Exchange Bristol played host to Call Me Amour right in the middle of their debut UK headline tour. A night filled with their particular brand of heavy dark electronica was punctuated by performances from Fort Hope and Royals.
Credit to Call Me Amour, not only are they bringing Fort Hope along with them for the duration of the tour, but on each night, they are drafting in a local support act to open up proceedings. Although they could have been a bit more local, tonight's opening act is Southampton-based pop-punk quartet Royals.
Their brief set is full of both energy and swagger, having the intimate room at Exchange jumping around in no time. Frontman Luke Smithson spends the brief pauses between tracks letting the audience know that their debut album, High Stakes & Heartaches (2026), is dropping in January and, if the crowd has been liking what they are hearing, plugging their planned album release shows in both Leeds & Southampton scheduled for March next year.
Royals
The highlight of the set would come during "Spinning Out", which sees bassist Tom Guildford handing his instrument over to frontman Luke (who, by his own admission, has mixed success playing); before Tom jumps down into the crowd to instigate the first mosh pit of the evening whilst delivering the harsh vocals on the track.
All in all a very solid opener that delivers a heavy dosing of pop into the pop punk genre that quite frankly we are here for.
Fort Hope, hailing from Hertfordshire, is a four-piece rock band that, through their music, aims to spread a message of positivity and, as their name suggests, hope.
Excluding drummer Jamie Nicholls, the rest of the band are sporting a uniform of a baseball cap plus a white tee. They provide a slightly more mellow change of pace to the opening act. Still, one that is both polished and powerful, a performance that fully encapsulates everyone in attendance, delivering an almost anthemic sound to a room that can only hold around 250 people, is truly impressive.
The biggest pop from the crowd comes during "Cardinale (Runway Monday)" from 2017's The Flood Flowers (Vol. 1).
Fort Hope
The most recent single, "Powers," from the 2024 EP, Palaces Palaces, is a raucously uplifting number, the way that Jon Gaskins vocals play high over the top of the swelling soundscape produced by the rest of the band is something that I encourage everyone to try and experience live.
Onto the main event, individually the members of Call Me Amour are no strangers to the stage, having performed under numerous guises and projects in the past, which is probably why both the production and the performance displayed tonight are worthy of much bigger stages than Bristol's Exchange could offer; what that did mean though, is for the people gathered in this intimate venue, is that they got to witness something really special.
Emerging onto a stage that would not look out of place in the Blade Runner universe, a wash with neon lights giving the impression of some sort of futuristic industrial setting that fits perfectly with the band's dark electronica vibe, the show kicked off with "Where's the Chemistry?" from the most recent EP (Call Me Amour, 2025). A duo from Revolution EP (2023) in the form of "Blackout" and "Chasing Bugs" followed.
Call Me Amour
Harry Radford, the ever charismatic frontman thanks the crowd for being here, ad-libbing that "some of the songs in this set are 6 years old at this point and probably mean more to me now than they did back then" and how much he love's "doing music" and sharing it with us all, its his way of turning off his brain. "Will you turn off your brain with me and ride the wave," as the band breaks into "IMFKD" (Revolution EP, 2023). By the end of the song, the crowd is truly bopping and will shortly reach pandemonium levels as next up is the debut track "Tourniquet" from their original EP, also called Call Me Amour, from 2018.
One of the standouts from the night is how much the band got involved with the crowd. Radford probably spent an equal amount of time onstage as he did out amongst the audience (shout out to wireless transmitter technology). But not just Radford, guitarist Geoff Murphy, and bassist Arran Lomax also spent a significant amount of time out in the crowd too (no doubt when they invent an easily portable drum kit, Danny Hall will be out there also). At one point, the audience was split in two by Radford and Murphy orchestrating a competition of which side of the crowd could out sing the other.
We pivot back to the most recent release (Call Me Amour EP, 2025) for "Happy Hell" and "Good Day", the band then dip into "La La" (Revolution EP, 2023 ) before they disappear off stage for a pseudo-encore.
Call Me Amour
Arguably the bands biggest two hits are saved for last with "Bloom" (Call Me Amour EP, 2025) receiving a huge response from the crowd.
Introduced by Radford with "Just hearing you guys sing back the words is wild, come say hello to us at the merch after the show, tell us your story, tell us your vibe. This is our last song about a magical trip to Amsterdam, a trip with one of my best friends....I had a lot of things in my head at the time, he said, magic mushrooms are wild but might help.....I spent hours just staring at the carpet in our hotel room like it was the most beautiful thing in the world, and it fixed my head, at least for a little while.
What I shouldn't have done was do it 2 days in a row; that second day was the worst of my life. Before "Girl on the Wall" (Revolution EP, 2023).Although the previous track was flagged as the finale, the whole show actually closes with "Dreams" (Call Me Amour EP, 2025) and sees Radford, Murphy, and Lomax down in the crowd one last time with everyone encourage to link up in a circle and embrace the moment.
There is no denying that the night was an absolute triumph; everyone there left with a smile on their face and a soul all the richer for the experience.
