2025 has seen Romeo’s Daughter explore a side to themselves that they have never previously pursued in their career with shows in an acoustic format. At the start of the year they recorded a live album in Barnoldswick, Yorkshire and played a show at Pizza Express in Holborn. With rotten timing, that was the same night that I and many other melodic rock fans had tickets to see Magnum’s tribute to Tony Clarkin, but luckily to mark the release of the album they paid a return visit. The basement of the restaurant makes for a very civilised cabaret style environment to see the band with plenty of time for a pizza beforehand.

The relaxed atmosphere was maintained as the band took the stage all seated as they opened with ‘Lightning’, singer Leigh Matty breaking into the occasional falsetto. Whether post-reunion favourites such as ‘Bittersweet’, ‘Alive’, with an audience clapalong and ‘Time Of Your Life’, or oldies like ‘Colour You A Smile’, the arrangements were not hugely different from their electric counterparts but the starker format brought out the subtleties in the songs.

Moreover in this format it was easier to make out both the lyrics, and the backing vocals of guitarist Craig Joiner and drummer Andy Welsford, and by allowing the male band members more of a speaking part, it allowed everyone’s personalities to come through, whereas normally the affable Leigh carries the show alone.

It was also good to hear some lesser known songs not normally in the live set such as ‘Since You Went Away’ and ‘Everything’. A beautifully classy ‘Stay With Me Tonight’ suited the acoustic format perfectly while ‘Heaven In The Backseat’, which concluded the first set, needed more of a rearrangement, but had a raunchiness both musically with a Stones-like groove and some very eighties lyrics that had previously passed me by. Craig and Leigh traded some of the verse lines, while the Mutt Lange influences were even more obvious in this format.

Another of those eighties throwbacks, and famously covered by Heart, ‘Wild Child’ is normally the song that ends the set with the band rocking out. In contrast, this time it opened the second set and was so stripped back Andy and bassist Steve Brennan were given an extended break before being called back to the stage. ‘Fly Away’ was another lesser known song before some more established post-reunion favourites in ‘Enemy’, a particularly impressive ‘Talking Love’ and ‘Radio’.

Leigh explained that she was struggling with a cold that would not shift, not that anyone had noticed from her vocals, and would welcome some support, so people gladly sang along to ‘I Cry Myself To Sleep At Night’ (though a couple of super fans at the front had been doing so lustily all gig), which featured some delicate acoustic work from Craig.

‘Over You’ from last album ‘Slipstream’ was proof they could even carry rockier numbers in this format, while after some more anecdotes about their early days making videos, they played first ever single ‘Don’t Break My Heart’. Despite Leigh’s troubles being compounded as her leg cramped up, they concluded in fun style with a rocking cover of You Wreck Me’ by Tom Petty, which also sounded a little to me like U2’s ‘Desire’.

I’ve seen countless Romeo’s Daughter gigs, both back in the day and since they reformed in the late 2000s, most recently this Spring, so this was a really refreshing and insightful opportunity to hear their underrated catalogue reinterpreted so successfully and adding a new string to their bow.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

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