THE PIGEON DETECTIVES ARE STILL FLYING HIGH TWENTY YEARS LATER

LIVE REVIEW | THE PIGEON DETECTIVES | BRIXTON ELECTRIC, LONDON | 14th November 2025 by Tom Jenkinson

“It doesn’t matter where we’re from, it’s where we are now” declares Matt Bowman, lead singer of The Pigeon Detectives, to a sold-out crowd in Brixton’s Electric on a wet November night. After a career currently spanning two decades, it is a good point to make: many of the band’s contemporaries from when they started have sizzled out, gone separate ways, or simply hung up their guitars to pursue other ventures. Meanwhile, The Pigeon Detectives are still bouncing on stage and sounding as good as they have ever done.

At this stage in The Pigeon Detectives career, I would guess that by looking around the room at the no-longer-teenage faces that it is not anyone’s first time seeing the band perform live. Early on in their career, the band established a loyal fanbase that have remained true to this day, and I say this as someone who has seen them perform more times than any other band, bar none.

To the uninitiated, The Pigeon Detectives mix their brand of catchy indie rock (the likes of which would not have sounded out of place on a popular football video game soundtrack in the mid 2010s) with high-energy live performances (we are not even three songs into the set tonight and Bowman is surfing the first 5 rows of the audience on his back). Having personally watched this band perform most years, it is safe for me to say that their 20ish-song setlist has remained largely unchanged in all this time but given that modern bands make most of their income from live shows, the Pigeons have done well to focus their energies on their consistently well-subscribed live tours, rather than try to reinvent the wheel with reams of new material every year.

So, what keeps the fans coming back, and how are the band still selling out decent venues like Electric? The Leeds lads have a boyish energy on stage which is completely infectious and how they manage to deliver this night after night is something of a mystery.  I don’t care how old you are, if you are not prepared to bounce at a Pigeon Detectives gig in 2025, then you are best off staying at home, and everyone in this room tonight knows this. Bowman delivers high flying jumping kicks like Elvis in Vegas. Those willing to try and match his energy are rewarded with being cooled off by Bowman delivering sprays of water periodically in between songs.

There are some technical difficulties early on during “Lovers Come Lovers Go” primarily with microphones being knocked out of stands, with sound techs in the wings and ready. This is just part of being on tour with The Pigeon Detectives and by the third time of pulling the microphone done from the ceiling rafters as Bowman pulls off his trademark microphone swinging, it is clear the band are still having fun.

While the setlist focuses on a “best of” across their whole career, undoubtably many fan favourites come from earlier albums, with “Romantic Type” “I Found Out”, “Keep On Your Dress”, and “I’m Not Sorry’ being set highlights. In some ways, the music itself is unimportant. That’s not to say it’s not why people are still listening to the Pigeon Detectives two decades on, but more that it is just a vehicle for people to jump around and let loose again. It feels like this is what live music is supposed to do: to be an escape, momentary relief from the world out there. When the band are still singing about being 17 years old 17 years later, it is a nice reminder of what that even feels like, and The Pigeon Detectives are still delivering that, night in, night out.

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Tom Jenkinson

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