Nova Twins held their biggest headline show to date, at the 02 Forum Kentish Town, on the 18th October.
We got to the Forum at 6:45pm, but the queue was already full of teens and twenty-somethings determined to get near the front. Suspecting it might get a little mosh-tastic down there, and being too late to grab a barrier spot, we settled for a great view from a raised area further back. As it filled up, there was a wide spread of ages and a number of great rock bands being represented through t-shirts and battle jackets.
Ashaine White
Ashaine (pronounced Ash-ar-nay) White has been plugging away for six years or so. She is an earnest performer, but this showing didn’t particularly grab us. The songs are all song shaped, and the guitars are all guitary, but the end product felt derivative rather than engaging. She comes across a little better on her EPs.
Hotwax
There are about 1,700 more people present here than the last time we saw Hot Wax at a hugely enjoyable performance at The Face Bar in Reading back in March. The band show what intensity and focus should look like, and they drive hard through their thirty-minutes. ‘One More Reason’ remains the set highlight.
Nova Twins
The gig wasn’t showing as sold out the day before, but it got there on the day and it felt very full as they came on. Huge prop white flowers with a black centre, and amp stacks with black and white butterflies were revealed.
They kicked off with ‘Black Roses’ and you could just sense the energy in the room building. As they moved into ‘Sandman’ the mosh pit exploded into life and it then rarely let up for the next hour and a half. Wave after wave of crowd surfers were unleashed. This was by far the most intense non-festival crowd display we had witnessed all year. At times it felt like up to a quarter of the 2,300 strong crowd were involved in the carnage. There were plenty of moments of pushing it back, to open up a big sized circle pit, before huge numbers slammed into the middle.
‘Cleopatra’ was the first older material of the evening before ‘Taxi’ took it even further back to their debut album.
There are many things that strike you when watching them live. The first is that Amy Love’s voice is even stronger than comes across on record. She is an all-round threat, as happy rapping as hitting notes in a soprano-esque range. There were a couple of metal-like throat screams but it is her melodic-range which shines. Georgia South is an equally fantastic guitarist, frequently switching her instrument to get a slightly different sound for each track and constantly at work with her effects peddles.
The chorus of ‘N.O.V.A’ is extended and turned into a competition between each half of the crowd:
“What’s the name, bitch?
Say our name
What’s the name, bitch?
Say our name”
The crowd are more than happy to play along.
‘Drip’ sounded fantastic before they unleashed previous album highlight ‘Choose Your Fighter.’ As the set bounded towards a conclusion all of Hot Wax and Ashaine White came back out to help turbo charge it. Georgia South went crowd surfing whilst still playing her guitar. It was absolutely wild.
The encore was a powerhouse set of ‘Antagonist,’ ‘Monsters’ and ‘Glory’. They took a moment to draw attention to a collection for Amnesty International and how the right to protest is under threat. They are a band that will absolutely use their platform to draw attention to important issues. They also took a moment to say goodbye to their drummer of the last six years, Jake Woodward, who is moving onto other projects.
This was a fantastic performance from start to finish, right up there with the best things we have seen all year. Nova Twins are confident writers and skilled performers. They already have a very passionate crowd, and this was a cut above the energy and intensity I have seen from an audience of this size in 2025. A Reading Festival appearance for next year would go down nicely.
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