Seb Lowe live: an artist at the start of a very promising career

O2 Academy Oxford, 24th April 2026

Over the past few years, a certain name has been cropping up as the support on bills for established and up-and-coming indie artists alike: Seb Lowe. Having already done the rounds opening for Ocean Colour Scene, The K’s, and Blossoms, to name a small few, he’s now building a burgeoning fanbase of his own. Somewhere along the rise in his success, Lowe has mastered a winning formula – power-chord-driven melodies; political lyrics that carry gravitas without veering into the thorny; and a rhythmic delivery that makes live shows sound less like one-sided concerts and more like communal karaoke sessions. 

Tonight it’s Oxford’s turn to be converted, as he takes to the second room in the city’s O2 Academy. And for an hour and a half, he certainly makes a good case for it. ‘Little Caesar’, as incisive as it is damning, opens the set, and is already met with fervour, while ‘Kill Him (He’s a Socialist)’ is as electric as a song with such a title can be. Likewise, the swinging dramatics of ‘I’m Hateful, I’m Horrible, I Love You’ work particularly well live when paired with the heightened dramatics of his movements on stage. 

Seb Lowe is an artist with a clear sense of identity and an even clearer sense of where he is heading. 

‘iPhone’, while only released in 2021, is introduced as an “old one”, and while its reception is effusive, it sounds almost stripped-back in comparison to the full-bodied production on his recent output – look no further than ‘No One to Kill in the Sky’ or ‘One Day to Live’ to see how far this has come. The frenzied violin arrangements he has added to the sound not only make his music richer and fuller but also confirm that Seb Lowe is an artist with a clear sense of identity and an even clearer sense of where he is heading. 

All throughout, he lets his lyrics do the talking, choosing the controlled calm of words committed to song over improvised rants or speeches on stage. After all, part of his appeal is the discerning wit in his turns of phrase: “A Westerner walks into a bar / Television in the Middle East corner” (‘A Westerner walks into a bar’) or “It’s hardly a war, it’s an act of God / It’s cleaners with guns, it’s a man with a job” (‘Little Caesar’), to name a couple. Judging by the enthusiasm with which each song is met, the lines land just as well when performed live as they do on their studio counterparts. 

He takes very few pauses, and the few pauses there are are used to thank his band, the crowd, and to promote his merch: “We’re selling flags with my big fucking face on them, if that’s what you’re into,” he offers with a chuckle. “Bit weird, but oh well.”

The final stretch of the show is almost a single, unbroken surge of energy. The only respite comes during ‘Freak’, which is performed acoustically between him and violinist Kate Couriel. “There are very few songs I wrote when I was 16 that I’d still play today, but this is one of them,” he says, almost in apology, before pouring his heart into the song’s every word.

At the age of 21, Seb Lowe has already built, through undeniable talent and hard work, a devoted fanbase to call his own.

 By the time he plays ‘Terms and Conditions’, the song he was synonymous with for a while, the crowd has been completely won over. The rock edge it gets when played live makes it work better than on the studio recording, where his enunciation has been known to draw unwanted parallels to cartoonish villainy. When he briefly leans over the barrier into the crowd, they move as one unanimous mass towards him, eager to make eye contact with him as he gives them his undivided attention. 

But rather than ending with ‘Terms and Conditions’, he instead closes the set with the more recent ‘No One to Kill in the Sky’, a nod to his forward-facing intentions and a refusal to rest on the laurels of the song that started it all. 

At the age of 21, Seb Lowe has already built, through undeniable talent and hard work, a devoted fanbase to call his own. With time, a longer discography, and a few more strategic support slots, there’s little stopping him from becoming one of the most prominent voices in British Indie. If tonight’s show is anything to go by, Seb Lowe may just be at the start of a very prolific career. 

Words and photos: Sophie Flint Vázquez, no use without permission.