New Eras at the New Century Hall: Lucy Bedroque LIVE in Manchester

Words: Gethin Marshal

What do you get if you take a large group of young, internet-raised music fans with little to no

concert etiquette and put them in a concert hall with one of the best new Digicore/Rage acts of

the past few years? You get this: A loud, fun, sweaty, mess. Certainly an enjoyable mess, but a

mess nonetheless- thankfully, though, any negative aspects of this concert cannot be attributed

to the stellar performance of Lucy Bedroque, arriving in Manchester less than two weeks after

the release of their latest album, C.

At the age of just 20- only a few months older than your diligent journalist- Bedroque has

become established as one of the biggest acts in the underground music scene, enjoying a

meteoric rise since the release of a pair of stellar EPs in 2024 and their debut mixtape,

Unmusique, the year after. This, unsurprisingly, has culminated in a long tour of Europe and

North America, which leads to where I find myself today.

The crowd is getting agitated. Kuru, the opening act and another member of this talented

class of modern digicore, has successfully managed to get the crowd of young, alternative fans

out of their shells with a punchy half-hour set, and now the energy is running high. A half-cheer

goes up, a false start in response to the appearance of a sound tech through the smoke onstage. Finally, a disembodied voice announces the arrival of the headlining act, and the full cheer ripples around the hall as Lucy Bedroque emerges before us.

After the pent up energy is released, the performance ebbs and flows but without any

drop in intensity, with Bedroque blasting through a fast-paced but varied setlist. Moshpits open

and implode in moments at the beginning of each track, with reckless abandon that certainly

stems from the young crowd’s inexperience and excitement. Still, the concert builds into a more

structured rhythm, and ends in a satisfying crescendo of digicore flash.

Lucy Bedroque is a young, fresh and growing artist, and with this comes a young

fanbase. This cannot be helped, and certainly isn’t the fault of the artist, but I truly believe that

with time and maturing of this fanbase the live show will be taken to the next level. Still, it would

be entirely false to say I haven’t enjoyed this performance, and I definitely can’t wait to see

Bedroque live again- though I might have to leave it a couple of years...