“You wait for the inspiration to hit you; forcing creativity when you’re on your own doesn’t work.“
Days after releasing their fifth studio album, Stray Dogs, Southend’s finest rock outfit brought their shiny new record down to the West Country.
Trowbridge, commonly dubbed ‘Trowvegas’, is tucked away in a corner of Wiltshire that’s rarely touched by artists and bands, particularly those accustomed to playing large venues across the UK. Even lead vocalist Conor Mason tried to Google some fun facts about the town before the show, only to find nothing remotely interesting about a place defined by an Odeon and a big Tesco. Following in the footsteps of Declan McKenna in 2024 and Tom Grennan in 2025, Nothing But Thieves made their first visit to “the Manchester of the south” on Sunday night, presented by Sound Knowledge.
Huge cheers from the 900-plus crowd welcomed Mason and guitarists Joe Langdridge-Brown and Dom Craik onto the stage. After addressing the “Trowbridgians” before them with a remark that had everyone laughing, they kicked off their intimate set with an acoustic rendition of Evolution, the lead single from the new record.
Having seen how massive their production is at full pelt, whether as a festival headliner or during their own arena shows, seeing Nothing But Thieves perform in this stripped-back setting felt personal, also allowing Mason’s vocals to shine through. Trowbridge remained engaged through new material like #5 and If You Don’t Have Someone to Love, helped by the audience being asked not to record the performance as they entered. You could sense, however, that these newer tracks will hit even harder when played with the full band on their upcoming Stray Dogs UK tour next year.
Their 10-song performance was broken up with opportunities for the audience to ask questions; in other words, a good old-fashioned Q&A, which cemented the intimacy of the occasion. Mason jokingly pleaded for better questions than those from their Middlesborough crowd, and Trowbridge didn’t let him down. Whether deciding which seat they prefer on a plane, how they overcome creative blocks during songwriting, or what punishment Manchester City should receive for their 114 alleged charges, the interactions between the band and their fans were a playful reminder of why these sorts of shows matter. A few other moments stood out.
Asked about the creative process behind their music, the band admitted that “writing a new album is actually very daunting“, before explaining that inspiration can’t simply be forced: “You wait for the inspiration to hit you; forcing creativity when you’re on your own doesn’t work.”
Elsewhere, the Q&A turned towards the increasingly unavoidable subject of AI. When a fan asked whether the music industry needs to make a greater effort to push back against the rise of AI-generated music, referencing the band’s new, anti-AI track AI Jesus, the group admitted that there is still plenty of uncertainty within the industry: “I think nobody in the music business knows what they’re doing with it tbh; we’ve been talking to all different parts of the music industry about it, and no one seems to know what’s going on.“
But for Nothing But Thieves, that uncertainty hasn’t meant sitting back and doing nothing: “We’re doing our bit to protect ourselves, and I hope other artists are doing the same.“
Finally, Mason perhaps best summed up the importance of the evening when discussing the difference between these intimate shows and arenas the band have become used to filling: “Playing arenas can feel like a disconnection in a sense, and I struggle with that because we want it to feel intimate still. So it’s been a fun reminder for us that we don’t want to lose that energy.“
After a stunning cover of Oasis’ Stop Crying Your Heart Out, a likely ode to the millions who failed to secure tickets for their 2027 dates this weekend, Trowbridge got involved for the chorus of Baby Kool (Evelyn), another Stray Dogs track with huge live potential. Overcome had fans of all generations singing along before the record’s closing number, A Different Kind of Happiness, brought the night to a close. Fittingly, it was also the lyric that the band had helped a fan choose to get tattooed on themselves earlier in the show.
Stray Dogs is now out for the world to hear, and judging by the reception on such an intimate scale, their live dates in 2027 are set to be enormous. Though when asked the all-important question about whether they’ll be making next year’s Glastonbury lineup, an evasive “Sorry, couldn’t hear the question…” from Mason left Trowvegas with something to ponder.
