And if Katacombs is slightly off-kilter, that only adds to the charm. Not everyone can make an obsession with Tunnock’s Tea Cakes feel like part of the same world as a snippet of “Paranoid,” but somehow she did.
Earlier in the tour, she said, a panic attack came before “Seeing Red,” and that vulnerability only made the performance hit harder. There is warmth in her music, certainly, but also a steely determination, something “Old Fashioned” underlined brilliantly.
Before closing with “You Will Not,” she thanked the Birmingham crowd for not hating her for being American. As if they would. “I’m not trying to fit in, I’m trying to do what I want to do,” she said. Usually, for an artist, that is enough. For Katacombs, it sounds exactly right.
There are writers, and then there’s Dave Hause.
I’ve been a fan of his for years now, and the reason is simple: few do this better. Not just because he can write a hook, although he can, and not just because he can turn a room into a singalong, although he does that as well. It’s because he has that rare gift of taking something deeply personal and making it feel like it belongs to everyone.
“Knife In The Mud” is a perfect example, its defiant “we ain’t gonna die” refrain ringing out like a clarion call. “Suture Self” has a desperate quality to it, the kind of song that sounds like it has been dragged out of somewhere raw. “Cell Mates,” dedicated here to Katacombs, becomes a mass singalong, but it also underlines what a great lyricist Hause really is.
“Hazard Lights” lands hard too, and you believe every ounce of the trauma inside it. Before “Sandy Sheets,” he grins and says, here’s a love song for ya, and the song gets extra marks for a nod to Gin Blossoms songs, not that he needs the help. “Damn Personal,” written about a dead friend, is another reminder of his genius for making grief feel universal.
This song is about losing your fucking mind, he says before “Mockingbird Blues,” and there’s an old favourite in “Autism Vaccine Blues.” Then “Dirty Fucker,” dedicated to the orange prick in the White House, spits pure venom. By the time “Look Alive” arrives, opening with the stunning line “if I’m going to pay for sins then Goddamn I wanna sin some more,” the case is closed.
Dave Hause remains a songwriter of rare class.
The second song Frank Turner plays tonight is “Nashville, Tennessee” and it contains the line, “the only person in my band is me.” On this occasion, that is literally true. This is Turner’s 23rd show in Birmingham, but more than that it is show 3141 overall, a number that matters because it speaks to the road he has travelled, the work he has put in and the bond he has built with his audience. Tonight’s solo acoustic set marks 20 years of “Campfire Punkrock,” and if the format is stripped back, the feeling in the room is anything but. Turner still only really needs a guitar, a voice and a crowd willing to throw itself into every word.
“The Ballad of Me and My Friends” arrives early and feels as communal as ever, the sort of song that only gets bigger the louder a room sings it back. There really is no one quite like Turner when it comes to making a gig feel shared. “Do One” follows with all its ragged encouragement, its message of not taking anyone’s shit sounding less like a slogan than a genuine way of living. Then there is “The Real Damage,” a drinking song from the EP, and there is something fascinating about hearing Turner now sing these songs of youthful abandon with all the years, miles and perspective that have followed.
That atmosphere never really leaves his shows. “The Next Storm” has it in spades, before “Recovery” turns the whole place joyous. One of the pleasures of a tour like this is the freedom it gives him to dig deeper. “The Resurrectionists” is introduced as a song the audience should have liked, he jokes, and its “advanced singalong” proves plenty of people do. “Our Lady of the Campfires” is sung for a fan attending her 200th show, which tells you plenty about the connection Turner inspires.
There are lovely left turns too. “Smiling At Strangers On Trains,” the oldest song of the night, is stripped right back, and hearing a Million Dead song in this context feels special. “Casanova Lament” is so old, Turner says, that he had to practise it, while “Thatcher Fucked The Kids” remains as furious and gloriously unsubtle as ever, the whole room more than happy to spit back its message. “Be More Kind” inevitably raises the question of whether kindness is enough in 2026, but Turner’s answer seems to be that even if the world is ugly, you do not sink to its level.
“I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” carries its own weight for me. I first saw Turner play it in February 2009, a week or two after my mum died, when he was opening for The Gaslight Anthem at the old Academy. Some songs never leave you. Others grow with you. Turner’s do both.
By the time “Photosynthesis,” “Get Better” and “I Still Believe” roll around, the point is obvious. A great song always translates, whatever the format, and Frank Turner is one of the best. More than that, live, he could probably sing anything he liked and make it sound vital. And then “Polaroid Pictures” closes the night with a deep sense of reflection and community, Turner joined by Katacombs and Dave Hause for a final moment that feels warm, generous and entirely in keeping with the spirit of the evening.
