The Cheap Thrills Round Off Sold-Out UK Tour in Style at The Barfly

18 October 2026 Andrew Ellis

The Cheap Thrills Barfly Camden review

So I arrived at the Barfly in North London for what was the last date on The Cheap Thrills‘ October 2026 UK headline tour supporting their debut album Keep Cheap. The album release has been very successful as has the tour which has widely sold out, drawing praise for the band’s high-energy, tight, and punchy indie-rock performances.

The first of three bands hitting the stage was Standard Issue, a London based four piece rock band. A band that had not been on my radar until now but deserves my further investigation. Didn’t catch the names of the guitarist and bass player but Laila Chu was up front on lead vocals and guitar and they had a guy who put in a cracking shift subbing on drums.

It has been said that Standard Issue has a mission to bring back the sounds of rock’s golden era, bringing to you the powerful riffs of classic rock and the melodic spark of britpop, all in the same vein of Arctic Monkeys, Led Zeppelin and Green Day. Early days but you have to admire the bands ambition and full power to them.

A great set which was brought to a fitting climax with the band’s debut single Last Night.

Standard Issue Set List

Come My Way
I Want It All
Get Out My Face
6″
Things I Already Know
I Feel Alright
Last Night

Danny Griffiths followed and he was really well received by the packed out crowd. My guess is that this wasn’t the first gig on the tour that many had been to so as Danny had supported The Cheap Thrills on every single date he was certainly a familiar face.

As Danny described it, Window Seat, a song about travelling on a train was the highlight for me and was a real winner with the room. Danny requested silence from the audience and this was stressed by the lady standing next to me when she told the audience to shut the f*ck up.

Danny brought his set to a close with Lightweight Champion, his new single set for release on 23rd of October.

I understand that in Liverpool, the band have been selling out 2000 capacity venues. Around the rest of the country the audiences are fairly modest as was indeed the case on this occasion but The Barfly slogan is ‘Before The Arenas, They Were Here‘ and who knows what lies ahead. They certainly deserve success as they are good time band and they gave everyone in attendance a fabulous Friday night. Let’s face it, with all of the sh*t happening in the world on a daily basis, we need something to put the smile back on our face and The Cheap Thrills did that.

Lewis Pike, on lead vocals and guitar stands centre stage and is joined by guitarist and keyboard player Terry Eaves, bass player Callum Fitzpatrick (Fitzy) and drummer Anton Eager. They are a finely tuned outfit and they had the audience singing along, jumping up and down with arms thrown high from the start. I believe I may have been the only person in attendance that didn’t have every lyric on the tip of his tongue but the jumping up and down came easy.

There is and will continue to be a great demand for tickets for The Cheap Thrills’ next scheduled London gig at Oslo Hackney on 19th February, 2027 so if you want a guaranteed good time get in there fast. As Lewis Pike mentioned, the band was looking forward to a trip to Norway when this event was confirmed but surely Hackney is a close second.

This was an extremely professionally organised gig with three acts hitting the stage bang on time with very short turnarounds. First band on fifteen minutes after the doors were opened at 7:15 and The Cheap Thrills gave us a very good set of sixteen well crafted songs before bidding us a good night at 9:50. If only all gigs were like this we would never have to worry about catching the last train out of town.