Joy Crookes’ long awaited homecoming for her newly released album Juniper sparked life into a cold November evening at the O2 Academy Brixton.
A mix of demographics poured in for Joy Crookes’ 13th gig of her UK Tour. Long time fans from the EP days merged with newer listeners brought in by the popularity of her songs Somebody to You and I Know You’d Kill.
The first of two nights at Brixton even became the setting for a lads nights out – if you can call sharing a Moretti between four plastic cups a lads night out.
At 9.01pm, partially obscured in a hooded cowl-neck top, Crookes emerged onto a paired back stage and began proceedings with Juniper’s soulful track one, Brave.
The South Londoner was visibly emotional to be back performing in her hometown.
It had been four years between her Mercury Prize nominated 2021 album Skin and this new album, Juniper, released on September 19 2025.
Crookes revealed to the audience: “I was ready to burst into tears for the first three songs.
“It’s crazy for me, it feels like I’m in my living room.”
Indeed, the first three songs Brave, Pass the Salt and Carmen, are emotionally charged.
Across the album, Juniper charts issues like mental health, romance, sexuality, and identity.
Carmen particularly resonates with its indictment of the self perpetuating barriers relating to western beauty standards, that diminish the female sense of self, in pursuit of an unattainable aesthetic goal.
After picking up the pace with fan favourites Somebody to You, Feet Don’t Fail Me Now, and Mathematics, Don’t Let Me Down was really the moment the crowd synched up and began to breathe as one.
Crookes herself synched up, too – but with her instrument. The dual toned guitar, brought out for Perfect Crime, perfectly melded with her navy and taupe ensemble.
The soulful singer was never more commanding than when it was just her voice and the audience. That extends to her spoken voice, too.
She has consistently spoken out in support of Palestine, Irish self-determination, and the Bangladeshi independence movement.
Crookes dedicated Forever to Palestinians everywhere, and reminded the crowd to ‘f*** fascism’.
Amongst crowd cheers of ‘Free Palestine’, the British-born singer with Irish and Bangladeshi parents reiterated that what makes London London is precisely it’s multiculturalism – which she celebrates in Carmen with the line ‘Brown skin European with my London Eye’.
This culminated in Crookes’ encore when the 27-year-old returned to the stage without her band and played Sinead O’Connor’s Black Boys on Mopeds.
The singer first sang the call the action on night one in Dublin because O’Connor ‘wrote it 35 years ago and it’s still relevant.’
The four song encore, which a fair few people decided to miss, saw hips really start to roll with everyone in the crowd properly letting their hair down.
The party ignited just as the lights came on and the crowd embraced the cold Brixton night with music on the tips of their tongues and an urge to keep on dancing.
Join the discussion