Words by Rose Newmark

On 26th March, Scouting For Girls made a stop at O2 Academy Oxford for their Everybody (still) Wants To Be On TV tour, celebrating 15 years of their album Everybody Wants To Be On TV. You could immediately feel the familiar fun energy that fills every room Scouting For Girls plays, showing the band definitely haven’t lost their spark!

Photos by Rose Newmark

The stage was designed very suitably, with old-fashioned TVs placed around the stage and a huge screen set up behind the band showing live projected videos of the audience as frontman Roy Stride crossed the stage with a video camera pointing at us, so everyone could really “be on TV”! The band, fittingly, opened their set with Famous, and played almost every track from Everybody Wants To Be On TV. They kept the upbeat energy going with On The Radio and 1+1, a cheeky, fast-paced track about starting an unplanned family.

One thing I always love about SFG shows is how involved they make you feel. You’re not just watching the show, you’re a part of it. As Roy said, that night the audience was the “fifth member” of SFG! You could really get a sense of that personal feeling, watching the crowd sway and jump and sing along to every song, especially the band’s earlier hits like This Ain’t A Love Song and Heartbeat. I could see fans of all ages – during Gotta Keep Smiling (which the band always quirkily doubles up with Come On Eileen), Roy pointed to an 11-year-old girl, Kirsty, whom he’d met at the album signing earlier on, and asked her to help them sing the song. Everyone went quiet, Roy sang “take a break”, and Kirsty yelled the next lyrics back: “take a day to relax!” to a massive cheer from the audience, and the song continued. A truly sweet moment.

Of course, the band had to play arguably their most fun track, Posh Girls. “As we’re in Oxford, I know there are some posh girls here!” Roy joked to a knowing laugh from the audience. The crowd, especially I, were definitely looking forward to that song, shouting the lyrics back as loud as they could. SFG also played several tunes from their self-titled debut album from all the way back in 2007, including I Wish I Was James Bond, which Roy prefaced as usual with “Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr Bond. I expect you to die.”, so the excited crowd knew what was coming next. Roy sprinkled the set with stories about the band and their history, talking about how they met when they were kids and started the band when they were just 13! Turns out this is far from the first time SFG have played in Oxford – “we’ve played pretty much every Oxford stage”, Roy said before listing all the concerts they’d done here.

Towards the end of the set, the group performed the title track of their new album, These Are The Good Days, which was released at midnight on Thursday. Earlier that day, the band had been on the news to announce two massive shows for their 20th anniversary next year – at AO Arena Manchester and the OVO Arena Wembley. I hope to catch one of them! On a slightly more serious note than the rest of the songs, Roy prefaced the track by saying “no matter what you’ve been told on the news, if you look around you at the thousand people jumping around singing stupid songs, you realise there’s still so much love around.”, which was a nice thought to leave with and definitely true.

Scouting For Girls ended the night, expectedly, with their hit She’s So Lovely, and I don’t think there was a single audience member not singing along.

Photos by Rose Newmark