Who needs a rave when we have JVB
Every six months the internet decides live music is dead.
Apparently gigs are unaffordable. Crowds don’t move. Everyone watches entire sets through a phone screen. Gen Z don’t dance. Nobody talks to strangers. Nobody knows gig etiquette. Nobody knows how to have fun.
And honestly? Maybe some of that is true if your reference point is spending £200 to sit in the upper atmosphere or £300 to lean on the barrier for three hours.
But standing inside Camden’s Roundhouse last week watching Joey Valence & Brae, it became very obvious, very quickly, that live music isn’t dead. Some people are just going to the wrong gigs.
Photo: Kris Fazekas
Who needs a rave when you’ve got JVB?
That was the overwhelming feeling from the second the lights dropped. Before Joey and Brae even touched the stage, warm-up DJ Ewook was hammering the room with a pre-show dance party packed with anthems and drum and bass tracks. The place already felt more alive than most clubs in London.
And when JVB finally bounded out to album opener HYPERYOUTH, the energy hit the roof.
The thing about watching these two perform is that they seem to have unlimited stamina and treat every show like it’s the only one on the tour. Pair that with relentlessly bouncy production and hooks the crowd already knows by heart, and the whole set tips into a blur of jumping bodies, mosh pits and collective catharsis.
Hundreds of people moving in unison. Drinks flying. Circles of bodies opening and collapsing every thirty seconds. Complete strangers crashing into each other before instantly checking everyone was okay.. The kind of atmosphere that used to define live music before everyone became obsessed with “content” and making sure they didn’t touch another human.
To top it all off, everyone I saw had the biggest smile on their face. The fun and joy coming from the duo was completely infectious.
Photo: Kris Fazekas
There’s this weird narrative now that younger crowds are detached or socially anxious at gigs. That everyone stands still filming TikToks while silently judging one another. But Joey Valence & Brae’s audience felt like the complete opposite of that stereotype. Girls, guys, groups of friends, people turning up solo, everybody was involved. Everybody was moving. Everybody knew every word.
Because JVB understand something a lot of bigger artists seem to forget. People don’t just want spectacle anymore. They want participation. Joey and Brae aren’t distant arena figures performing to phones. They’re instigators. They sprint around the stage. They scream at the crowd. They demand energy and immediately give it back tenfold.
And maybe that’s why this level of live music currently feels healthier than the ultra-commercial top tier. The mid-sized gig has become the sweet spot. Tickets that don’t require selling a limb. Venues where you can actually feel the crowd around you and artists hungry enough to turn every set into a genuine event.
If the death of live music looks like Camden Roundhouse violently shaking to Joey Valence & Brae for 90 straight minutes, then live music is doing just fine.