Just a week ago, The K’s’ second album Pretty On The Internet went to Number One in the UK charts, and ever since, the buzz around them has felt more feverish than ever. It’s especially in this fairly local capacity, where homegrown indie talents are pedestalled to the moon through thick and thin. But compared to your usual upstarts destined to get a few cities over at most, The K’s have always had more in the chamber. That’s true of their sound, sure, but more notably in the persistent drive encasing them. Don’t forget, Sarajevo came out in 2017; their debut album wasn’t released until 2024. For an indie band subject to a notoriously fickle hype cycle, that’s an obscene grace period.
And yet, they’ve held on, put out a strong new album, and the rewards have come their way. They’re the only non-legacy act this year to have a headline set at Salt & Tar’s now-annual long weekend of shows, on top of a bevy of festival appearances and tour dates in 2025, both completed and yet to come. They headlined Newton Music Festival last weekend as their de facto hometown blowout, but now, with the chart-topping accolade being allowed to sit, they feel bigger than ever. When they’re on the same level as Billy Ocean, the Sugababes and Ocean Colour Scene this weekend, how could they not?
Fittingly enough, Icarus opens and immediately sees The K’s take flight. There’s no danger of soaring too close to the sun, though; the band seem fully immune to any such fate. The biggest takeaway from a show like this is how, especially next to their contemporaries, The K’s feel like a bigger band. A sizable part of that is in the embrace of the right amount of modernity, in contrast to a scene more than happy to recreate the ‘90s wholesale. Of course the synths that roll through Circles and Black And Blue bring an added pop, but the richer gloss and gleam is baked in all over. Even outside of Glass Towns and what can sound uncannily like a Fall Out Boy riff, there’s a huge, go-for-broke energy that never fades.
The function-over-fashion approach of The K’s—and indeed, many of their ilk—makes that an invaluable quality to have. You’re never getting insane stunts or bells and whistles (or even all that much movement, truth be told), but there’s a core of simple, unshakable strength that’s hard to miss. As a singer, Jamie Boyle runs circles around almost all of the competition, and not even just in his biggest moments (though no one similar is holding long, bellowing notes like at the end of Black And Blue). He’s an added component of The K’s’ overall crispness, not hurt whatsoever by the environment. A cool, clear August evening where a performance like this can revel in its boundlessness is absolutely ideal.
The crowd seem in full agreement, too. The abundance of K’s t-shirts would suggest a choir that’s firmly and soundly been preached to, and ready to propagate the festival-ready atmosphere all on their own. You can almost ignore the less-than-aesthetic scenery—i.e. the half-demolished building hanging over Salf & Tar—when it’s this infectious. Chancer sprints early on in a front-loaded set and is already treated like a prime cut within the indie canon. Not long after, a yearning Hoping Maybe proves a nailed-on highlight, with its closing chorus left to ring out an unprecedented three times acting as a lynchpin moment for this show as a whole. After all, people really love The K’s, to where someone’s flag adorned with ‘VIVA LA FUCKING K’S’ ultimately makes its way to the stage and unfurled for all to see.
It’s the sort of experience that really only becomes noticeable when you’re in the thick of it. From the outside looking in, The K’s could be dismissed as the newest flash-in-the-pan indie name; from the inside, there’s much more to be impressed at. It’s the sort of big, heartfelt, easy-to-connect-with rock music that, at the end of the day, can’t be denied its Number One spot. The rise of The K’s is sizable and noteworthy, and can only get more so when that initial star-maker Sarajevo, eight years on, can still close a set on a riotous, rambunctious note. Viva la fucking K’s, indeed.
Words by Luke Nuttall
Photos by Faye Roberts (Instagram)
