Live Review

Palaye Royale Return to Barfly Ahead of Wembley

Words by The Pit Standard · Photography by Marianne Brits

Palaye Royale at Barfly, London — 2026-10-07

The Barfly is packed.

The 200-capacity Camden room has people pressed against the stage, around the bar and into every available space when Palaye Royale walk on. It is a long way from the size of venue the band are preparing to play next year, but for one night they are back in the room where their London story began.

Palaye Royale first played here in 2017, when the venue was operating as Camden Assembly. Almost ten years later, they return with a sixth album on the way, an international tour announced and OVO Arena Wembley booked for April 2027.

Barfly itself has changed too. After a decade operating under the Camden Assembly name, the Barfly name returned to Camden this year. The owners have deliberately brought it back as a grassroots venue, keeping the room focused on close-range live shows and the kind of artist development that has always been part of its identity.

Palaye Royale are hardly at the artist-development stage anymore.

That makes Wednesday’s show an unusual booking, and the band make full use of it.

Remington Leith does not spend the night confined to the tiny stage. He makes his way through the crowd to the back of the room, dances on the bar, sits among the audience and later throws himself into the mosh pit. At one point he tells people to get on each other’s shoulders; later, he has the entire room sitting on the floor.

Watching Leith becomes almost a game of trying to work out where he will appear next. On a stage this small, the distance between performer and audience is almost nonexistent, and he takes full advantage of it.

Sebastian Danzig takes several moments between songs to speak to the crowd, thanking the people who have stayed with the band over the years. At one point, he talks about the life Palaye Royale have been able to build and thanks the people in the room for giving them a beautiful life.

Leith also spots someone in the audience who was there when they first played the venue nearly ten years ago and points them out.

That first show belongs to a very different period of the band’s career.

Palaye Royale, formed by brothers Remington Leith, Sebastian Danzig and Emerson Barrett, have since built an international audience around their theatrical rock sound, toured extensively and moved steadily into larger venues.

Now comes Amsterdamage.

The band’s sixth studio album arrives on 22 January 2027 through Sumerian Records, with “Lost In Translation” released as the first single on 2 October. The song had its London acoustic airing at King’s Cross earlier in the week, before the band brought it into the Barfly set.

“The Unholy One” receives its live debut in Camden.

The album comes after a difficult period for the three brothers. Following the death of their mother, Stephanie Rachel, in 2024, their relationship deteriorated badly and they reached a point where they had stopped speaking. Making Amsterdamage became part of bringing them back together and rebuilding the band.

There is no attempt to turn the Barfly show into a retelling of that period.

“Mr. Doctor Man”, “Dying in a Hot Tub”, “No Love in LA”, “Lonely”, “Showbiz”, “Hang On to Yourself”, “Fucking With My Head” and “You’ll Be Fine” all feature in the set, alongside “Lost In Translation” and the live debut of “The Unholy One”.

The songs are almost secondary to the way the band use the room.

Leith keeps moving. Danzig keeps the connection with the crowd going from the stage. The audience respond to every instruction, from the mosh pit to the shoulders to the moment the entire room drops down together.

Palaye Royale have spoken about simplifying their approach to live production, with Sebastian recently describing it as: “We are the production.”

At Barfly, there is little need for anything else.

That is also what makes the venue important to this particular night. Barfly has spent decades as one of London’s recognised grassroots rooms, hosting early shows from artists who would later move into much larger venues. Its return this year is an attempt to preserve that role at a time when small London venues continue to disappear.

Palaye Royale are now at the other end of that process.

Their next UK dates take them through Manchester and Glasgow before London, where they will headline OVO Arena Wembley on 3 April 2027.

The scale will be very different.

There will be more people, more production and considerably more distance between the stage and the back of the room.

For now, though, Palaye Royale have returned to the 200-capacity Barfly almost ten years after first playing London here. They have a new album approaching, a Wembley show on the calendar and an audience that has followed them through the years.

In April, the band will return to London for a very different kind of room.

Wednesday night was a reminder of where it started.

Setlist

Lost In Translation / Hang On to Yourself / No Love in LA / Little Bastards / Showbiz / Dying in a Hot Tub / Feel Something, Great. / Fucking With My Head / The Unholy One / You’ll Be Fine / Mr. Doctor Man