The Molotovs will open King’s Cross Summer Sounds in London with a free, David Bowie-inspired show.
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The music festival will return this year, with its opening day in partnership with Lightroom and its immersive “multimedia experience” dedicated to Bowie.
To honour Bowie’s legacy, rising punk sibling duo The Molotovs will headline the day with a “Bowie-inspired set”. Ashaine White and former Magic Gang frontman Jack Kaye will support the band on the day.
Each act will reportedly include a Bowie cover in their sets, and will “celebrate David Bowie’s impact on music today”.
Speaking about the upcoming gig, Matt Cartlidge of The Molotovs said: “We can’t wait to get on stage at King’s Cross Summer Sounds – and to pay tribute to David Bowie, one of this company’s musical legends. The Lightroom show is phenomenal and this gig is going to be something special.”
When NME interviewed the pair earlier this year, they name-checked Bowie as an inspiration for their music.
Speaking about their debut album ‘Wasted On Youth’, they told us: “The album is a bit of a youth manifesto. An attitude of the youth, and it’s trying to inspire young people to change their environment. I can only write about what I see in my environment. I can’t write about Mars like David Bowie. I’m not that imaginative yet, or maybe the drugs haven’t come yet.”
The duo will soon embark on their huge UK tour, which kicks off September 3.
Beginning at Cardiff’s Tramshed, they’ll make their way through Nottingham, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and more, wrapping up their September dates with a huge show at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town.
In October, they’ll jet off to Ireland, where they’ll play in Belfast on the 2nd, and rounding off their tour at Dublin’s Grand Social the following day (3).
See all dates below and get any remaining tickets here:
The Molotovs’ 2026 UK and Ireland headline tour dates are:
SEPTEMBER
03 – Tramshed, Cardiff
04 – Palais, Nottingham
05 – Chalk, Brighton
10 – TV Studio, Glasgow
11 – Digital, Newcastle
12 – Foundry, Sheffield
17 – The Wardrobe, Leeds
18 – Arts Club, Liverpool
19 – Academy 2, Manchester
24 – O2 Academy 2, Birmingham
25 – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London
OCTOBER
02 – Ulster Sports Club, Belfast
03 – The Grand Social, Dublin
Meanwhile, Lightroom have also hosted a series of events celebrating Bowie earlier this year. Anna Calvi spoke in conversation with longtime Bowie guitarist Carlos Alomar and Adam Buxton dove into Bowie’s music videos for a live show, among other events.
The immersive show officially opened in April this year. The show contains a mixture of rarely seen and never-before-exhibited material selected from thousands of hours of film from the David Bowie Archive in New York, from ‘Space Oddity’ to ‘Heroes’ to ‘Blackstar‘.
As with previous Lightroom exhibitions, the footage will be projected all around the cube-shaped room, placing visitors at the centre of his live performances. Tracks have been specially adapted to Lightroom’s specialised spatial audio system.
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