Gig review: Idlewild at Rescue Rooms

As we enter the main room at Rescue Rooms, we are greeted by a fairly packed audience already for tonight’s support, Glasgow-based singer-songwriter, Zoe Graham. Having just recently released her own debut album TENT at the end of March, tonight’s set mainly pulls from that record, with Even Though I’m Scared one of the tracks standing out thanks to its groovy guitars and synths.

Zoe has a three-piece band set-up tonight who are sounding great, but she admits the lack of bass requires some extra oomph from the audience. She then encourages the crowd to make cooing dog noises and sing along to the sweet, shimmering synth sounds of Good Girl.

“You can just bark if you don’t want to sing!” she jests, although at least one person nearby takes her suggestion seriously. She finishes her impressive warm-up set with recent single Divine Feminine Energy, having won over more than a few new fans in tonight’s audience.

After a short break, it’s time for Idlewild who waste little time diving straight into A Film For The Future from their 1998 debut album, Hope Is Important. It’s then followed by the anthemic Like I Had Before from their 2025 self-titled tenth album, showcasing early on the sheer breadth and depth of their song catalogue.

“It’s great to be back in Nottingham!” says enigmatic frontman Roddy Woomble, addressing the crowd for the first and indeed one of the few times tonight. “We’ll be playing some old songs and some new songs… this is an old song” he says, before the band generate the first big singalong of the evening with another 1998 cut, I’m A Message. 

Indeed, the evening is mostly structured like a pleasing tango between the old and new, with newer cuts Make It Happen and It’s Not The First Time sandwiched within their biggest tracks such as Little Discourage and old-school FIFA soundtrack gem, You Held The World In Your Arms. 

“We’ll just keep blasting through them – we’re only in Nottingham once every 20 years or something!” says Roddy, letting the audience know they’re not stopping for chit-chat tonight in a bid to cram as much into the set as possible. They do just that, too, from deep cuts (Everyone Says You’re So Fragile) to new songs (Stay Out Of Place, I Wish I Wrote It Down) to fan favourites (Live In A Hiding Place, When I Argue I See Shapes, El Capitan).

However, it's unsurprisingly American English that gets the whole room singing along, the band starting out with a hushed version before building it up to a crescendo.

“Who’s ready for a song about Post Modernism?” asks Roddy before a rapturous rendition of Roseability, which is followed by a live debut for End of Sunrise, requested by a fan in the audience. The latter turns out to be one the highlights of the set, the closing track from their recent Idlewild album sounding blissfully stunning in the live setting. They close out the main set on Love Steals Us From Loneliness, momentarily bidding the audience farewell before ushering themselves back onto the stage for the encore. 

It’s another rare outing to kick off the final trio, with Paint Nothing played for the first time anywhere since 2010. Then after the fury of the band’s heaviest track, A Modern Way of Letting Go, the band end as they often do on the simply epic, In Remote Part / Scottish Fiction. Midway through, Roddy steps to one side of the stage, as he has done throughout the set, giving the spotlight over to guitarists Rod Jones and Allan Stewart who fling themselves and their axes wildly about the stage.

It’s a thunderous ending to what has been an exceptional Tuesday evening. They may be 30 years into their career at this point, but Idlewild’s live show has them sounding rejuvenated and better than ever. Hopefully it’s not another decade before we see them back in Nottingham again!

Idlewild performed at Rescue Rooms on 7th April 2026.