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Thursday nights at Heaven don’t often look like this. The London gay club is filled with messy-haired Zoomers wearing baggy jeans and heavy silver chains, who sold out the venue in seconds. They’re here to see 2hollis (real name Hollis Frazier-Herndon), who just last year was booed offstage while supporting Ken Carson on tour. Tonight, however, he gets nothing but adoration.
2hollis first became popular online for making medieval-themed trap and, alongside the likes of Nettspend and fakemink, has been a major influence on fashion and digital culture at large. And though the phrase ‘nepo baby’ has been thrown around (his mother managed Skrillex and founded a successful PR film, while his father is the drummer of American rock band Tortoise), tonight proves 2hollis is a genuine phenomenon with an undeniably organic fanbase.
As the 21-year-old jumps around on stage, his long platinum pigtails bouncing off his bare chest, he looks like a Dragon Age character that went to Central Saint Martins. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he drawls in Auto-Tune to a rapturous response. It’s the most we hear from him all night, but he doesn’t need to be too talkative when his fans react to his presence by slamming their bodies together and waving his red-and-white branded flags like a call to battle.
In a world post-‘Whole Lotta Red’, kids want to be immersed in a wall of noise to get out of their heads and throw down. But with 2hollis, it’s different. His lyrics, though somewhat cringey, actually have sentiment. ‘Sister’ has the whole crowd singing: “Girl, I love you like a sister / Cross my fingers when I’m with you / Hold back a smile ’til my teeth hurt.” They’re lines that could be lifted from a noughties Bieber album, but backed by Drain Gang beats that propel it into the TikTok age.
In response, the crowd gives each song the big hitter treatment: every word is cried back at blistering volume, there’s no break in the moshing, and there’s never a moment to pop out for a quick ciggy (everyone’s vaping anyway).
Standouts include the sugary sweet ‘Crush’, which has an 80 per cent male crowd singing sweetly while smacking into each other; ‘Afraid’, with an appearance from support act and childhood friend Nate Sib (who had the crowd riled up nicely from his earlier set); and ‘Jeans’ – which goes down so well that he does it four times.
Though it does feel like 2hollis didn’t quite have control of the crowd to start, sheer excitement has them jumping incessantly to the first few songs that it almost doesn’t matter what he was playing. By the end, he manages to wrangle them into place. He reminds them to give each other space, perches on the side of the stage for slower moments like a real teenage pop star and even gets right up against the barrier for the final rendition of ‘Jeans’ before finally declaring: “That’s it!” After doing three encores, he needn’t say much else.
‘Gold’
‘Say It Again’
‘FORFEIT’
‘Trauma’
‘Poster Boy’
‘Sister’
‘Need That’
‘Lie’
‘Two Bad’
‘Crush’
‘GOD (Live Edit)’
‘Style’
‘Whiplash’
‘Cliche’
‘Afraid (With Nate Sib)’
‘Light’
‘Ouu (Alongside Rommulas)’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
‘Jeans’
LIVE REVIEWS
“I received plenty of comments saying it was far too soon to ‘go solo’,” Geese frontman Cameron Winter told NME last year while reflecting on how people initially reacted to his decision to branch out on his own. “Most likely because a lot of folks assume that ‘solo albums’ only happen once a band has passed its peak and that they usually feel like uninspired cash grabs.”
Honestly, everyone is trying to earn a living however they can these days, yet no one expected a Geese side project to generate any real financial payoff in 2024. “Just so you know,” he went on, “my solo album is different: because barely anyone knows my band, I am young and comfortable living with my parents and I have the freedom to follow any ideas that interest me.”
Brooklyn indie followers and former NME cover stars Geese were gaining real momentum when their second album ‘3D Country’ mixed cowboy psychedelia with a jazzy, art-punk energy that had already captured the attention of many UK 6 Music dads back in 2023, but who could have predicted what came next? Geese have become one of the most talked-about bands of 2025 and are expected to dominate multiple end-of-year lists with the ambitious and full-range rock of ‘Getting Killed’. Yet the moment that set the stage for this rise was Winter’s Lou Reed-inspired debut solo record ‘Heavy Metal’.
A handful of late-night US television appearances and a spot on Jools Holland acted as a welcoming doorway for the world to see what this 23-year-old can do far beyond what many twice or three times his age are capable of. Now the sold-out Roundhouse audience made up of indie teens, art school regulars, fans who traveled across Europe and seasoned listeners reacts with a collective breath as a slight opening in the stage curtain reveals the silhouette of Winter seated at a piano. First comes a spark of excitement, then a sudden hush.
There is no flashy social media moment, no chatter overriding the music and almost no sea of raised phones. There is a sincerity to how the night unfolds. The Geese singer barely turns toward the audience. “Turn around!” someone calls out from the balcony at one stage. “Is this not enough for you all?” Winter teases back. For some, maybe it was more than enough. At least four people appear to faint around the warm and crowded Roundhouse while the room stands in absolute focus as Winter moves through the dreamlike storytelling of ‘Try As I May’, the emotional swirl of ‘The Rolling Stones’, the bright lift of ‘Love Takes Miles’ and the sermon-like stomp of ‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’. When he reaches the intense and spiritually charged ‘$0’, even the most skeptical hipster might be convinced that “I’m not kidding, God is actually real”. In that moment, it feels as though we all understand.
The entire performance can be summed up in how ‘Drinking Age’ unfolds. It starts softly with a gentle touch on the keys before erupting into a thunderous attack on the Steinway that could echo into next year, followed by a long, open cry aimed toward the sky. Winter somehow manages to blend something minimal with something enormous, something grounded with something cosmic, a delicate approach that hits with staggering force as he reaches toward ideas of existence, heaven, hell and everything surrounding them.
Winter could recite the phone book and still leave a crowd stunned. He carries the spirit of a post-punk Rufus Wainwright you can play alongside The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, a Gen Z Tom Waits for listeners exhausted by TikTok overload, a new Nick Cave who arrives at exactly the moment he is needed. His voice feels older than his years yet perfectly suited to express the concerns and emotions of his own generation.
We will continue praising Geese endlessly because they deserve it. They are an extraordinary burst of musical creativity that goes far beyond what their lineup would ever imply, and along with Fontaines D.C., they are poised to become one of the decade’s essential bands. Still, tonight offers something quieter and more intimate. Cameron Winter stands completely on his own power, talent and magnetism, proving himself a rising force who can hold an entire room with only his voice, a piano and an entire future waiting for him.
‘Try as I May’
‘Emperor XIII in Shades’
‘The Rolling Stones’
‘Love Takes Miles’
‘Drinking Age’
‘Serious World’
‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’
‘If You Turn Back Now’
‘Vines’
‘Nina + Field of Cops’
‘$0’
‘Take It With You’
‘Cancer of the Skull’
