JULIET’S NOT DEAD

VENUE – Off The Square, Manchester

DATE – 8^th November 2025

Words – Graeme Wright, Nicola Warren

Pictures – Graeme Wright

Ah, Juliet’s Not Dead. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (who I never thought I’d manage to shoehorn into one of my reviews), there’s a danger that this review will turn into a bit of a love-fest. I’d followed the band’s previous incarnation, Twister, thoroughly enjoying both their music and their live shows. They produced some big songs during this time, but a change of name and direction has brought us Juliet’s Not Dead and catapulted them into a whole different stratosphere. They released the album ‘This World Is Ours’, which has a strong possibility of ultimately being my Album of the Year for 2025. If you add in a dynamic and personable frontman who has surrounded himself with three other musicians of the highest order, you should have a recipe for well-deserved success going forward into 2026.

On tour, Openers Amongst Liars have set a pretty high bar tonight, adding to an already palpable air of expectation. It’s an early start this evening at the venue, but that hasn’t stopped a pretty healthy turnout from getting fully into the swing of things before the boys from Juliet’s Not Dead have even hit the stage. If you’ve seen the band before, you will already know that Stevie Stoker is one of the best frontmen out there, and he doesn’t disappoint tonight. With a huge vocal range and a prowling stage presence, he’s absolutely at the top of his game this evening as the band opens with ‘Sinner Or Saint’. The song is one of many highlights tonight, and it’s immediately apparent that despite it being early on in the tour, the band are already tight as a drum.

‘Thrillseekers’ follows, another track from the new album, and it’s clear that in the live arena songs that already sound great reach entirely another level here this evening. Danny King on guitar and Josh Fodden on bass are a formidable duo, while drummer Jack Corbett thrashes the drums as if his life depends on it. I move around the crowd, spotting many familiar faces, including a number of Firevolters as well as our own large group from out of town. Some are die-hard fans of the band, some are seeing them for the very first time, but everybody I speak to is hugely impressed with tonight’s performance. From Stevie throwing his guitar around his head to Josh spending the vast proportion of the show with a grin a mile wide, it’s clear that a real connection between band and fans has been made tonight. If you add in Danny, who looks every inch the rock god, and Jack, whose incessant drumbeat can be felt in your chest it’s that powerful, this show is everything you could possibly want from a modern metal band.

The band don’t short-change their fans either. Seventeen songs fly by; all are impressive, and the setlist is just perfect, obviously expertly designed to increase excitement as the show advances, with the band’s biggest songs in the second half of the set becoming a full-blown singalong for this audience. ‘Feeding Frenzy’ and ‘Favourite Underdog’ fit perfectly with the old adage “go big and DON’T go home” (to be fair I may have made this one up), and the crowd are all in by this stage. Singing, swaying, punching the air – you name it, they are doing it.

The show closes with the absolute banger that is ’64 White Lies’, and the band leaves the stage to rapturous cheers and applause. The boys are happy to stick around for photographs and to sign memorabilia for the fans, and it’s touches like this that make us like them even more. All you need to know is that there are plenty of opportunities to catch the band, as we are early into this tour, and you should do it now because I can guarantee you won’t see a more honest and whole-hearted performance than this crowd has witnessed tonight. If there’s any justice, these guys will be playing even bigger shows next year because with the right breaks, they should have a lot to look forward to. A great night; may they have many more in the next few weeks.

SET LIST

1. Sinner Or Saint

2. Thrillseekers

3. Don’t Play Nice

4. Trading Hearts

5. Open Fire

6. Battlescarred

7. Call To Arms

8. Own Worst Enemy

9. King & Queen

10. Monroe

11. Fist Fight

12. Passing Ships

13. Young & Affected

14. Feeding Frenzy

15. Favourite Underdog

16. Notorious

17. 64 White Lies

BAND

Vocals and Guitar – Stevie Stoker

Guitar, Vocals – Danny King

Bass, Vocals – Josh Fodden

Drums, Vocals – Jack Corbett