NEW RULES: LONDON, UK
New Rules
at Islington Assembly Hall in London, UK
words by Alex Shukri
Photo Credit: Tonicha Gilbert
The boy band’s coming back.
It’s not like they haven’t been back, especially with the rise of boy bands in South Korea and many other non-English speaking countries, but the UK boy band’s coming back.
While New Rules has been on the scene since 2019, they’re using the momentum they got during lockdown to see new heights in their career. The trio, made up of Nathan Lambert, Ryan Meaney, and Alec McGarry, has taken full advantage of social media and their collective charm to join in on the revival of boy-band hysteria.
Now in 2023, they performed at Islington Assembly Hall in London as their last headline show of the year. Though they scouted the location the week prior at country-pop rising star Cate, this was their first official time at the venue but the stellar performance indicated it might not be their last.
The night opened with support from Liang Lawrence and Matthew Nolan, who both separately serenaded and swooned Islington. With a bit of interlude between the opening acts and the band, the crowd was bristling with anticipation. Fans had come from all over London and England for this show, with some hopping on Megabuses right after the show was done — many of them vets to this quick turnaround process with being current K-pop stans and former One Direction fans. (And you could tell there were K-pop stans everywhere as various light sticks were given their time to shine during the softer and slower songs.)
With the intermission quickly switching from a random pop song to ‘New Rules’ by Dua Lipa, it was time for the boys to appear. As they say, they’re not a Dua Lipa fan account but they’ll happily play into the joke. Starting the night off with a pre-Covid throwback, ‘Nights Like This’ softens the slightly more rigid London crowd and serves as an appetiser for what’s ahead.
But since they’re enjoying the flexibility of a longer discography, they immediately switched to one of their newest songs “NOPE!”, a duo of songs that perfectly explain one of New Rules’ musical strengths — witty and harmony-strong odes that wonder why the girl of their dreams doesn’t exactly feel the same.
The set list felt a bit formulaic at times, with the typical hype introduction and then flip into slow and acoustic songs with a slow incline back into fast-paced songs, but it’s a formula that leaves some room for more experimenting as they continue to perform more.
Even in the softer moments accompanied by acoustic guitars rather than their more standard electric guitars, they still wanted to have fun with the crowd — which accidentally helped soothe the disappointment after the show as many fans left the stage door exit without a photo with one or all of the boy band. So during the show, they took fan requests, got in photos for people’s BeReals, and even had time for a story-time about some really terrible exes from the audience.
With a slight interlude to roast an audience member’s ex-boyfriend (who almost left her stranded in a different country) and a roast to themselves, “he makes us look like angels”, the show sped forward with a variety of fan and band favourites like ‘Emily’ and ‘Ghost Town’.
The opener combination of ‘something old’ and ‘something new’ played into the encore following their ‘something borrowed’ with a mashup of their music with ‘Diana’ by One Direction — a cheeky nod to the comparisons they continuously get. Oldie ‘24 Hours’ and the new hit ‘Go The Distance’ ended the night, leaving the fans on such a high note that the cases of post-gig depression was the ‘something blue’ of the night.