Some gigs feel like a night out; others feel like a moment you’ll keep tucked behind your ribs for a while. On Friday, The Bodega, leaned firmly into the latter as The Kairos turned a sold-out room into something closer to a living, breathing organism...
Florentenes don’t so much open their support set with The News as throw it at the audience. All crashing edges and breathless intent, it lurches between bombast and then suddenly pulls back into something more vocal-led, like it’s letting you in on a secret before kicking the door back open again. It’s the kind of opener that doesn’t ask for your attention because it assumes it already has it. You’ve stopped talking, stopped scrolling, and stopped thinking about anything other than the sound filling the room. Madeline follows, slipping into place like it’s always belonged there, and what starts as a reaction becomes something closer to immersion as the crowd is carried through the soundscape without resistance.
Their set feels like a hazy montage of youth, all sun-streaked guitars and loose-limbed joy, and it never quite sits still long enough to be pinned down; I can only describe the four-piece as the sonic equivalent of running nowhere in particular with people you don’t want to lose. There’s an emotional pull running through every track which lies within Will Train Smith – his vocals full of grit and frayed at the edges in a way that clings to you tangibly – and it's that unpolished refinement which cuts through the noise and holds your attention.
Newer tracks creep in towards the end of the set, still rough around the edges in that exciting, unfinished way. Smith pauses to admit he’s struggling to name one of them and it lands with a kind of self-aware charm of just how up-and-coming the band are and yet they’re already briefly passing through a support slot that can’t quite contain them. This version of them won’t exist for long because you just know that bigger rooms and louder crowds are already waiting somewhere just ahead. When they get there, you’ll want to say you remember this – when it was still a little rough, a little restless, and completely impossible to ignore.
Before they’ve even set foot on stage, the chanting is already ricocheting off the walls (“No Kairos, no party!”) repeatedly until it stops feeling like a chant and starts feeling like fact.
When they do finally appear, it’s less of an entrance and more of an ignition as they open with Suspend. Bodies move instinctively, colliding and singing like it’s muscle memory rather than choice, and it’s evident that The Kairos thrive in this space. Within that liminal space of control and collapse, there’s always that sense that it could tip over at any second – and that’s exactly what makes it so addictive.
There’s a looseness to this band that feels disarming. Arms slung around each other between songs and half-finished jokes that feel more like conversations than crowd-work, when they introduce their latest single – apparently at the insistence of Bob, a bloke close to the front “who really wanted us to play it and wouldn’t shut up about it, lovely lad” – it’s delivered with the kind of warmth that makes a packed venue feel oddly intimate.
Mid-set, Stranger lands with a kind of quiet confidence. It doesn’t need to explode to make its mark – it just threads itself through the set, keeping the pulse steady and the crowd locked in – and then they pivot again, dropping an unreleased track, I’ve Never Met a Mess Like You, with a grin and a challenge: “If it’s s**t you can boo it, but you won’t.” They’re right, of course. It’s messy in all the right ways. Sharp-edged and immediately an earworm, it’s the kind of song that feels like it already belongs to the crowd before it’s even officially theirs.
A guitar lifted skyward like it’s already meeting festival lights; a brief falter, almost a collapse, brushed off by Tom Dempsey with a bow and a breathless thank you. He recalls the last time the band played in Nottingham, supporting The Clause, and you can tell how their promise that “Nottingham will look after you” imbued more than just reassurance into the lads.
Tonight, the room practically wrestles them in the sweat-slickened room and gives themselves over completely to the band. When a mosh pit threatens to open last minute on P.O.P and then falters when the crowd realises they’ve misjudged the timing, Dempsey’s laugh that “it’s not coming, lads” is instead curated into a seemingly never-ending refrain to allow that moment to unfold. When someone
with walking sticks becomes part of the moment – affectionately “this one’s for sticks” – the room shifts again, making space without making a spectacle of it.
Even the offhand bits feel like an inside joke built in real time between the band and the crowd. Warning those in the mosh pit to make sure they've got their shinpads on; bantering with those in the front row to stop grabbing their ankles and handing out imaginary yellow cards. It’s lovely camaraderie to be within that room.
By the time the final stretch hits on Punchline Fistfight, the room feels spent but unwilling to stop. Voices are rougher and their limbs are heavier, but no one’s holding back, and when the chant returns of “Kairos! Kairos!” it’s threaded with something that feels a lot like certainty. This isn’t just a band on the rise: it’s a band in motion, dragging entire rooms along with them, and for one night in Nottingham, nothing else really matters.
The Kairos performed at The Bodega on 17th April 2025, with support from Florentenes and The Rossettis
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