Live Review: Alexisonfire + Billy Talent - Ovo Wembley Arena, London 24/06/2026
Two Canadian titans of Alexisonfire and Billy Talent descend on Wembley Arena to celebrate their iconic albums on what was the hottest June day on record.
Wembley’s slow crawl towards capacity was perhaps unsurprising given both the heat and widespread travel disruption, but that only made Touché Amoré’s opening set feel strangely intimate, given the size. It gave the impression of something clandestine, of breaking some unspoken rule, like the crowd had snuck into the band’s soundcheck. Every cathartic, melodically post-hardcore minute of the band buffeted the crowd, Jeremy Bolm a man shouting into a screaming gale, and somehow feeling even more impactful given the still-filling room.
“‘Thanks for letting us yell at you for thirty minutes,’” Jeremy Bolm laughed midway through the set, though judging by the growing number of fans screaming every word back at him, it felt very much like a two-way exchange. With a set branching from 2011’s ‘~’ all the way to ‘Nobody’s’ and ‘Hal Ashby’ from 2024’s ‘Spiral In A Straight Line’, it was a beautiful microcosm of the Los Angeles outfit’s journey — but, more importantly, the set drew heavily from ‘Stage Four’, their beloved album that’s currently celebrating ten years with an anniversary tour, including a stop at Manchester’s Outbreak along with Alexisonfire. Adding on the frantic standout ‘Reminders’ from ‘Lament’, dedicated to anyone there who’d join in and scream along, led to a crowd pumping their fists, venting frustrations, and generally loving life. Bright, emotional and over far too quickly, it was the ideal start to the night.
2006 was evidently an important year in music, particularly in Canadian music. Two iconic albums were released — within two months of each other — that undisputedly, indelibly, marked their respective genres for good. Fast forward to two decades later, 2026, and OVO Wembley Arena was lucky enough to play host to both of them.
Prior to this tour, some of the songs from ‘II’ hadn’t been played for a combined 84 years, with the infectiously upbeat-sounding ‘Where Is The Line?’ having been culled from the setlist back in 2007 according to setlist.fm. So, as a giant clock ticked backwards from 2026 to 2006 and the iconic album artwork illuminated Wembley Arena, a palpable sense of giddy, joyous excitement pervaded the room like a mirage. Billy Talent had arrived.
The only possible complaint was that the songs seemed to fly by, grains of sand slipping past as the crowd screamed along. ‘Devil in a Midnight Mass’, ‘Red Flag’, ‘This Suffering’ and ‘Fallen Leaves’… all passed in a haze of shrieks, screams, shouts, and the combined efforts of an ever-explosive Benjamin Kowalewicz and a devoted, sweat-soaked crowd that happily sang along to every moment, all while Ian D’Sa’s instantly recognisable riffs (and gloriously distinct, gravity-defying, villain-in-a-video-game-esque quiff) drew deafening reactions from every corner of the arena.
You can’t disregard the visual element either. ‘Worker Bees’ felt like something out of a Pink Floyd music video, legions of soldier bees marching before a dystopian landscape, a poster of a dictator Queen watching on triumphantly; ‘Pins and Needles’ felt like the band were marionettes dancing to the whims of some sinister puppet master; a watery landscape flashing red during the discordantly jaunty ‘The Navy Song’; satanic stalactites glowing a satantic, hellish, sanguine red during the post-album encore of ‘Devil On My Shoulder’. Combined with archival footage of the group’s history, seeing a younger Billy Talent simultaneously play their hearts out, and it added to the celebratory beauty of the set.
“The theme of tonight is gratitude,” Kowalewicz beamed at one point. “For four guys from Ontario that started a band back in ’93, to ever in our wildest fucking dreams come play Wembley with our dear friends Alexisonfire.”
The feeling was mutual. Wembley screamed every word of ‘Fallen Leaves’, Kowalewicz himself unable to stop grinning as every word was shouted back at the stage, while ‘Covered in Cowardice’ in particular saw security drag the crowd’s waterlogged, sweaty bodies over the barrier in their attempt to get just one step closer to the legends; a string of other fan favourites, ending on the incendiary ‘Viking Death March’, brought the set to a close, though not before a quick, tongue-in-cheek and heavily booed dedication of ‘Rusted From The Rain’ to Canada’s prophetic victory over England at the World Cup. An incredible set, and only half of the headliners!
As fantastic as the set was, Billy Talent’s stage presence fell on Benjamin Kowalewicz’s seemingly omnipresent shoulders — sure, they didn’t need to do much, the anthemic music and iconic riffs comfortably speaking for themselves — but it was still the case.
That’s not the same with Alexisonfire. It never is, really. Between the three vocalists in Dallas Green, Wade MacNeil and George Pettit, each with their own strengths and styles, and the captivatingly, absurdly unhinged Chris Steele on bass — genuinely, you could happily put the gig on mute and simply watch him — any Alexisonfire gig feels like pure, unbridled, beautiful chaos. The only one who doesn’t move really is Jordan Hastings, but he’s pretty stuck given he’s the drummer.
Like with Billy Talent, the setlist was mostly set in stone. ‘Crisis’ in full means ‘Crisis’ in full — from the first second of opener ‘Drunks, Lovers, Sinners and Saints’, Dallas and Chris having a guitar-off as George wrenched some screams from his throat, leaping around the stage to get his cardio in, you knew roughly what to expect. ‘This Could Be Anywhere In The World’, Dallas somehow sounding even more silky smooth than ever, into the ever acerbic ‘Mailbox Arson’; ‘Boiled Frogs’, Wade’s rough voice interplaying with Dallas and George, layer upon layer. ‘We Are The Sound’, the mosh pit going ballistic; ‘You Burn First’, the sinister bassline pervading the room under Wade’s smoky, husky, vitriolic vocals, Chris, down on his knees, spitting at his incensed, adoring fans. Just a shame there wasn’t a blood packet to bite down on and really go for the ‘unleashed maniac’ look.
“What a beautiful fucking evening,” Wade laughed as the title track arrived, crowd going apeshit as they roared along. “To celebrate an album about a snowstorm during a fucking heatwave.”
Elsewhere, the catchy ‘Keep It On Wax’ — somehow not played since 2012, an accolade shared by the sadly poignant ‘We Are The End’ — warred with the Dallas-led, emotional stunner of ‘To A Friend’ before the foreboding, inevitable, and distinctly cinematic sounding ‘Rough Hands’, feeling despondent and defiant at the same time, called an end to the album’s well-deserved commemoration. ‘II’ is a brilliant album, but ‘Crisis’ is phenomenal, and the fact that the set did it justice was just as good.
The post-album tracks, though, were the real surprise of the night. The piercing guitar intro that signalled ‘Pulmonary Archery’ was relatively normal, if not as expected as others might have been. But a live debut of ‘Thrones’, a B-side from ‘Crisis’ first released twenty years ago? A track that, even if a good portion of the crowd might not have recognised it, has never been played before? Just casually dropped in the set? Talk about celebrating the album.
A final ‘Happiness by the Kilowatt’, Hastings battering the last life out of his kit and Pettit a wild-eyed demon from the streaks of sweat-and-water drenched hair clinging to his face, marked the end of a night celebrating two of the best bands to have ever done it. ‘The only band ever*’ has never felt truer — except with a little asterisk of Billy Talent and Touché Amoré too.
Words by James O’Sullivan
Photography by Connor Mason
