We are privileged to have Irish indie-rockers Florence Road open the UK leg of their tour in Glasgow at the Queen Margaret Union, here is a band that have come on leaps and bounds since we last saw them at Kendal Calling 2025 where we watched them up at the Woodlands Stage and knew we were watching something special. Since that performance at Kendal they have toured with Olivia Rodrigo and earlier this year with The Last Dinner Party, so their music has been under the radar a lot.
We arrived in the nick of time as MOIO (pronounced Moyo) is taking to the stage, the young Nigerian-Irishman wows the young crowd with a display of fine musicianship and he builds a nice rapport with them too, running through a half-hour setlist filled with some new fresh music. MOIO released new track Just A Man a couple of weeks ago and is sounding great live whilst the cover of Fleetwood Mac classic Dreams has some audience participation. The unreleased Figures On The Wall is played live for the first time tonight but it is the last song of the set, Moments that grabs us, having already amassed over twenty five million streams this one prompts a mass singalong from the sold-out crowd. We think it’s onwards and upwards for MOIO. 8/10
Florence Road released four-track EP Spring Forward on 27th March and that followed on from the aptly named Fall Back in September, these songs would be the foundation for the tour set alongside some brand new music that just seemed to fit in so well among the previously released songs. At 8.45pm the four school friends took to the stage one by one with each receiving a massive cheer from the enthusiastic crowd, Lily Aron (vocals & guitar), Emma Brandon (guitar), Ailbhe Barry (bass) and Hannah Kelly (drums) have the air of confidence of a band beyond their years, the future is looking so bright for the quartet from Bray, Country Wicklow. The Queen Margaret Union holds around nine hundred and it is jam packed tonight proving how much of a fanbase Florence Road have built up recently.
They make the bold move of starting the set with the unreleased 7563, yes not many in the venue know this one yet but everyone listens intently to the haunting vocals from Lily bouncing off the riffs coming from Emma’s guitar, both are a standout throughout the hour long set as they jam together to the crowd’s delight. Figure It Out and Hand Me Downs from the Fall Back EP keep the energy high while another two brand new songs White Smile and None The Wiser bring a really fresh sound, we are confident that the six new tracks played tonight will form the foundations of a debut album, here’s hoping anyway! The next tune Storm Warning is a personal favourite, this one has everything you could possibly want from a song, the long guitar riffs from Emma are a standout for a track that is quickly becoming a fans favourite at the live shows. Heavy is another top-notch song that has Hannah Kelly move from the drums to keyboards towards the end and Rabbits Can Swim deserves a special mention as four rabbit hats are handed up to the stage from the crowd and all four wear them with pride throughout the song. It’s a very nice touch as are the little tricolour flags that some are waving displaying the words “we love you”.
Following on from the previous song How Does It Make You Feel is also taken from the Spring Forward EP while Hanging Out To Dry (from the same EP) is a contender for the song of the set, Lily tells us that the band shot a video recently for this one. How Does It Make You Feel is yet another new one – we end up with six in total – and what a great song to spring on us, there is such an air of excitement around Florence Road, or Flo Ro as the fans have nicknamed them, they really do have the music world at their feet. Surprise Surprise and No Better Woman are the last of the new ones that are played in between the excellent Miss with No Better Woman only been played a few times live before and it’s the live debut for the UK tour that is mostly sold-out unsurprisingly. Goodnight closes the main set as chants of “one more tune” ring around the QMU – in fact we would get two more beginning with Caterpillar; a song that Lily wrote when she was sixteen years old, this one is played acoustically with drummer Hannah staying on the keyboards, the phone torches are out all around us in a touching moment. Break The Girl ends the sixteen-track set that was so entertaining, Flo Ro really don’t have a bad song, the crowd participates en masse after some encouragement from Lily with the whole venue chanting “la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la” back to the stage. There are so many great bands coming through from the Emerald Isle at the moment and Florence Road can proudly join NewDad, Cliffords and SPRINTS among others as rising stars, we can’t wait to see what’s next for Flo Ro – maybe an album? A well deserved ten out of ten performance. 10/10
Written by: Alan Brown
