Taking the step from perennial support act to selling out the same venues with their own name at the top of the ticket is a pivotal transition for any band. On their debut headline tour across the UK, Tropic Gold got on with proving that they are the direction everyone should be looking, starting with London, Downstairs at the Dome.
Harpy provided a witchy, vampiric start to the evening alongside her usually masked band, making no attempts to hide their faces during this set though. With her debut EP, VII almost a year old, the set featured plenty of favourites from that release.
Kicking off with ‘Medicine’ Harpy declared ‘It's so good to be back with you London’ before dragging The Dome into her sultry lair of electronic metal, while stage fans blew her jet-black hair theatrically, all around.
With a clap along to ‘Inferno’ and a mosh pit to the heavier ‘Inside Out’, the ever-appreciative artist passed her love to the crowd, “It's such a blessing to be able to do this”, before introducing one of her formative tracks ‘Swallow’.
“You got some energy in you London? I wanna see it” Harpy urged the keen in the middle of the room to bring the dancing for her new and unreleased song ‘Voyeur’, her unique take on the modern quagmire of phone culture. “I guess that's a keeper then” she grinned after a great response.
Wrapping up her set with ‘Slaughterhouse’, Harpy took her support role seriously, stating- “Tropic Gold ain't coming out until you warm the fuck up”. The crowd responded in kind with one last circle pit.
“Get the fuck up” Jacob Parris, Tropic Gold’s poised frontman growled at the crowd as new track ‘sodium’ released the pent-up anticipation of the beginning of the set.
Exactly six months previous (minus one day if we are being pedantic), Tropic Gold were on the same stage in Tufnell Park in support of Wisconsin rockers, Archers. Half a year on, the homegrown band have been able to fill the same room with their own fans for their debut headline tour, and they sure are an enthusiastic bunch.
Leaning into flavours of dark-electronica ‘THE ANGELS ARE GONE’ from 2025 EP, SICK TO DEATH OF EVERYTHING set the energy early and ‘DEAD TO ALL MY FRIENDS’ continued the trend, with a heartwarming sight of a barrierless venue with fans packed in tightly to be as close to the action as possible.
Introducing ‘Witchhouse’, guitarist Joshua Lee took a moment to reminisce about the summer just gone. “We released this song earlier in the year just before Download.” The Donnington festival a pivotal moment for the band, with Lee expressing just how important their inclusion on the bill was for himself, Parris and drummer Amy Barnett. With Harpy back on stage for this collaboration track the room came together to headbang along in unison.
“This is a really fucking old song let's have a dance on this one”, Parris encouraged for ‘Outta My Head’. Released in 2020, in Tropic Gold terms, this is indeed a formative track but one still relevant to the band's current sound and clearly still a favourite to be included. As far as back-catalogues go, Tropic Gold don't have the biggest collection of songs to build a set from, and yet every track feels as if it has earned its place.
Adding to that pool, the line up included a completely new and unrelated song ‘Glitter’ slap bang in the middle of the set and got a great reaction from the room despite no one being able to sing along.
‘A PLACE CALLED EUPHORIA’, proved to be one of the biggest moments of the night, with enthusiastic mosh pits that continued during ‘ADRENALINE’.
Haunting ‘Breathe’ and frantic ‘HAPPY’ come from completely different eras of the band and yet sit perfectly together towards the end of the set, ensuring an upward trajectory of energy as the set came to its end.
“London, this has been a fucking blessing” Parris affirmed before closing track ‘HOLY HORROR’ and the usual call and response of ‘‘I fucking love that’’. After a determined, ‘‘One more song’’ chant though, the band returned to the stage for an encore of the opener ‘sodium’, for a second time.
Anyone who has been following Tropic Gold for a while will have noticed the refining taking place, subtle shifts in confidence, cohesion and pure grit that has started to pay dividends and galvanise a dedicated and eager fanbase. Whatever the secret sauce is, this band has found it, feeling both self-assured and perfected in their identity but also young and unpredictable in their potentiality. All we’re saying is keep one eye on this band, or you might just miss the explosion.
Words by Imogen Bird.
Photos by Florelle Servageon.
