Lizzie Esau, Borough Council and Human Interest team up for Dork's Night Out

Words: Jamie Muir.Photos: Richard Mukuze (@richard.mukuze).

What did everyone get for Valentine's? Something nice, we hope. Us, you ask? Well, our hearts have been taken for quite a while now by something called... new music? It's front and centre when it comes to all things Dork's Night Out. Returning once more to Colours Hoxton for our second live celebration of 2024, tonight sees three separate statements of intent, all focused on a fizzing and dead exciting year to come. We're head over heels.

Human Interest have been turning heads across London and beyond for a short while now, but tonight, it's their evolution and ambition for their biggest chapter to date that lights up Colours Hoxton. Strutting and effortlessly cool in nature, it's a twisting world that jumps from the swinging pop of 'Cool Cats' and the harmonies of 'Better Press Repeat' to the enrapturing 'Shapeshifting'. With new tracks debuted and an immediate hold on all gathered, it's clear that the world has been put on notice for Human Interest to become a new favourite band very soon.

For Borough Council, US alt-radio merges with distinctly UK edges to form a mesmerising set. It's gripping and distinctly their own, weaving the sort of magic you'll find garnering critical acclaim and slammed-out rooms in a matter of no time. 'Casino' may have only been released a few weeks ago, yet tonight, it hits like a long-lost classic. Crunching hooks and mesmeric almost-raw sounds are amplified larger, and breakdowns of spiralling rock merge in a way that leaves Colours Hoxton floored.

Like flicking a flame into a box of fireworks, Lizzie Esau is an explosive rush of energy that rips and pulls at everything around her. With feet firmly planted in soaring pop-rock, tonight is a call-out for the highest highs possible for a show that revels in the fizzing fun of it all. Grungy, punchy and oozing with main stage presence, it grabs you by the lapels and brings you into a kingdom only set to grow bigger with each step. 'The Enemy' and latest single 'Impossible + Strange' are immediate in their sheer insatiable pop hooks, but it's new track 'Crush' that captures what Lizzie Esau is all about so well. Crunching riffs and immediate sugar-bitten buzz is served in abundance, and the set doesn't relent from there.

'Bleak Sublime' serves as a real sizzling serve for an artist who takes pop and smashes it against the mosh pits in true celebratory fashion, turning things heavier and more powerful live. 'Jellyfish' and 'Lazy Brain' see Lizzie pour every ounce of passion out onto the stage, and as the lights go up and the queues to meet her afterwards pile up, it's clear Lizzie Esau already has a seat at the superstar table well and truly reserved.