WORTH A LOOK?: ****

Tracklist: London, Can You Wait?; Be My Light, Be My Guide; We Could Be Kings; Where Are They Now?; Truth, Rest Your Head; Your Love, It Lies; Long Sleeves For The Summer; Stop; Sleep Well Tonight; Save Me, I’m Yours; O Lover; Speak To Me Someone; A Car That Sped; Walking In The Shallows; Haunted By You; Olympian; For The Dead; Sick, Sober and Sorry; Fighting Fit; I Can’t Help Myself; Who Said This Was The End?

It’s 8 months after Gene’s 1st London gig for 21 years and the perfect time for this live album to drop ahead of Camden Roundhouse shows this autumn.

• Read on for reasons including how Apollo proves a startling reminder of both how incredible Gene were and could be again

A friend messages me with an image of a signed copy of Apollo and I explain that not only have I heard it – but I was there, at the gig.

Reading that review back I reflect on the response to it (predominantly, ‘Why not 5*?’) and traffic – over 1,600 views to date – which indicates an interest in a band that hasn’t released new material in 2 decades that I hadn’t quite anticipated.

Apollo, of course, might not just be a reference to the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith where this gig took place. Apollo was 1 of the Olympian deities whose functions included healing, prophecy, music, poetry, and … archery

I certainly feel a little healed and less likely to reach for the arrows after that 5 October 2025 gig of which I wrote: ‘The Eventim Apollo’s standing capacity is 5,300 and it’s amazing to think that a band who had been away for so long, had released 4 studio albums in the decade between 1994 and 2004, and whose biggest hit was the reissue of debut single For The Dead which made number 14 and Top Of The Pops in 1996, could sell it out after being away for so long.

‘Lead singer Martin Rossiter is in flirty form and thanks keyboardist Mick Talbot from the Style Council for joining their line-up and describes the rapturous reception the band receives as ‘very much deserved’ which makes us smile.’

Apollo is not quite the entire setlist (compare the tracklist with the gig review setlist) but is a joyous souvenir from an evening when they exceeded expectations after so long away but also underlined how necessary they were then and remain now.

Gene played Nottingham, Glasgow, Bristol, where other friends saw them, Dublin and Manchester this spring and reports are the quality remains undimmed.

Intimate gigs have just been announced for Southampton, Newport and Lancaster before a summer jaunt to Valencia, October gigs promising different sets at Camden Roundhouse and US dates.

Apollo proves a startling reminder of both how incredible Gene were – and could be again.

We see them again this autumn in Camden and, once again, it’s new material worthy of elbowing out the old classics from the setlist here that we now want from them. Closing with Who Said This Was The End? Indeed. Let the Gene-ius continue.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Gene. Tickets
• Have you seen a show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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