Live Review: Orchards – Nottingham

Live Review: Orchards - Rough Trade, Nottingham

Support: Tigress
27th April 2025

Words: Rob Barker

Orchards suck and are not math rock. That, and other kind comments from various internet gatekeepers, haters and trolls introduced the Brighton-based quintet to the stage, summing Orchards up perfectly. No, I don’t mean that they either a) suck and/or b) are not math rock (you can make your mind up about those things for yourself), what I mean is, their ability to prove that they really don’t suck is as powerful as it is unnecessary. After a bit of time away recording their latest album Bicker, they’re back on the circuit as if they never went anywhere, and I’m really pleased to see their return as one of my favourite, one of the most engaging, fun-loving and good-vibes acts in music.

Tigress began the evening with catchy hooks, powerful vocals and a good match for Orchards on the feel-good attitude and presentation of their music. A more modern-day version of acts such as Garbage, with all the influences and styles that you would have expected to be in addition to the sound, they are another welcome return to the stage following a bit of silence from the Chelmsford alt-rockers. Vocalist Katy Jackson had a good ability to interact with the crowd, and whilst there was a touch of downtime between the end of crowd banter and the next track starting up in the bands inner-ear monitors, Tigress showed that they’re back and ready to keep on putting on stellar shows.

Orchards are one of those beautiful acts that manage to both simultaneously stay the same and evolve in a perfect blend of what they were and what they are now. They have a new drummer, Ed, to the lineup (joining OG members Lucy, Tom and Sam), lovingly introduced, and proving to be more than capable of filling the shoes of those sat at the Orchards kit before him. Orchards have a fair-sized catalogue now, with two full-length albums, a bunch of singles, and an almost-full-length EP (which just happens to be one of my favourite records ever), and they performed a pretty fair blend of old and new tracks for the crowd, encouraging and embracing interaction throughout all of their set. Every Orchards show I’ve seen over the past few years seems to have a unique feeling to it - Orchards are making it pretty big now, yet they’ve never lost their personable, going-to-see-your-mates-band feeling to their performance and interactions, and I really hope they never lose this ability to truly reach an audience in the way they do. For old Orchards fans such as myself, there’s no other band that I don’t personally know the members of that invokes such a sense of pride at witnessing their success, their growth and their love of music - for new fans (I brought some along), they still project the same open-arms, accepting, pro-community feeling that I felt when I first happened to wander in to one of their shows on a whim back in 2018 or 2019.

Orchards are almost a recall to the pop acts of yesteryear - their style is perfect to show and say “look” to the people who talk loudly about how modern music requires no skill, talent or practice. I’d compare them in this way to bands such as Fleetwood Mac for their craftsmanship and their, quite frankly, jaw-dropping ability to write and perform outstanding music with seemingly no filler. Their new album Bicker absolutely rocks - I’d say that I personally prefer it to their first full length release Lovecore - this isn’t to take away from Lovecore, just Bicker (for me at least) hits the spot much better; I’d fully recommend giving it a spin and enjoying the (heavily debated, apparently) math-rock-meets-dream-pop feelgoodness that it is.

I’m biased, as they’re one of my favourite bands, but this was a damn good show. I’ve missed Orchards over the last couple of years, and am very happy indeed to see them make a return to the stage. Here’s to them not being gone so long as last time - go see them, support them, and be witness to what they do. Whether they are math-rock or not, doesn’t matter; they fundamentally do not suck.