If Spiritbox brought the tsunami, Poppy brought the aftershocks and London’s Roundhouse is still trembling…
Words by Felix Bartlett | 10 March 2026
Tuesday nights at the Roundhouse don’t usually look like this. A room packed wall-to-wall with the kind of crowd you’d expect at a Cannibal Corpse show, and that’s not an exaggeration, because Cannibal Corpse actually did grace these walls not too long ago. The comparison isn’t just a fun footnote either; it says something real about the shifting tides of heavy music and who’s turning up for it. (For once, it was the men’s toilets with the queue.) Yet on this particular Tuesday, in a venue that’s hosted just about everything, something genuinely singular was happening.
Just as the bar line begins to thin the room plunges into darkness and then the tape rolls. “You are now inside the house… the house of Poppy.”
Right. Here we go.
What strikes you immediately, beyond the glittery mic stand and the frilly gown, is the masked entourage flanking the stage in all black. It reads less like a backing band and more like mythology in the making – Ghost’s lore reimagined for the TikTok generation, born from a mysterious YouTube channel that, at the time, made no sense to myself nor anyone I knew. That origin story has never felt more like destiny than it does tonight. Poppy was always going to end up here. It just took the rest of us a while to catch up.
While Bruised Sky offered up a powerful, punchy opening, it was BLOODMONEY that tore a hole in the floor, pulling you straight into the madness, and Concrete nearly finishes the job. The Knocked Loose collab was many people’s lightbulb moment for where Poppy was heading, and songs like these in a live context make that trajectory crystal clear – this isn’t a pop star dabbling in metal. The drum kit alone tells you that. Parkway Drive-worthy kit, handled with the kind of intent that would have Joey Jordison nodding approvingly. Poppy and her masked co-conspirators are not playing games.
The set breathes well for all its heaviness. Public Domain snaps into gear like a shot of adrenaline, Crystallized offers a moment of eerie beauty before the floor drops out again, and V.A.N. (the Bad Omens collab that, on record, walks a fine line) gets an injection of personality live that the studio version frankly needed. Anything Like Me is a highlight, vocally sharp and carrying that nonchalant, commanding sway that Poppy does better than almost anyone. The screams on Empty Hands, though, that’s the image you’ll still be thinking about at 2 a.m. Silhouetted, mid-pig-squeal, gown and all.
For those of us who’ve watched this run from Download Festival to the Spiritbox / Evanescence / Poppy triple-headed track End of You to here, the Poppy ascent has been something to track with real satisfaction. The Roundhouse represents a real marker. Not a ceiling, either. A staircase. Rock im Park. Download. Koko. Now Camden on a Tuesday night – sold out and feral.
Poppy has carved a lane that didn’t exist before she started walking it, and the enthusiasm in this room, overwhelmingly and unashamedly loud, suggests there’s a long way still to go.
After all, in this lane, there’s genuinely no one quite like her.
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