Scouting for Girls - Live Review

Scouting For Girls are out celebrating Everybody Wants To Be On TV, and this stop was the O2 Academy Oxford. Fifteen years on, it didn’t feel like a “remember this?” lap, it just felt like a band who know exactly how to run a room.

They opened with Famous, then followed up with Little Miss Naughty and On the Radio, a strong start. Early on, Roy stopped mid song to talk about Kirsty, 11 years old, who he’d met earlier that day at the album signing at Truck Record Store. He found her in the crowd and asked if she knew the next words, she shouted them back, and they restarted the song from there. A genuinely lovely thing to happen.

The show was really interactive with a full video screen setup behind the band showing live video from a videographer, as well as Roy roaming the stage with it pointing at the crowd. A nice touch for people to see themselves "On TV" - nicely playing on the album title.

Roy ran through a list of places they’ve played in Oxford, which was a nice touch and showed they’d done their homework. Turns out they’ve been here plenty, The Bullingdon, Jericho Tavern, New Theatre, Oxford University Balls, Foodies Festival, Truck Festival, and the O2 Academy Oxford more than once.

The set leaned hard into Everybody Wants To Be On TV, and you could hear why they’ve built a tour around it. On the Radio and This Ain’t a Love Song still have that clean, direct thing they do well, big choruses and a band that keeps things moving underneath.

In between songs he did the band history in small chunks. Roy and Pete meeting in Cub Scouts, Roy and Greg on their first day of school at 11, first band at 13, and then the long wait before the first album really happened. He also mentioned the label pushing them to write more “fun songs”, which explains a lot of the tone of the night. There was a tour poll as well, with Posh Girls easily coming out as the most-voted track. Because we were in Oxford, Roy had his fun with that and moved on.

They only played one new song, These Are The Good Days, and Roy framed it as the title track from album number eight, out at midnight. He also said the job of the band is to bring some joy for a couple of hours, and that was basically the point of the whole set. Later, they called the Academy the “fifth member” of Scouting For Girls.

The run into the end was the expected one, Heartbeat then Elvis Ain’t Dead. Before the encore the Michaela Strachan VT came on speaking to the audience and the band. She’s So Lovely closed it, and that felt like the moment you stop thinking about it and just sing along.

Before the end they explained why the set times were slightly moved that evening. They’d been on the news earlier announcing two big 20th anniversary shows next year, at the AO Arena Manchester and the OVO Arena Wembley. The band seemed genuinely excited about it. Hopefully we’ll catch them next year.

Billy Lockett played before SFG, solo and straight with it. He talked about his late dad and mentioned being 50 days sober. He also said he’d sold 64 tickets for Earth in London, with a definite push to try and get some of the audience there. A really interesting show and someone we'll keep an eye on in the future.

The night was opened by a new band for us, The Souls.

Scouting for Girls - 20th Birthday Party

• Friday 12 February 2027 - AO Arena Manchester
• Saturday 13 February 2027 - OVO Arena Wembley