Antony Szmierek.

Antony Szmierek (2026).

Me and Anita, at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town.

Board meetings in central London are part of the job. It sounds grander than it is, but it comes with a little tradition. Before I get the train home I pick a pub and have a single pint on my own. That's my time to process whatever landed in the meeting: the challenges, and the inevitable list of things that need to be moving first thing the next morning.

After the August meeting, the pub was the Toucan in Soho. Anyone who knows London knows the Toucan has become one of the spots for proper Guinness, now that Guinness is suddenly what everyone wants to drink. In a small pub like that, the minute someone hears an Irish accent ordering a pint the questions start. Is it good enough? How does it compare to Dublin? It's always friendly and I always welcome it. I like the idea of a conversation with a stranger in a pub in a busy city.

That day I got talking first to an older guy of Italian heritage who'd spent the last 20 years in Colombia working on social causes. It was exactly the kind of conversation that's right up my street. A third guy joined in, in that natural way that only happens in pubs. It was clear fairly quickly that the three of us saw life much the same way, and we took turns delivering the bumper-sticker wisdom.

It was only when a third pint came up that the young lad from Manchester said he really couldn't. I gave it the old "go on, go on", but he held firm: he was on the radio in an hour. On the radio for what? It turned out he was Antony Szmierek.

I'll admit that stung. I pride myself on knowing what's going on in music, big or small, and this one had slipped past me. We had the shortest chat about artists we both liked, said our goodbyes, and off he went down the street.

Pint finished and on the train back to Buckinghamshire, the first thing I did was stream the interview he was doing on 6 Music. Then I went through his songs on Apple Music and was stunned by how many landed straight away. For someone raised on Mike Skinner's The Streets and Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, it was obviously right up my street.

So the next question was when he was playing next. The answer was the O2 Forum, Kentish Town, on 15 October. Straight onto Ticketmaster, tickets secured, and the inevitable text to Anita: yes, we're going to another gig by someone you've never heard of. Trust me.

The night.

Two months later, the man from the Toucan was headlining the Forum. It was the London date of his biggest tour so far, following his second album, Decoding Birdsong, which came out in August. The week before, he'd played Later… with Jools Holland.

The Forum is one of those lovely old theatre venues, and from upstairs you get the whole room. He played in front of a huge banner reading "One for sorrow, two for love", a version of the old magpie rhyme. That suits a record he describes as being about choosing to believe in something and treating coincidence as a kind of religion. Given how I ended up in the room, it felt about right.

It was energetic and joyous from start to finish, and the place never stopped bouncing.

The setlist.

All 16 songs from the night, in the order they played them. Listen: Apple Music · Spotify

Chalk · The Heron · Yoga Teacher · Seminal · Bookie’s Favourite (with Ellur) · Circle of Light · The Same Heron Again · Commune · Flight Simulator (with Imogen and the Knife) · Dave’s Angling Superstore · The Great Pyramid of Stockport · The First Five Minutes of Magnolia · Decoding Birdsong

Encore: Aussie Gold Hunters · The Words to Auld Lang Syne · Rafters

Setlist from setlist.fm: London, 15 October 2026.