Music / Reviews
Review: The Psychedelic Furs, O2 Academy – ‘Cathartic sonics’
It’s very rare to be the youngest person in the audience at a gig. But at a Psychedelic Furs gig, I might be one of the only ones slotting into the twenty-to-thirty five year old category.
Yet I feel smug about it, for the band is still touring for good reason and almost certainly has influenced the young bands coming up through Bristol’s live music circuit. In fact, they’re almost underrated in 2025.
Formed in London in 1977 by brothers Richard (vocals) and Tim Butler (bass), the Psychedelic Furs is best known for their distinctive blend of post-punk and doses of 1960s psychedelia, which set them apart within the UK music scene of the 1970s and 1980s.
Almost fifty years later, and the band’s still on tour, playing all the iconic hits, their audiences growing up with them.
Entering the stage at just past 9pm, the band is greeted by cheering and an uproar of clapping from the crowd: it’s as though they’re a hotly anticipated new band and the next big thing.
It doesn’t even take them the full hour and a half set to prove how tight they still are – it’s obvious the moment they burst straight into Heaven, the lead single from their fourth album Mirror Moves.
From the get-go, they present their audience with a big, sing-along number; you can feel the energy in the room is at its maximum, even if the low-level jumping in the pit below from a few crowd members and a couple of raised pints is the extent of it.
Leave the energy solely in the hands of frontman Richard Butler. Despite now being in his late 60s, Butler demonstrates a higher level of energy and captivating stage presence than most current young bands in the same genre.
Between songs, he jumps up and down, a genuine sense of excitement and awe at the crowd radiating from the frontman.
During the songs he’s theatrical, reinforcing his lyricism with swagger and accompanying mannerisms, which also contribute to making the music visually pleasing in the absence of major stage production.
While he and the band don’t necessarily interact with their audience, it doesn’t detract anything from the show; instead Butler leans into the crowd, pointing at members of the audience as he sings, waving off to the sides and almost bowing down to those in the front rows, allowing the acknowledgement of those here tonight to be more physical than verbal.
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The setlist consists of a relatively even balance of tracks ranging across their career, a few tracks from their 2020 comeback project Made Of Rain weaved around the band’s recognisable hits.
Early in the set is the iconic The Ghost In You which, one for the younger audiences, features the distinctive melody the Strokes interpolated on their 2020 track Eternal Summer.
Crouching down on the edge of the stage for the bridge, the entire crowd joins in for the chanting of “Love / Love / Love is all of heaven away,” before the chorus kicks in and guitarist Rich Good’s backing vocals add dimension and atmosphere to the cathartic sonics.
Tracks such as President Gas and Heartbreak Beat wholly encourage the crowd to sing along to every word, a few members of the crowd really beginning to loosen up and boogie along as the set goes on (albeit dad dancing…).
Similarly, Pretty In Pink, the glistening, pop-leaning track that saw the band find international success following the John Hughes movie of the same name, is another standout of the night.
The rebellious, empowering Forever Now single Love My Way is a particular highlight in the show, the band’s new wave sound at the forefront of the track.
It sounds as though it could be a fresh song, not one over 40 years old. For my generation, that’s the song which Timothée Chalamet famously dances along to in the 2017 critically acclaimed movie Call Me By Your Name.
It’s impressive how closely resonant the live versions of the tracks are to the studio recordings, proving just how strong the musicianship and talent within the Furs is, and how even at sixty-nine Butler is still able to achieve the same vocal tones of the early days of the band, something that at moments leaves the crowd standing mesmerised.
The pacing of the set is impeccable, the band burning through fourteen songs in around an hour. An encore ensues, the band returning to play It Goes On and India, offering up one final sing-along.
I initially entered the auditorium feeling like the youngest there but as I walked out, I found myself among those who had never felt younger.
All images: Katie Hillier
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