Keyside begin their UK tour, including a stop at The Joiners in Southampton on Tuesday 2 December 2025.
A sense of inevitability pervades the steady ascent of Liverpool four-piece, Keyside, as their chiming, kitchen sink indie lands on more, and bigger, stages, catalysed by an expanding songbook – including their new, aspirational pep talk single, If You Don’t Try.
Announcing their first nationwide tour at the same time as revealing the rich fruits of recent studio time, the radio-friendly melodists face sell out nights at their biggest Liverpool, London, Glasgow and Manchester shows later this year.
Keyside’s idiosyncratic brand of hard-talk lyricism effortlessly blended with intricate and upbeat, guitar-led pop continues to conjure magic around the band. Invited to the line-up of BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, having stacked up a run of national plays on the station for previous singles, including Runaway, Rhianna and Michael (What’s Your Call) – Keyside’s stature amongst the most promising and prodigious of emerging bands continues to grow.
Unflinching in the face of hard truths, Keyside’s previous singles have matched the desolation of drug-abuse with glacial riffs and sunshine choruses alongside lyrics rooted in real domestic tension.Finding new avenues of creativity in the midst of the persistent noise of memory and enduring social misadventure on the streets around him, the release of If You Don’t Try brings unbound optimism to Parker and Keyside’s world.
Reflecting on the track, Parker says: “If You Don’t Try is about embracing uncertainty, taking chances and living life. It blends historical metaphor, personal emotion and modern imagery to say: F**k it! Let’s give it a go, see what happens if we try.”
In a band line-up completed by Ben Cassidy (lead guitar), Max Gibson (bass, backing vocals) and Oisin McAvoy (drums), the more obvious comparisons to socially-minded songmakers of the past, including The Smiths and The La’s are cross-pollinated with the energy of contemporary influences including Fontaines D.C. and Blossoms.
Following a time-worn path from bigger gig to even bigger gig, traversing major support slots with the likes of The Royston Club and The Wombats, Keyside’s upcoming tour – including a sold-out 1,200-capacity local love-in at Liverpool’s O2 Academy – is confirmed to cover the following venues and dates:
Thu 13 Nov – Glasgow, Òran Mór
Fri 14 Nov – Edinburgh, The Mash House
Sat 15 Nov – Leeds, Live at Leeds in the City
Tue 18 Nov – Newcastle-upon-Tyne, The Cluny 2
Thu 20 Nov – Sheffield, Sidney & Matilda
Fri 21 Nov – Liverpool, O2 Academy
Wed 26 Nov – London, Camden Assembly
Thu 27 Nov – Manchester, Band on the Wall
Fri 28 Nov – Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach
Sat 29 Nov – Birmingham, The Sunflower Lounge
Mon 1 Dec – Bristol, The Louisiana
Tue 2 Dec – Southampton, The Joiners
Thu 4 Dec – Nottingham, The Bodega Social Club
- In Common is not for profit. We rely on donations from readers to keep the site running. Could you help to support us for as little as 25p a week? Please help us to carry on offering independent grass roots media. Visit: https://www.patreon.com/incommonsoton