Mark’s Theme opened the night and For the Cold Country closed it. In between, Black Country, New Road played 11 more songs on Friday 13 November at the London Coliseum, this time with the Orchestra of English National Opera alongside them, in a concert ENO billed as curated and conducted by André de Ridder, its music director designate.
It was a one-off, and a new kind of room for the band. “We’ve never really played at a venue like this at all,” drummer Charlie Wayne told Dazed before the show. “I think it’s maybe a bit of a strange fit – for any band.”
What Black Country, New Road Played at the London Coliseum
The set ran to 13 songs, according to setlist.fm: Mark’s Theme, Goodbye (Don’t Tell Me), The Big Spin, Happy Birthday, Turbines/Pigs, Socks, Nancy Tries to Take the Night, Two Horses, Your Bucket Is a Boat, Mary, Forever Howlong, Up Song (Reprise) and For the Cold Country.
Nine of the 13 came from Forever Howlong, the band’s third studio album. Two came from Live at Bush Hall and one, Mark’s Theme, from Ants From Up There, while setlist.fm lists the last, Your Bucket Is a Boat, outside the band’s albums. For Socks, the site notes, May Kershaw moved to bass and Tyler Hyde to piano, a small reshuffle that says a lot about how many instruments this group can cover between them.
ENO had promised new arrangements of songs from Forever Howlong, naming the title track, Happy Birthday and For the Cold Country, and all three were in the set. Wayne had told listeners not to expect the usual versions. “Our songs won’t be performed in the regular way we otherwise would,” he said, describing the night as “a nice way to re-engage with some that we haven’t played in years.” He was candid about the ambition too: “With the help of a number of brilliant arrangers, we’ve opened up the songs to – hopefully! – make them sound interesting with a full orchestra.”
Owen Pallett, Josephine Stephenson and Fiona Brice Shaped the Arrangements
The band and de Ridder brought in a group of composers and artists to build the new versions: Owen Pallett, known for work with Arcade Fire, Josephine Stephenson and Fiona Brice, ENO said when it announced the concert in June. The aim, in ENO’s words, was arrangements “that reveal fresh dimensions of their music”.
The band explained why the idea appealed. “Performing our music reorchestrated with the Orchestra of ENO at the historic London Coliseum and reuniting with André de Ridder this autumn feels like a natural extension of how we’ve imagined audiences listening to our sound,” Black Country, New Road said in ENO’s announcement. “We wrote these songs with texture and collaboration in mind, so having the opportunity to perform them with an orchestra – and in a venue as iconic as this – is incredibly exciting.”
The record gives an orchestra plenty to work with. Dazed describes Forever Howlong as intricately orchestrated, with violins, a saxophone, a harpsichord and a mandolin across its songs. Listeners who know the album already hear a small chamber group at work; the Coliseum night simply made that group much larger.
Why André de Ridder Calls the Band a Mini Orchestra
De Ridder has made no secret of how highly he rates them. “Black Country, New Road are one of the most compelling bands of our time,” he said when the concert was announced, as Dazed reported. “They are an incredibly creative band, a mini orchestra, a real collective of talents and many of them are classically trained, so this collaboration was a given at some point.”
Their working relationship goes back to the pandemic, when they recorded an online concert together for Other Voices and Haldern Pop Festival. In September, de Ridder conducted the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland with the band at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, so the London night was their second orchestral concert with him this year rather than a leap into the unknown.
Wayne credits the conductor directly. “He’s really championed the band and been a fun creative partner,” he told Dazed. ENO describes de Ridder as working across opera and orchestral music, jazz and electronics, avant-garde experimentation and indie pop, and lists past collaborations with Dirty Projectors, The Flaming Lips and Gorillaz.
Sessions at the London Coliseum Opens the Doors Wider
The concert ran under Sessions at the London Coliseum, which ENO calls a boundary-pushing strand of work built around collaboration, experimentation and new voices. It is part of de Ridder’s approach to programming at the company: bringing in artists from across the musical world and expanding what audiences can expect to experience on the Coliseum stage.
The theatre, 120 years old and home to ENO, more usually hosts opera and classical ballet, Dazed points out. Wayne said he understood why some might see it as “an overly grand venue for a ‘rock band’”, but he hoped the night might shift some assumptions about who belongs there. “Those boundaries are often more about perception than reality – and if our performance encourages people to question some of those assumptions, then that’s a really exciting thing,” he said.
The show sat inside ENO’s 2026/27 season, which also includes Tosca, Adriana Mater, La traviata and Breaking the Waves at the Coliseum. Putting a rock band on the same stage, in the same season, is the crossover the strand was built for.
From the Windmill to Forever Howlong
Black Country, New Road formed in Cambridge in 2018 and first made their name in the late 2010s at The Windmill, coming up alongside Squid, Shame and Black Midi, as Dazed recalls. Their debut, For the First Time, arrived in 2021 and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Ants From Up There followed, and both reached the UK top five, according to ENO.
Forever Howlong, released in 2025, matched the No. 3 peak of Ants From Up There, Dazed notes, and was their first album after the departure of frontman Isaac Wood. The band now share vocal and songwriting duties, and NME’s verdict, quoted by ENO, called the record “a promise from a band who have now thrice proven they’re not afraid to take the plunge”. Before it came Live at Bush Hall, which ENO notes earned a five-star review from The Guardian and was hailed as a “magical resurgence”.
The current line-up is Lewis Evans on saxophone, May Kershaw on keys, Charlie Wayne on drums, Luke Mark on guitar, Tyler Hyde on bass and Georgia Ellery on violin. Six players who, as the Socks swap showed, are happy to trade instruments mid-set.
Why an Orchestra Suits Black Country, New Road
The fit is less strange than the venue suggests. This is a band with a violinist, a saxophonist and a keyboard player at its core, many of them classically trained by de Ridder’s account. Their songs already stack strings, reeds and keys, so an orchestra extends what the songs do rather than dressing them up for a grand room.
Growing a sound outward has been a thread on these pages this autumn; Mia Joy went from loop pedal to full band on Star Echo Heavy Dove. Black Country, New Road went further on Friday, from six players to a full opera orchestra for one night.
ENO billed the concert as a one-off performance. For listeners who were there, Forever Howlong will now carry the memory of a full orchestra filling the Coliseum; for everyone else, the setlist is a reminder that this band rarely plays its songs the same way twice.
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