LIVE REVIEW + PHOTOS: MAGGIE LINDEMANN AT THE O2 SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON 20/04/26
Straddling the line between pop and rock is a tricky place to be. Will the girlies fuck with heavier vibes? Will the rockers take a lighter brand of music seriously? Walking that tightrope is Maggie Lindemann, moving from the bubblegum vibes of ‘Pretty Girl' back in 2016 to the moody emo coded ‘self sabotage’ in 2022 and dark electronic ‘fang’ in 2025.
With her, at the Empire in Shepherds Bush, Lindemann brought with her two hard hitting supports, the first of which was Runaway Club. With only a single song released it's hard to get a full sense of this band before seeing their show. Live, the experience is a far more ruckus than the recorded version of single ‘6 Weeks’ would suggest.
With boundless energy, vocalist Angel Macintosh and rapper/guitarist Reece Wells threw themselves around the stage with reckless abandon, the stage presence of the entire band as impressive as their layered and forward thinking sound. The band is looking to the future in earnest too.
“Our headline tour is in October. It's gonna be hype and tickets are only £14 so I wanna see each and every one of you there”. Based on the reception of the crowd, the O2 Academy2 in Islington should be packed out later this year for that event.
Afterdrive took on the next slot, a slick and measured performance, the band all in black, singer Ben Watts stalking the stage with engaging confidence, fronting the band with ease.
With a feature of an unreleased track called ‘Neon View’ the Ipswich quartet are making waves up and down the country with their specific brand of indie grooves.
“Let's kick it” Watts grinned as Afterdrive delivered a fast paced tour through their relatively limited catalogue that spans the few years that the group have been making music together.
Catchy and intriguing ‘Necklace’ went down well, then slower, more melancholy track 'What she needs’ held the room rapt. The thread running through the entire set though is of a confident and capable band delivering modern indie rock, the group having tapped into a special recipe that had everyone in the room nodding along to.
Maggie Lindemann herself is a force of nature. With flawless vocal abilities to match her perfect stage presence and relatively lengthy set of hits, the Texan born, LA grown singer/songwriter was here to prove her worth in her quite specific genre placing.
‘fang’, the opening track of Lindemann’s recently released album ‘I feel everything’ is also the opener for the set, setting an upbeat yet grungy mood for the night. Lindemann’s sound has evolved to land at this current vibe from her last album HEADSPLIT and hits with more confidence, more certainty and more attitude.
Not that the setlist excludes those previous iterations of the starlet, the entirety of her journey is represented over 26 tracks, an impressively lengthy show for one woman and her mic.
Sticking with the new album vibes though for the first four songs, Lindemann surfed through the haunting vibes of her modern iteration. The instantly catchy and sincere ‘fate’ giving way to ‘casualty of your dreams’ from the 2022 album SUCKERPUNCH. This era is a partway evolution to where Lindemann’s music sits nowadays.
‘mourning’ saw a moment of calm with Lindemann taking a seat on the drum riser for the arm waving, intensely emotional offering from the new album.
Old favourite ‘self sabotage’ went down as one of the best songs of the set with numerous phones up to capture this moment and was followed by even older ‘Crash and Burn’, which proceeded with a more pop-punk vibe. In this track you can really hear the Avril Lavigne influence that Lindemann has often talked about as one of her leading inspirations.
Dropping to her knees during ‘heart drop’, Lindemann lost no energy towards the second half of her set, if anything, drawing power from the crowd’s love and stepping up the performance aspect of her appearance.
“Who listened to my first album Paranoia? Okay I expect you know all the words then” Lindemann winked as she treated old-school fans to the dual threat of ‘Scissorhands’ and ‘Knife Under My Pillow’.
“I call this song my crash out song so who's ready to crash out?” Lindemann asked before ‘let me burn’. All of her music features personal and raw emotion and this track is no different, the eerie vocals asking ‘‘Please don't go’’ heart-wrenching and poignant.
Originally recorded with Julia Wolf, Lindemann instead invited a fan- Lexie, up on stage to accompany her for ‘2022’ as we headed towards the end of the set.
Playing herself out with the new album’s title track ‘I feel everything’, this blended family that is the pop fans and rock connoisseurs surely all left with the same impression - an appreciation of the technical process, electric stage presence and impressive stamina of one girl, moving through genres to show who she really is, and who she has been all along.
Words by Imogen Bird
Photos by Florelle Servageon
