As soon as I heard it I was on board: a brash snotty early Arctic Monkeys style pop thrash, with a similar youthful Yorkshire delivery, and with more than a hint of The Streets’ conversational Britishness.
Feel shit when I wake up,
Takes about two hours for me to come around
I′m not going through a break-up,
but it feels like that today somehow
So let’s keep it professional,
I got things on my mind that my mind don′t like
You look nice on the outside,
Do you wanna come out tonight?
It’s a boisterous opening and does not let up on the glorious pint-swilling energy which the accompanying video goes quite literal on.
And shock horror the track dates from 2025, thereby providing a welcome injection of contemporary into my otherwise decidedly legacy artist focused Bakehouse playlists.
But who am I kidding. I love the track because it sounds like an old friend, a Britpop banger. Indeed never mind the Arctic Monkeys and all those noughties references, the more I listen the more I hear the nineties in it: Blur, Dandy Warhols and with some Oasis glam rock stylings in the mix too.
I am not completely new to Dominic Harrison aka Yungblud; I had liked 21st Century Liability from his debut in 2018 (featuring the memorable line Bang, bang, bang, it’s all bollocks ) and 2023’s Lowlife had an appealing cheeky swagger but it was only when Hello Heaven, Hello dropped last March that I really started to pay attention. It was a stylistic game changer, a near 10 minute long rock opera, like a long lost Guns’n’ Roses epic that you could easily imagine Axl Rose tackling.
When Lovesick Lullaby and Zombie and the parent album Idols appeared it sealed the deal for me and Yungblud suddenly sounded and looked like a huge rock star.
Which was more than confirmed with his show stealing and emotional cover of Changes at Ozzy Osbourne’s final Black Sabbath concert Back to the Beginning at Villa Park, Birmingham in July 2025.
So at Cardiff Utilita on a Saturday night there was a huge anticipation from the moment we hit the line late afternoon, where more (ahem) mature Yungblud converts like us mingled with his longstanding (but still extremely youthful) devoted fan base family. But whatever your tribe there was a real sense Yungblud had already out grown the relatively modest Utilita with its 7500 capacity, an arena minnow compared to the O2 in London and the new Co-op Live in Manchester, which also rather explained the struggle I had to get tickets.
And never mind arenas: when Yungblud hit the stage at 9.10 am it was a big barnstorming stadium show worthy of a Glastonbury headliner featuring a huge Queen- style logo arch, live backstage feed, banks of giant screens, and a relentless barrage of confetti explosions and fire cannons.
As for Yungblud himself he was a whirlwind presence of preening, pouting, leaping and stage diving energy, pulling every rock star trick in the book to provide constant theatrical fodder for the sea of phones, which never let up as anthem followed anthem. His leather waistcoat was quickly discarded and he spent the rest of the show topless, constantly working and pumping he crowd to new levels of hysteria. We were there to be entertained and the screams were long and loud for this youthful Iggy Pop figure crossed with Robbie Williams’ levels of showmanship.
However at the risk of sounding a little churlish (and possibly showing my age) he could easily dial down the “go fucking crazy” shtick a little because it was simply not needed: his charisma and talent was such that we were with him all the way and the frenzied crowd baiting extended many of the songs to near breaking point, and also escalated the risk of triggering stops for medical attention in the crowd. Indeed a quick look at the set list after the show reveals that in a near two hour show only 14 songs were actually played with Loner curtailed by a (you guessed it) medical emergency, one of two on the night and something of a feature on the whole tour.
Thankfully Lovesick Lullaby did not suffer the same fate, just four songs in and it had the Utilita absolutely bouncing.
Cause I, I wanna feel good emotions in a la-la-la-la-la-la
Cause I, I wanna feel good emotions in this lovesick lullaby
And next time out in the Welsh capital (well he did promise to visit Wales every year until he’s dead!) it will surely be the Principality Stadium that is bouncing for Yungblud.
