The Wildhearts
- Rock Metal Machine
- 37 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Artists: The Wildhearts, Meryl Streek
Venue: Islington 02 Academy (London)
Date: 12 December 2025
"Despite apparently having been a little under the weather, Ginger looked like he really enjoyed tonight. He has said that he needs to go through cycles of heavy music to balance out the light and tonight we got both!"
Ginger traditionally has a show in London this time of year, close to his birthday, this time it’s in Islington and the Christmas spirit is well on its way!
Opener Meryl Streek, with their all rap-style vocals accompanied by a real drummer and tapes of backing voices and Rave style deep-bass sounds, are a bit of a surprise. They perform in almost total darkness, apart from strobe-like lighting. The material is about class war mostly, with one song a tribute to Streek’s uncle who has passed. There’s liberal use of swear words and the occasional death growl, but the stomping on the spot gestures and Streek’s T-shirt also speak of a Punk heritage. Streek bears a passing resemblance to Brian Johnson of AC/DC with curly shoulder length hair under a black flat cap, and his drummer starts the set shirtless, showing off his muscular frame throughout the set, or at least to the extent that it can be glimpsed through the patchy lighting. Despite it being a little bit of an “off piste” choice for a Rock crowd (Streek certainly seems pissed off at least ) they are received pretty well, including when Streek jumps into the throng and disappears from view for a few minutes. Not really my sort of thing, but it’s certainly a little renegade, and I can see why they would be chosen to support Ginger who also enjoys challenging the system.
Photos by Dawn Osborne
It’s the first time I’ve seen The Wildhearts since their latest album ‘The Satanic Rites Of The Wildhearts’ was released, and it’s great to hear live for the first time four tracks from it, including the one Ginger kicked off with, ‘Failure Is The Mother Of Success’ (a really long track and so great for photographers to try to get a shot in a venue where the lights are always a bit dodgy). It’s a track that alternates from Punk to Thrash before a softer ending and so is an indication of things to come with this set tonight. Last time I saw Ginger it was very much a greatest hits show, not so much this night. The show was much harder overall. And while there were glimpses of anthem songs like ‘Mazel Tov Cocktail’ and ‘Everlone’ as we went along, typically it was a main set full of much lesser-known songs.
It was a bit worrying to hear Ginger say that he has been suffering from an undiagnosed medical condition and that it was possible that he would need to go offstage for about 15 minutes to get painkillers, but he said hopefully it wouldn’t happen and indeed it did not. He was perhaps understandably taking it a bit easier; there were no high jumps from the riser, just a few split kicks, but otherwise he looked pretty sprightly and if he hadn’t said anything I am not sure many people would have noticed anything was wrong. We get one song that was unreleased from a new album they are recording; ‘Spider Beach’, a song Ginger said was about conquering fears and phobias. It’s a fast Rock ‘n’ Roll song and at least live had some Gary Numan style keys, giving it a seventies Punk undercurrent.
Ginger has been very public about his mental health struggles, and as an affirmation of how he himself has come through them triumphantly in the past to write great songs he launched into ‘Diagnosis’, which was a definitely highlight of the set with all the crowd joining in the unbelievably infection chorus. I love Ginger’s Northeastern accent and even above all the noise you could clearly hear it in the pronunciation “be-in” in the line “I am a human being”. He literally beat his chest with both fists during this song, such is his conviction. They finished the main parts of the show with one of their heaviest songs, ‘Chutzpah’. Ginger said we’ll leave you with this one and, indeed, a number of the crowd left at that point as the lights had gone up. However, they should have listened to him earlier when he said, “We’re gonna play till they turn the electric off”, and indeed he returned to the stage to play no less than five huge anthems, ‘Geordie In Wonderland’, the most commercial track from the new album ‘Under The Troubadour Moon’, ‘I Wanna Go Where The People Go’, ‘Suckerpunch’ and ‘My Baby Is A Headfuck’, and the remaining crowd exploded! Despite saying that he would avoid eye contact with anyone working in the place that might tell them to finish up, he did indeed at this point relinquish the stage. Despite apparently having been a little under the weather, Ginger looked like he really enjoyed tonight. He has said that he needs to go through cycles of heavy music to balance out the light and tonight we got both!
Photos by Dawn Osborne
Review: Dawn Osborne
Photos: Dawn Osborne
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