Mercy Girl, Yes Basement. 8th April 2026

It’s funny how your favourite venues change over the years. I don’t mean walls shifting, I mean our perceptions of them. Yes has always ranked high ever since its opening, but its Basement stage really doesn’t get the love it should. This is a classic grassroots room. Bathed in black with, sparse neon lighting that vanishes as bands appear. It’s perfect for Scottish darkwave beasts, Mercy Girl, who deal in deep dark electro goth goodness. They’re ideal for the sound system in here, it really gets to flex with their doom laden bass and crisp electro beats. The DJ before they arrive is on point too, with mix of all sorts, from Die Sexual to classic Bauhaus… that is until the Macarena is bizarrely thrown in for no apparent reason other than for a laugh. We all need a laugh though don’t we. Anyway, to Mercy Girl. They sound and look fantastic. The drums are live, but sound so tight and controlled, they could be programmed. The bass is all synths and the two combined, provide a dizzying scope from contemplative sombre tones to full on apocalyptic bangers. Throw some sublimely atmospheric guitar over the top and you’ve got the perfect base for some breathy omnibus vocals to soar. They sound great on record, but I’m blown away by them live. It’d be easy to pigeonhole them somewhere between The Cure and Tangerine Dream, but they’re pretty layered and there’s a lot of euphoria in here too. It’s not long before the room is bouncing, at least at the front where I am, I think it might’ve been a little more chin strokey at the back. Lights explode from the stage like a rave in an ambulance car park, as the beats set the pace. There’s a lovely balance though between that pace from the rhythm section that’s often pretty racy, to Daisy’s vocals that are much more sedate and ethereal. With not many songs released yet, there’s a few new ones in the set that people don’t know. It matters not, every one is received with a cheer, then applauded with an even louder one. They sound incredible caged in this concrete bunker, but it’s easy to imagine them levelling a cavernous warehouse, as they tease some solid NIN vibes, but with the dance dial all the way up. 40 minutes and they’re done, but what a 40 minutes, it’s near flawless. If you’ve not yet seen Mercy Girl live, rectify that as soon as possible.