AS DECEMBER FALLS - LIVE REVIEW

As December Falls are a British band from Nottingham. They shot into fame mostly through Instagram and TikTok from their song “Therapy.” In 2025 they released their fourth album “Everything’s On Fire But I’m Fine” which includes a single of the same name. I actually found these guys through said single promo on instagram and immediately reached out to the team to get a photo pass for their show in my university town of Chester. Mostly because the band are great and partly because we don’t often get famous bands coming to the Live Rooms - they usually skip Chester for Liverpool or Manchester. After researching the band, I got excited.

ADF have been going since 2014, that’s around 12 years! Something tells me they were inspired my the late 2000’s/early 2010’s emo craze and were especially inspired by female fronted bands like Paramore. HOWEVER, let’s not compare because comparison is the thief of JOY. It always rubs me the wrong way when people compare female fronted bands to Paramore just because they were one of the major pop-punk bands of the time. It completely takes away from the talent and creativity of the artist . When people say stuff like ‘oh that band is just another Paramore’ what they really mean is ‘OH NO I have to take another woman seriously in a male dominated field.’ Yes, I said it. So, with my rant over, there’s no hiding that lead singer, Bethany was inspired by strong independent female rock artists. What i’ve always loved about Paramore and equally As December Falls is that they don’t try to change their voice or sound to FIT how people perceive that sound (Male fronted) and instead embrace the feminine qualities of their voice and personality and use it to ENHANCE what they do. Sure, she can stomp and kick and headbang but she can also do all that in a skirt and heels and doesn’t feel the need to make it seem ‘masculine.’

Unlike any of those artists, As December Falls are completely independent and DIY. They have no label, sell all their own tickets, manage their team and more. These sort of ethics were and are what rock and alternative music is supposed to be about. That’s what the entire punk movement in the 70’s was about. The creative world and industry is equally as corrupt and capitalistic as the rest of the world - but the individual creatives and their ideas is what keeps special things going. Bands like As December Falls prove that with hard work, talent and a good work ethic, you can be successful completely by yourself, go from the ground up from any background and without sacrificing your morals. On World Here, we not only support but live by these ethics. We want to share that creativity, passion and community spaces like gigs and art spaces shouldn’t be a luxury.

However, we also don’t want to simplify their story. This lifestyle isn’t easy and the choices they make stick with them. They’ve been working for over 12 years and only now have I even heard of them. 12 years of commitment, struggles, self managing. They show great love and care for their craft and each other, including their fans.

Now that we know who they are, let’s talk about their show at the Live Rooms in Chester.

The Live Rooms is Chesters biggest music venue, usually hosting tribute bands, touring acts, comedians, comedy and more. I’ve been myself a few times for themed events like ‘Emo Nights’ and they host bands like ‘The Royston Club’ quite regularly. It’s opposite the train station so a good location if you’re getting public transport.

Waiting in line for the venue, I began my people-watching/people listening ritual that I always do at these sort of events. The sort of people that attended were deep in the alt scene, everyone seemed to know everyone and be comfortable with everyone. It was quite beautiful watching the way people recognised each other from other gigs, whether it was previous ADF gigs or even other rock shows from completely different towns.

I usually go into the show with a little bit of research from the supports. However, this particular time I didn’t and wow, was it a delightful shock when support band Eville came on stage. 

Eville describe themselves as a ‘Brat metal’ band from Brighton. They combine heavy, technical backings and screaming with Eva Sheldrake’s vocals. She can quite easily flick between pop vocals, spoken word and metal vocals. So does her stage presence, which is a mixture of iconic pop diva and headbanging, foot stomping heavy metal energy.  What I find interesting is that she uses fry vocals for most of her screams, perhaps it’s meant to be a little tongue in cheek about on the ‘Brat’ aesthetic they have going on.

They managed to command the audience, getting them to form mosh pits and even a wall off death. Glad I wasn’t in there with my camera. Although it may have led to some cool and scary pictures of people running at me. They managed to get the audience involved, having them sing along and chant with them. Everyone participated even if they didn’t seem to know the band.

As December Falls came on stage and immediately rocked the place down. Audience members were rightfully going wild, jumping, dancing and starting mosh pits at any time they could.

First of all, girl to girl, the hair and makeup was EVERYTHING and I have to mention it someone stop me. Yes I still care about the music and stage presence but LOOK at the little hair rings and gems on her eyes. It shows that she pays attention to little details and wants the performance to be as fun and sparkly as she can make it. This is what I mean when I say I love when girls don’t sacrifice who they are or what they like to fit into ‘Rock band that gets taken seriously.’ She knows she’s a serious rock artist and she’s going to keep being her. Keep doing that Bethany, be yourself, wear what you want and still go out and rock the stage. WHICH SHE DOES. 

As a reviewer, I get annoyed at the English language because there’s not enough ways to talk about someone’s energy and stage presence. I could say ‘wow they had great energy’ about two different artists and mean completely different things. What I mean when I say it about ADF is that they looked genuinely so happy to be there and you could see that they both pumped up and got pumped up by the crowd. Bethany was constantly on the move, from different motions with her hands, reaching out into the audience, jumping and headbanging and, of course, her signature back bend.

So this is where I said earlier that I’d bring up Hayley Williams, simply because Beth’s performance is one of the ONLY ones I’ve seen that can match up to our queens energy. This is not to compare them but to say that women in the rock industry just know HOW to go hard. Not a single second goes by on that stage where their heart rate isn’t in zone 5. They’re jumping, kicking, spinning. All with that huge grin on their face, like this is where they were always meant to be.

Maybe thats part of a bigger commentary about how they have to work harder in the industry. Which isn’t a topic I’m simply going to gloss over. I’ve spoke about this before on World Here when I was talking about the Riot Grrrl movement and the history of how women have always been strong presences in rock music - we’ve fought for it before. Sometimes it seems like we forget about that because it’s still expected that women work twice as hard while some men just stand on the stage and scream… or watch YouTube videos… then it all becomes a bit meaningless. Recently, love for female artists has made a resurgence because we’ve started to recognise how much harder they work.

That hard works puts them in the top categories of people to see. The type of people you’d want to watch videos of their performances just to admire their work. I used to watch those videos of Paramore/Hayley Williams and think ‘How does she do it?!?!’

Then I saw ADF and thought ‘How does she do it?!?’

You know what this means. Bethany Curtis, I officially crown you the emo queen of the 2020’s. Its a great achievement but with great power comes great responsibility

Guitarist Ande Hunter (Partners with Lead singer, Bethany) also had an admirable performance. Jumping on blocks, matching Beths energy with the jumping and guitar playing. Their interactions and jokes together were particularly sweet or fun to watch. Towards the end, there was a section where he got the crowd going, getting everyone to chant and jokingly explaining (para-phasing) ‘It wastes so much time getting us to go off stage to do an encore that we can just do an extra song.

To my understanding, their usual drummer for studio and promo is Lukas James. However, their touring drummer seems to change based on who’s available for different shows and unfortunately I cannot find the name of this drummer anywhere. He was great, high energy, kept flicking his sticks in the air. Amazing because if I ever tried that they would somehow end up broken, lost or injuring me or someone else. If someone knows his name give him a little shout out he deserves it.

Timmy Francis. Little sweetheart. There’s something wholesome about his performance. He’s having such a good time, playing the guitar, jumping up and down just vibing. You’re doing great sweetie. I do not mean this in a patronising way our Timmy is still rock and roll and its nice to see every member of the band matching each others energy.

Their entire set was bonkers. Such high energy, fun and silly stuff. At one point the grim reaper came on stage. Of course, they ended their set with “Therapy” in which Bethany went into the photo pit and interacted with everyone at the barrier. At this point everyone was going completely mad. I think I counted about 5 mosh pits. Amazing night, fantastic audience and performance, electric energy and amazing music. What more could you ask for?

As December Falls have just finished their tour with Black Veil Brides and are preparing for another tour this September with Dance Gavin Dance in the EU and Europe. They also have a few rescheduled tour dates in July in the UK for their headline tour. If you have the chance to see them, definitely do. It’s absolutely worth it. Especially for our newly crowned emo queen. Make sure you keep an eye on them as they seem to have lots of exciting updates in the pipeline.

As for Eville, who are equally worth a watch, they will be supporting As December Falls again for their rescheduled UK tour dates. They have also announced a UK summer tour where they will be supporting a few different bands such as Silly Goose, Snot, Thornhill, Sumo Cyco and Alien Ant Farm. They will also be performing at Radar Festival.