LIVE REVIEW: Holywatr, Imogen and the Knife, St Pancras Old Church, London, 27/08/2026
Given that Holywatr only played their first non-US shows back in the early parts of the Summer, it came as a bit of a surprise when they announced yet another London show. More so when we read on the poster what sort of show it was going to be — rather than another metal-adjacent, headbanging, stage diving, crowd surfing sweat fest, it was a solo performance, on piano, in a church, by candlelight. Well, after their show at Underworld back in June, we just had to be there.
Support came from the London-based Imogen and the Knife. She, too, was solo. Or knife-less, maybe? Whatever the nomenclature, she seemed particularly comfortable up there alone, her delicately wistful vocals cascading and reverberating through the historic church. With a recent sold out show at The Lexington and supporting The Last Dinner Party across the UK last year — including two nights at the iconic O2 Academy in Brixton — it’s a wonder that crowds are still lucky enough to see her in these intimate venues, particularly a church. “This is so weird”, she half-gushed to the silent, reverent crowd. “It feels like I’m just in my living room and then I turn around and you’re all there! I love this room, I love this piano. It’s such a privilege.”
Well, to the mostly silent and reverent crowd. TK-PSSSSHT.
Turns out the cans of beer are particularly piercing in a quiet venue historically renowned for its acoustics. Who’d have thought? Other than Imogen, anyway, whose past experiences and her quick-thinking hindsight prompted a mass opening event as a few dozen more got popped open in-between songs.
There was a sense of heartbroken yearning to her songs, twinning with the dramatic, cinematic visuals of her flickering shadow dancing on the wall as she played. Songs like If It Won’t Talk Of Rain or Lie To Me felt particularly stirring in the beautiful setting, the latter feeling almost anxiety inducing as the piano built and built into a more elaborate centre point, frustrated vocals hovering over the top; tracks like Mudlark, though, felt almost ethereal, the track taking on a delicate nature, some skittish fawn that’s beautiful to look at but you can’t risk drawing a breath in case it flees. A final Paris Night, written originally for her ‘muse’ of a sister, brought the heartfelt and poignant opening set to a close, much to the quickly-adoring crowd’s chagrin. 9/10
Onto the man of the evening, then, as Patrick trod contemplatively to the piano, the silence broken only by a piercing wolf whistle and a nervous chuckle from the crowd. It seemed a very solemn affair, the room holding its collective breath as the unique night finally began with Wake Up — a track that felt no little bit ironic, given the anxious, anticipatory current underlying the entire room. The enraptured silence felt particularly heavy through the passionate, crackling roars in the chorus, and the saying ‘you could hear a pin drop’ had arguably never been truer.
And then the song finished, Patrick grinned to the audience with a sense of disarming insouciance, and the spell was broken.
Suddenly, it was less a candlelight vigil filled with reverence and awe, and more just a guy playing some songs to — even if in a slightly parasocial way — his friends.
“I’ve prepared a few songs, some you’ll know and some that haven’t gone out, and a lot will be improvised”, he warned, seeming a little nervous himself. “If you don’t feel like singing along that’s cool but some help would be nice”. Cue loose ends, the fan favourite taking an atypical slot in the setlist away from its usual status as the closer, the crowd happily lending their voices — if at all much lower volume than they’d normally be offered, as if to a one every fan was afraid of drowning out the (pardon the pun!) heavenly performance before them. The same happened with the token Deo Gratias offering, Burn The Witch taking on a particularly haunting, vaudevillian slant in its new, dark baroque, dramatically eerie piano-led incarnation.
“What’s the time? How much more do I have to talk to make this worth it?” With the acoustic set being built from near-scratch over the maybe two months leading up to it, there were only nine songs planned to play and a good bit of vamping to make sure that the night was worth everyone’s efforts — although, three songs in, it already felt it. Add onto that an acoustic green room, serving as the song’s live debut, despite its self-damning nature — “I imagine there’s a special place in Hell for singing a song about sex in a church” — and the (presumed) live debut of relative deep cut i broke up with my girlfriend at Coachella, though the crowd cajoling him to ‘spill the tea’ on the song’s meaning went from good natured to a sort of entitled demand rather quickly, and that’s already more than a fair few crowds could hope for at an acoustic gig by a ‘metal’ artist.
“Man, you English are allergic to aircon” he joked as he finished. Well, semi-joked. It was very warm in there. A fan standing up to offer a fan was sweet until it meant squatting next to the piano and fanning the man via a hand fan, the visibly uncomfortable, and as per the interview surprisingly introspective and relatively quiet, frontman trying to get her back to her seat without coming across as rude. More welcome, though, was an offer of snus, the fan even finding Patrick after the show to give him the rest of his packet. Another live debut of Stained Glass, a track written last year before his girlfriend visited him in Seville, and it was time for the final song. “You’ve been really respectful, it’s sick — really adds to the reverent vibe. But sing this motherfucker”. Enter, nail polish, likely the song that made fans out of a good portion of the church to begin with. Even then though — even with both explicit permission and the band’s most anthemic track — the sing-along was still a little hesitant, as if afraid to break the tranquil atmosphere on stage.
And then, that was it.
Well, except for winter pine, a song skipped accidentally earlier into the set, prompted by bemoaned cries from the audience — which strangely felt a perfect end, the piano set ending on a more maudlin, emotional note.
Oh, and an impromptu fade, Patrick pre-apologising having only learnt the chords the week before and a few fans on the pseudo-pres bursting into tears. Does that count as two encores?
Patrick performing solo on a piano in a church wasn’t quite your typical Holywatr set. Those are typically tinnitus-causing, shirt-drenching, body-bruising maelstroms of anguish, emotion and chaos, with a few riffs from Chandler and Ice for good measure. But, to absolutely no one’s surprise, it was sublime. Was it perfect? Fuck no. Patrick himself was the first person to apologise for slip ups on the piano, or misremembering some lyrics — he almost forgot a full song, after all, and that’s in what was out of only a set of nine. But those inaccuracies, those errors, made the night… rawer? The imperfections and lack of polish, combined with what could really only be called a sort of nervous earnestness on stage, Patrick almost desperate to make sure that everyone was having a good night and that it was worth everyone’s effort and money, only made the heavenly vocals and the songs that all of the dedicated fans there knew oh-so-well all the more beautiful. As said in the interview, the night was likely to be the first of many — and we’re sure we speak for everyone there when we say how thankful and privileged we felt being able to attend the inaugural Holy Night™?
Written By: James O’Sullivan
