The Charlatans

10th December 2025 @ The Roundhouse, Camden

Doors are opening extra early at each venue on this tour. Instead of having a support act, there will be a two-part set with an interval so they have more time to play more of their extensive back catalogue. What a treat!

The Roundhouse is packed to the rafters. Before the show, words appear behind the stage in turn, building anticipation: These Are The Days. This Is The Place. We Are Love. 

Introductions come later but on stage we have drummer Pete Salisbury, formerly of The Verve, and percussionist Loz Colbert joining bassist Martin Blunt, guitarist Mark Collins, keyboardist Tony Rogers and singer, and occasional guitarist, Tim Burgess.

The band opened with Kingdom of Ours, the opening track of new album We Are Love. A dark brooding number. Then straight into beautiful and upbeat Weirdo. Next up, Tim brings out an electric guitar and the band launches into For The Girls, one of my favourite tracks from the new album with its classic Charlatans sound.

Fan favourite North Country Boy follows and gets the crowd rocking. There’s plenty of North Country Boy/Girl t-shirts around and I have t-shirt envy!

The rest of the first part is full of belters, new, old and somewhere in between. Many a Day a Heartache (with another guitar for Tim), Oh Vanity, Let The Good Times be Never Ending, Blackened Blue Eyes, and then back to their first album with Then, which was dedicated to those that were with them from the beginning. From the sound of the cheers, many of the audience considered themselves included. And just like that, part one was over. 

While the band went off stage for 10 minutes, security guards at the front were handing out cups of water. Very old school. (Tim tweeted from backstage that he’s got watermelon.)

Back refreshed after the interval, the band launch into Forever, an epic swirling tune (not dissimilar to Kingdom of Ours which opened part one).  Hearing Forever live takes me straight back to 1999, a young optimistic student in Manchester. I’m in a daze, and get completely lost in the song. So powerful. 

Each song sounds sublime. We Are Love sounds like a statement (emphasis on the ’Are’). Tellin’ Stories has Tim Burgess blowing kisses at the audience while they sing back at him, and for the next song Out on Our Own, he is singing while sitting on his knees. 

Another new song Deeper and Deeper already feels like a comforting old friend. The energy has been building all night and the atmosphere is so incredible right now, but then it gets even better.

I haven’t yet mentioned the images projecting during the show, changing for each song and heightening the experience. An image of The Charlatans eponymous fourth album appears and they play a trio of songs from that period. This was the first album I discovered and still one of my favourites. “I love this song,” said Tim about Here Comes a Soul Saver.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a gig with a genuine mosh pit but I can see one swirling to the side of me in front of the stage. With the double whammy of One To Another and The Only One I Know, there’s no holding back and the mosh pit is in full action. (I was tempted to join in until I remembered how many bruises I came away with when I was a teen.)

There’s a moment of calm when a harmonica starts up for the melodic Get On It. And then the band disappear off stage as part two comes to an end, while the audience try to catch their breath.

Back for an encore. “Before we play the last song from our first album, we are going to play the last song from our latest album.” This introduces Now Everything, which is followed by Tremelo Song. Someone yells from the audience. “We love you too,” replies Tim. “I think that’s what you said anyway. There’s a lot of love in the house”.

Understatement! The house is buzzing. The atmosphere is incredible. But all good things have to come to an end, and anyone who has seen the Charlatans before knows that that Sproston Green is the final song.  I spy a crowd surfer in the mosh pit. The audience is going crazy.

And then, 2 hours 25 minutes after they started, it’s over. Wow!

Here’s the set list – I was lucky enough to get copies from a sound guy.