“PAUL NOONAN, YOU HANDSOME B*STARD!” | BELL X1 WARMS UNION CHAPEL JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS
LIVE REVIEW | BELL X1 w/ Niamh Regan | UNION CHAPEL, LONDON | 19th December 2025 by Kevin O’Sullivan
On 19 December, Union Chapel once again proved why it’s one of London’s most quietly sacred music spaces — a venue that doesn’t just host gigs, but holds them. Bell X1 know this room well. They’ve played here a few times before, and there was a sense that this wasn’t simply another date on a winter run, but a return. Familiar ground.
Paul Noonan noted, with mock ceremony, that Union Chapel now has central heating. “La, di, da,” he said, clearly impressed by how the place has moved up in the world. On previous visits, the wall-mounted heaters had left the band feeling, he recalled, “like chicken kebabs,” slowly rotating under the glow. Progress, then — architectural as much as musical.
Union Chapel has that effect. It slows you down. The Gothic arches, the worn pews, the way sound rises and then seems to wait before coming back down — it’s a room that demands attention rather than volume. On a cold, damp, Christmassy Friday night, that felt especially apt. Outside, London hurried towards the holidays. Inside, time behaved differently.
Niamh Regan
Before Bell X1 emerged, Niamh Regan gently brought the room into focus. From Galway, and armed only with her guitar, she immediately disarmed the audience with dry humour and unforced charm. She usually plays piano, she explained, but couldn’t get it on the Ryanair flight. Fair enough.
Her voice, though, filled the Chapel easily. Beautiful without being showy, with harmonies that drifted rather than landed. Between songs she spoke about the question musicians ask themselves more often than they admit — why do this at all? The answer, she said, becomes obvious when you walk into a space like Union Chapel. A place like this reminds you. She also announced, to general delight, that there were “bananas in the green room,” and introduced “Music” by confessing it took her a very long time to come up with the title. Laughter followed, but the sincerity underneath held. Funny, talented, and completely at ease, Regan was a perfect opener.
Bell X1
Bell X1 arrived to rapturous applause. A crowd heavy with Irish accents and knowing smiles greeted them like returning family. The band took the stage together, standing close, and opened with “Demons,” “ABC,” and “Drive By / West” in arrangements that were almost acappella. A double bass, a quiet guitar, a banjo barely brushing the air. That was it.
The effect was immediate. The Chapel fell silent — not politely, but instinctively. With the instrumentation stripped back, the voices took over, interlocking and resonating through the space with striking clarity. This was listening music, and the room understood their role..
As the set unfolded, the band gradually spread out across the stage, moving into a beautifully restrained journey through their catalogue: “Haint,” “Upswing,” “Bad Skin,” “Velcro,” “Built / Daybreak,” “Defector,” “Flame,” “Bridge and Tunnel,” “Slowset,” and “Rocky Took a Lover.” Bell X1 have always trusted space. Silence matters as much as sound. Union Chapel rewarded that trust.
Stories threaded through the night. Noonan spoke about playing a festival in Austin, Texas, just before Willie Nelson, where the heavens opened in properly biblical fashion as they walked onstage. The ground turned to quicksand, their van sank, and eventual rescue arrived via tractor. The anecdote fed neatly — maybe too neatly, but that’s life — into “Velcro,” grounding its imagery in lived experience:
In a field in Texas
Under the welcome rain
Pulled from the deepening quicksand
By an angel and his chain
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure) 
Bell X1 (Kevin O’Sullivan/Northern Exposure)
That grounding landed hardest during “Rocky Took a Lover.” Noonan shared the song’s background — inspired by a homeless boxer he befriended in Smithfield, Dublin. A man bruised by life, still fighting rounds long after the crowd had gone home. The story reframed the song as an act of witness rather than observation. The Chapel listened. Properly listened.
If introspection shaped much of the set, “The Great Defector” was the release valve. As always, it triggered a full-bodied singalong, the entire room lifting the chorus together. It happens every time, but it still feels earned. In this space, it sounded almost hymn-like.
Even “Slowset,” written 25 years ago and affectionately dedicated to slow songs at discos, carried warmth rather than nostalgia. Christmas lights glowed softly around the Chapel, lending the evening a reflective, seasonal intimacy. No forced cheer. Just goodwill.
After a brief exit, the band returned for the encore, regrouping tightly onstage. Before they could play a note, a voice rang out from the crowd: “Paul Noonan, you handsome bastard!” Laughter rolled through the room, breaking the reverence in exactly the right way.
The closing pairing of “To Have So Many” and “White Christmas” was spot on. With the predominantly Irish crowd harmonising joyfully, it felt communal rather than performative. A shared moment. A good one.
Bell X1 have always occupied a rare space: intelligent without aloofness, emotional without indulgence, funny without undercutting the weight of their songs. On this December night — warm this time, kebab-free — at Union Chapel, they reminded everyone why they keep coming back. Not just because of the venue, but because of what happens when songs, stories, and people meet at the right moment.
People drifted out into the cold smiling. Lighter. Festive, without really trying.
