Westside Cowboy are currently one of the most exciting and well talked-about bands in the UK. Expectations for their visit to The Bodega were high - and we weren't left disappointed...
A few hours before the show started, support band Holly Head sadly had to pull out due to illness, which meant that a last minute replacement was sourced to start the evening off right. Local Nottingham band Pict answered the call with a fitting offering of post-folk. Their chemistry on stage as a band was immediately clear, and their emotive songwriting combined with an extremely passionate performance was a real pleasure to watch. Their lead singer put their life and soul into the performance, with their hair violently shaking with every lunge forward to the microphone.
Pict combine delicate, rich vocal harmonies with big sounds, gritty riffs and driving percussion... Especially considering that the time they would have had to prepare for the night would have been fairly minimal, the group provided a very solid package for a packed out Bodega crowd and left the stage to a room full of murmurs of “they were good weren’t they?”
Definitely a band coming through locally to get excited about.
The buzz around Westside Cowboy and their visit to Nottingham was reminiscent to me of the excitement felt locally in 2023 when Geese came to town to perform at Bodega - it felt like an unmissable listing for anyone eager to catch the next big thing. Of course, in Geese’s case it’s undoubtedly turned out to be true and I’ve got a feeling a similar boom could be on the horizon for Westside Cowboy. They’ve already started securing some fantastic slots supporting bands like Black Country, New Road on tour and even ended up at Woodsies stage after stunning the judges of Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent competition.
Every last inch of the room was heaving with fans waiting in eager anticipation. Drummer Paddy Murphy’s outcry of “Westside Cowboyyyyy”, marked the start of an hour of expertly crafted ‘Britanicana’ - the band’s blend of American roots and British indie-rock that’s come to define their sound.
They came out swinging with their debut single I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love, which had plenty of fans singing along around the room. The interweaving vocal lines in the chorus between Reuben Haycocks and Aoife Anson O’Connell add a real richness and a crescendo to an already massive song. James ‘Jimmy’ Bradbury then took the vocal reins for Alright Alright Alright, a wild ride of a track personified by an unrelenting wave of drums thrashing down on the room accompanied by electrifying distorted riffs. I regularly had to pick up my jaw from the floor after watching Murphy shred the drum-kit with such mastery - he’s simply awesome.
The band effortlessly moves between these big intense moments into powerfully gentle and emotionally raw moments, such as is the case on Drunk Surfer, which goes from a crushing, pounding drumbeat to an anxious and quiet admission of ‘you’re scaring me now’. Westside Cowboy tells their stories so beautifully and so completely, with instrumentation that breathes and bleeds and cries along with their expertly crafted lyrics. It’s not difficult to understand why a spotlight is following them around at the moment attracting so much attention.
Slowly, I’m Sure offered a moment of calm before the band moved into Don’t Throw Rocks - an incredibly impressive single from their second EP, So Much Country ‘Til We Get There, which needed no introduction to this crowd who were cheering from the familiar tapping of sticks and recognisable opening riff. The track builds and builds with tension before bursting into life in a display of beautiful chaos.
The night came to a delicious conclusion with In the Morning, a stripped-back track that saw all four members gathered around a microphone at the front of the stage, harmonising to twinkly strings - yet another demonstration of the band’s visceral chemistry. Hopefully, it is not long before Westside Cowboy return to Nottingham and when they do, it will be no surprise to see them packing out bigger venues as the band continue to build on what is already a stellar back catalogue.
Westside Cowboy performed at The Bodega on 4th February 2026.
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