Live Review: Don Broco - Ovo Wembley Arena, London 05/12/2025
Don Broco: The Bedford Boys return to Wembley Arena with a stacked trio of supports.
2025’s been a pretty damn good year for Don Broco. Fresh off a frantic, joyously chaotic return to Download Festival—this time conquering a coveted late-afternoon Main Stage slot—and following a run of new singles that have dominated airwaves despite the absence of a formal album announcement, the Bedford quartet chose to close out the year with both a North American and UK tour, this time including a long-awaited return to London’s Wembley Arena.
Their last time in Wembley saw them celebrate Technology tour with Neck Deep and Issues in tow. Six years and an unannounced-yet-very-much-real fifth album later, Broco had returned, this time with a support trio perfectly calibrated to mirror the band’s own expansive sonic identity: Magnolia Park, Yonaka, and State Champs.
Despite the early 5 p.m. doors, Wembley was already buzzing as Magnolia Park bounded onstage. Opening with the explosive ‘Misfits’, Joshua Roberts’ vocals swinging wildly from melodic rap-rock swagger to throat-shredding screams, anyone not already familiar with the Floridian band seemed taken aback - but not for long. By the time their second track ‘Cult’ kicked in, its chorus sparking the night’s first-of-many pits, and ‘Omen’ pushed the crowd into a full-blown maelstrom of a circle pit — briefly interrupted only when the band’s guitarist rode the crowd across the arena like a pop-punk Poseidon — everyone was well and truly engrossed. The emotional swell of ‘Chasing Shadows’ turned the room into a sea of phone flashlights, their Disney cover of ‘I2I’ was particularly ap-peeling to a banana-clad fan letting loose in the crowd. Finally, as ‘Animal’’s wall of death tapered away, Roberts’ growls and Joe Horsham’s thudding beats echoing into nothing, it was bizarre to think the night hadn’t even reached the time of normal gigs’ doors!
In the blink of an eye, it was time for Yonaka to take to the stage. A kaleidoscope of colours washed over the crowd as throbbing bass announced the band’s presence, ‘PREDATOR’ bursting into life and drowning out the crowd’s cheers; meanwhile, the sudden tonal whiplash of ‘Hit Me When I’m Sore’ — half screamed bass that begged for a headbang quickly shifting into the band’s gentler, more anthemic recent release, Theresa’s vocals washing over the bone-quaking heaviness of the instrumentals — led to ‘Call Me A Saint’, the ear-worm of a guitar line drilling into Wembley’s collective ears. ‘Problems’ and ‘Hands Off My Money’ hit like back-to-back strikes, each dripping with sharp-edged attitude, while fellow recent release, the serpentine ‘Cruel’, slithered through the air, quickly morphing into the venomous stomp of ‘Clique’. Yet, all too soon, the band’s time on the stage had drawn to a close. set-closer ‘Seize the Power’ whipping Wembley into a final frenzy. Though, that didn’t necessarily mean Wembley had seen the last of Theresa…
Then came State Champs, radiating the kind of unfiltered pop-punk positivity that any and every band should strive for. The opening duo of ‘Silver Cloud’ and ‘Mine Is Gold’ seemed to deliver exactly what the crowd wanted: bounce, brightness, and a reminder that sometimes going “back to basics” is the best possible move. Flashlights re-emerged for ‘The Hell Of It’, while pits cropped up during almost every upbeat track — weirdly, even more than in the other, heavier bands. Particularly when it came to the slightly-tongue-in-cheek wall of death during ‘The Constant’!
Their self-described “fuck you” song (‘Common Sense arrived with gleeful venom — though they were beaten to the night’s first “fuck Trump” moment by Magnolia Park — and, by the time their closing trio of ‘Elevated’, ‘Everybody But You’ and ‘Secrets’ kicked in, Wembley felt truly won over.
Finally, the house lights dropped, revealing Don Broco posed on raised plinths like slightly feral Renaissance statues. In an instant, ‘Cellophane’ ripped through the speakers… and, just like that, Wembley erupted. Rob Damiani — who somehow manages to look more like his custom action figure from ‘ACTION’ with each passing tour, complete with wraparound sunglasses and king-fu grip — commanded the arena with the same tongue-in-cheek that everyone knows and loves, it with kit a bit more malice in his beaming grin.
‘Come Out to LA’ and ‘Gumshield’ arrived early and hit hard; ‘Euphoria’ shimmered with Matt Donnelly’s Phil Collins-esque drum flourishes, to the point where you’d think the lights should have turned Cadbury’s purple, while the strobing reds and siren-like synths of ‘Manchester Super Reds’ sent lasers whipping across the rafters. The atmosphere shifted into something dreamier for ‘One True Prince’ which washed over the room in soothing melancholy, but as the “Bedford? Where’s Bedford?” intro of ‘Pretty’ kicked in, it was back to business as usual — particularly with the band refusing to continue until the arena split in half, inciting an “old-fashioned push pit”.
Newer tracks — including the throat-shredding ‘Disappear’, and the scream-heavy, unreleased ‘True Believers’ — hinted heavily at the incoming album, which the band teased as finished and due early next year. They were even joined in spirit by longtime producer Dan Lancaster, who, naturally, was deep in the pit. Though, after driving through ‘Uber’, the band vanished, leaving an extended piano outro floating in their wake.
Worry not — moments later, they reappeared, surrounded by shocked and adoring fans up in the seating area, as they serenaded those around them with an acoustic ‘You Wanna Know’. As Rob and Simon made their way back to the mainstage, the rest of the band — led by Matt Donnelly, now on a drum pad — gently meandered through the soothing ‘Anaheim’, before transitioning into a gorgeous, acoustic rendition of ‘Further’, further elevated by the beautiful harmonies of Theresa Jarvis.
Then came the final sprint, as breathless and non-stop as you could hope. A blistering ‘Bruce Willis’, complete with Rob’s Die Hard-themed crowd-provocation, gave way to a frantic one-two of ‘Endorphins’ and ‘Fingernails’, a sea of lights for ‘Nerve’, and a sadly bereft-of-cowboys ‘Everybody’. Carnage and mayhem galore!
The expected finale, ‘T-Shirt Song’, whipped Wembley into a cyclone of airborne clothing… but wait. There were only two songs left. Closing on ‘HYPE MAN’, a throat-ripping scream during the bridge leading into a delicate acoustic outro from Simon. And, as the sound faded to a hush before the arena burst into its final, deafening applause, the night was finally complete.
If Wembley, and by extend the rest of the tour, is anything to go by, album five is going to be something special indeed.
Words by James O’Sullivan
Photograpgy by Stefania Mohottigt
