Live Review: Poppy – Zig Tour – The Koko, London

With the release of her recent album ‘Zig’ it was about time for Poppy to come back to the UK and bring these songs to life in front of fans across the country. We headed down to the iconic Koko in Camden to check it out.

As the lights dimmed and Poppy took to the stage the Koko erupted into screaming and applause. Her eerie vocals of ‘BLOODMONEY’ adding an extra layer of atmosphere to the innate walls of the venue. Stomping around the stage it was clear who would be in control of this show, setting the tone for the rest of the show.

‘Church Outfit’ and ‘Knockoff’ would quickly proceed, giving us a taste of the ‘Zig’ album this tour was all about. However, if fans had gathered to see more of this album, they’d have been severely disappointed with the artist only playing one more track from it later in the set. Despite this Poppy kept the energy high by seamlessly blending in hits from her older discography, leaning heavily on 2020’s ‘I Disagree’ – leaving out just three songs from being an entire playthrough.

An outing of Poppy’s collaboration with Bad Omens, ‘V.A.N’ made for a great midpoint in the set. The new song went down well with the audience, who showed their dedication to the artist by providing backing vocals for the entirety of its playthrough. Despite being halfway through the show, the fans didn’t let up, continuing to open big mosh pits in the centre of the room. Unfortunately, Poppy’s heavy reliance on backing tracks was very obvious throughout the set, but particularly during this song. It really brings you out of a set when you can spot this.

Poppy would head over to the drum kit for the intro of ‘Anything Like Me’ to help perform an extended version of the intro’s high-energy drums, before launching herself to the front of the stage to perform the vocals. ‘Concrete’ would close out the main set, with Poppy thanking the crowd as she quickly ran off the stage at the end of the song.

After a lot of chanting from the crowd, the set culminated in an encore consisting of ‘Bite Your Teeth’ and ‘Spit’, which saw crowdsurfers and moshers giving it their all, as their time to let loose quickly started coming to an end. As the set came to a close, the feedback from the guitars left an ambience as the crowd went off into the night.

Overall, Poppy gave an entertaining performance that will stick vividly with fans, her theatrics of being Poppy combined with the genre twisting sound that she has become known for made for a great night, however her reliance on backing tracks was evident and detracted from the live experience.