Mother Mother (w/Crawlers) Deliver Mesmerizing Folk-Pop Experience at Leeds O2 Academy [Show Review]

Half an hour before headliners Mother Mother are due on stage; people are still making their way into the O2 Academy despite the doors being open for a good couple of hours.

That being said, there is still a huge crowd in place when openers Crawlers explode onto the stage. What a difference eighteen months has made as well. Looking back to the first time I crossed paths with the band when they opened for My Chemical Romance on their reunion UK tour (read our review here), as vocalist Holly Minto bounds onto the stage, it’s obvious that this is now a very different band. Putting it bluntly, now full of confidence, Minto and Co. simply own the stage.

Riding high off the release of their debut album, The Mess We Seem To Make, which hit shelves just before this tour, the band is full of confidence and attitude. Backed up by an audience who seemingly already know every word of the debut album, the forty minutes the band are on stage fly by as the likes of “Hit It Again” and “Come Over (Again)” whip this already excited crowd into a frenzy ahead of the main event.

Now, I have to admit, even though Mother Mother’s new album, Grief Chapter, was a mesmerizing listen, nothing prepares you for experiencing the band live. The front three of Ryan and Molly Guldemond and Jasmin Parkin are absolute superstars. Having gone from relative success to TikTok viral hits, the trio is living up to their reputation with an absolutely stunning show.

For nearly an hour and a half, the band has this audience completely spellbound. Opening with “Nobody Escapes,” the energy pouring from the stage is electric. Mixing folk, pop and alt-rock, the career-spanning set, which includes a good smattering of tracks from their Grief Chapter disc such as “The Matrix” and “Explode!,” are simply sizzling.

Elsewhere, whereas for other bands, multi-song acoustic sections break up the energy, when Mother Mother breaks out the acoustics for a six-song medley towards the latter part of the evening, there is no such drop from either the band or the crowd. Bowing out twenty-three songs later with the title track of their new album and “Burning Pile,” Mother Mother arrived on stage as folk-pop superstars and ninety minutes later, they headed out of Leeds as another audience sat in disbelief at the musical genius they had just witnessed.

Make sure you pick up a copy of the brilliant Grief Chapter and give it a spin as you check out our gallery from the show.

Mother Mother (w/ Crawlers) @ O2 Academy (Leeds, UK) on February 27th, 2024

50 photos