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Oct 20, 2025 By Mark Redfern Photography by Wendy Lynch Redfern Web Exclusive

This past summer my 12-year-old daughter Rose and I were at the Rough Trade record store on Denmark Street in London’s West End. The street is also known as Tin Pan Alley due to its long history of music instrument stores, sheet music shops, and even recording studios. Sometimes Rose is a bit private about the music she likes. Growing up with parents who run a music magazine she understandably worries we might either criticize her tastes (not that we ever would) or get too overwhelming if it’s an artist we also appreciate (more likely). At Rough Trade she ran over to me excitedly to tell me they had several records by an artist she loves, one of her Top 3 favorites and one whose LPs she never really sees at other record stores I drag her to. At first she was reluctant to reveal which artist, saying I’d probably never heard of them. But then she relented and showed me their section. It was Alex G. Rose was surprised when I told her that Alex G was not only an artist I knew but one we’d covered in Under the Radar in a fair amount. We’d even interviewed him once.

In all honesty, Alex G (full name Alexander Giannascoli) is not an artist I’ve listened to a lot over the years and despite some effort when he was initially getting some hype, I’d never fully connected with his music. Still, when we were later back home in Virginia and Rose told me that Alex G was playing relatively near to us, at The Anthem in Washington, D.C., and she really wanted to go, who was I to say no? She’d been to plenty of concerts with us before, including Pulp, The War on Drugs, Father John Misty, and others. But all of those had been artists we’d wanted to see that she tagged along to. When we saw Jessie Ware in 2023 and Magdalena Bay in 2024, both at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., those were artists she loved and were excited to see, but they were still ones I had introduced her to. Alex G was the first artist she’d discovered on her own that she had asked to go see. One problem, it was on a Tuesday and Washington, D.C. is a three-hour drive each way for us, which equals a very late school night outing. School night shows aren’t something we can make a habit of, but in this case it felt warranted. Plus it didn’t hurt that an artist I do love, Nilüfer Yanya (who’s been on the cover of our print magazine twice), was opening. So emails to the publicist were sent and press tickets were secured.

To prepare, I put together a playlist of all the songs Alex G was likely to perform, based on recent setlists found online, and I mainlined that for several days, as well as on the long drive to D.C. I did gain a new appreciation for his music, especially his current album, this year’s Headlights (his major label debut for RCA and his best produced album yet). But I was still a little apprehensive about what to expect. He tends to play long sets with lots of songs. Would I eventually get bored, as Rose sometimes does when we take her to shows by artists she’s not all that invested in?

First up though was Yanya. We left for D.C. soon after school was out and even ate dinner in the car on the way there, making it to The Anthem only 10 minutes before the British singer/guitarist took the stage. We had actually all just seen Yanya do a headlining set at The Broadberry in Richmond, VA a few weeks earlier (read my review here), so we had some idea what to expect. The Broadberry, however, has a capacity of only 350 and The Anthem fits 6,000 people. Yanya more than rose to the occasion. It seemed that a lot of Alex G’s fans were familiar with her (or had done their homework) and were eager to see her, based on the initial audience reaction when she took the stage. Unlike her show in Richmond, or the Pulp show we saw at The Anthem weeks earlier, where the attendees consisted mainly of 30-60 year olds, Alex G’s audience was a lot of teens and 20-somethings, as well as some tweens and 30-somethings. Wendy and I were on the older side. As she did at The Broadberry, Yanya opened with “Method Actor,” the almost title track to her latest album, My Method Actor, which was #2 on our Top 100 Albums of 2024 list and landed Yanya on the cover of Issue 73. Album highlight “Like I Say (I runaway)” went over particularly well and it was really nice seeing Yanya win over such a large crowd after very recently watching her perform to so few. Yanya excelled in both spaces, clearly just as able to command the main stage at a big festival as she is to spellbind the audience at an intimate venue. She is aided by her very capable band. Touring saxophonist/keyboardist Jazzi Bobbi is her secret weapon. Wilma Archer, a solo artist in his own right and Yanya’s main collaborator in the studio, particularly shined on set-closer “midnight sun.” Drummer Ellis Dupuy also really impressed with some of the complicated rhythms he pulled off. Overall, Yanya and band sounded more muscular than at The Broadberry, no doubt due to the bigger soundsystem and larger space at The Anthem.

“We’re really excited to open for Alex G tonight. We’ve been doing the whole tour. It’s been really, really good,” Yanya said from the stage. Later in the set she added, “They’ve been very kind to us on this tour,” referring to Alex G and his band. Yanya performed eight songs, including her cover of PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me,” a regular feature of her set lists.

During a bit of a break while the stage was adjusted a woman in front of us collapsed, almost falling on Rose. The crowd around us sprang into action, calling security over and medics took her out in a wheelchair. We never found out why she collapsed (she didn’t have anyone with her) or if she was okay, although Wendy said she spotted her later on the way back from the photo pit and she seemed to be conscious and recovering.

Then it was Alex G’s turn to take the stage and I still wasn’t sure what to expect. Firstly, while his records are sometimes a little stripped back and lo-fi, he was joined by his full band—Sam Acchione (guitar), John Heywood (bass), and Tom Kelly (drums). They opened with “Louisiana,” which falls midway in Headlights’ tracklist and it rocked out a lot more live than on album, aided by a guitar solo. The next song, “Gretel,” from 2019’s House of Sugar, was also much louder than expected. The audience erupted into a mass singalong of the “I don’t wanna go back” chorus, with a sea of phones aloft recording the song.

“Oh God, I love this song!” screamed a girl in front of me as Alex G launched into Headlights’ “June Guitar.” Giannascoli played accordion on the song, not something you see at most rock shows outside of “Weird Al” Yankovic. “Runner,” from 2022’s God Save the Animals, was followed by “Real Thing,” one of my favorite songs from Headlights (I just like the higher inflection on his voice when he sings “the real thing” and a keyboard flourish that sounds very ’80s, played live by guitarist Acchione). Another Headlights favorite “Beam Me Up” was next. I’m a bit of Trekkie and Rose has been forced to watch her fair share of Star Trek shows and movies. She appreciates the more modern movies starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk and the animated show Lower Decks, but rejects most other Star Trek. I was hoping to convince her that one of her favorite musicians was a Trekkie, but apart from the chorus mentioning “beam me up inside,” the song has nothing to do with the Starship Enterprise, but instead is partially about commerce vs. art. It also features some football references and sports and Trek are often strange bedfellows. The Headlights run of songs continued with single “Afterlife,” which featured guitarist Acchione on mandolin, as on the album version.

“Alright, we should play ‘Monster Mash,’” Giannascoli said, acknowledging it was spooky season. “Take it away John,” he said to the bassist, who then started to sing the Halloween classic. The whole thing was a fake out though and soon the song abruptly turned into “Brick,” from 2017’s Rocket, back when he had to go under the name (Sandy) Alex G due to a legal dispute that’s since been resolved. It’s one of the more abrasive songs they played at The Anthem.

A highlight was “Blessing,” from God Save the Animals. The unique track features whispered vocals by Giannascoli with unexpected backing vocal grunts. As on the LP, the song explodes at the end with a John Carpenter-esque keyboard part, during which Giannascoli climbed up the scaffolding behind the band that featured various lights, shaking his ass for all to see, and then climbing back down in time for the song’s abrupt end.

There was hardly any banter with the audience, barely a moment to catch your breath between songs as each song bled into the next one. God Save the Animals’ “Immunity” featured an expressive keyboard solo from Giannascoli and briefly took things into jazz territory, as did the instrumental “Is it Still You in There?” (missing the female backing vocals from the Headlights album version), with hopes that Yanya’s Jazzi Bobbi would come out to join in on sax (it didn’t happen alas).

The band ended the 20-song main set with Headlights’ title track. They weren’t gone long before they returned as Los Lonely Boys’ “How Far is Heaven” played in the background (“one of our favorites,” Giannascoli said of the song). They did a further seven songs in the encore, starting with Headlights’ “Far and Wide,” which is a duet between Giannascoli and bassist Heywood, with the latter sounding like John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats. Live the song had a bit of a Muppets vibe not found on the album version, you could picture Kermit the Frog and Skeeter singing Giannascoli’s part, which is no bad thing.

“We haven’t done this one in a really long time. And it’s for our friend Amy,” said guitarist Acchione before they performed “The Same,” from 2010’s Race. The internet says they haven’t played it live since 2014.

“What else do you want to hear?” Giannascoli then asked the audience, to be flooded by song suggestions shouted back. It did appear that the band seem to plan the encore on the fly somewhat, deciding what to play on the night. “Snot,” “Gnaw,” “Remember,” “Powerful Man,” and finally “Cards” made up the rest of the encore. Acchione took the time to thank the crew, including one man named Harrison Ford. “That’s his name, I shit you not,” Acchione assured.

I went into the concert worried that I was in for a lo-fi slog. On his studio albums, especially the earlier ones, some of the songs are quite short and sparse and don’t always make a big impact on me. But during the 27 songs I was never bored. Giannascoli’s band was fantastic. The show was one of the loudest in recent memory. And the songs featured varied tones and instruments and were not as one-note as I feared. I could easily see Alex G and his band holding their own on festival main stage bills alongside the likes of The War on Drugs, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, and even Bruce Springsteen.

Afterwards Rose was nervous to hear my assessment and after being briefly coy, I told her I was a full-on Alex G convert and 100% impressed. But who cares what I thought? Rose was who mattered the most tonight.

At one point during the concert she turned to me and said, “That one was my favorite song from the new album and the one before was my second favorite, so I’m happy.” And that was really all I could really ask for.

www.sandyalexg.com

www.niluferyanya.com

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