Ethel Cain graced Glasgow’s O2 Academy on October 4th, playing a haunting set as part of her Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You 2025 album tour. This was her second night in the UK, with Canadian rockers 9Million, who had opened throughout the North American leg, warming up the crowd before Cain’s set.
9Million
With performing songs such as Shiver and Shine On, 9Million were able to effectively get the audience going and create an electric, buzzing energy within the building. This was due to their loud, bold drums and the energetic guitar riffs pieced through their performance, as well as the band’s constant engagement with the crowd and the enthralling lighting used throughout.
After 9Million finished their captivating set, the crew immediately arrived and started to assemble Cain’s fascinating stage set-up. With a large cross as her microphone, fairy lights, and nature implemented into the stage design, it immediately put you into the atmosphere of the world created within the album even before Cain’s set began.
Ethel Cain
At around 9:15, it was time for the show to start. The set opened with the evocative Willoughby’s Theme and featured lighting and smoke to mostly shield Cain from the crowd until the second song Janie kicked in. Even just two songs in, the effect this show would have on the audience was apparent. Cain’s haunting vocals echoed throughout the building and had everyone speechless, yet many were still singing along to each and every word, especially during songs such as Nettles and to the lyrics “Cause baby, I’ve never seen brown eyes look so blue.”
📸 – Lewis Mclaughlin
Throughout the 15-song set, Cain was able to leave the audience at a loss for words by delivering loud and powerful vocals and mixed with flashing lights, these elements really captivated the crowd as well as effectively showing how Cain can capture the essence of the album when curating the live performance.
Although the majority of songs performed were from Cain’s two most recent projects, Perverts and Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, during Waco, Texas, the last song before the encore, Cain sang a brief interlude of House in Nebraska, a fan favourite off her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter. This effectively tied the main body of the set to the last three songs, which were a more energetic, nostalgic callback to the singer’s previous projects.
When the last song in the set, American Teenager, started up, there was an immediate sense of nostalgia and excitement throughout the venue. Whilst the previous 13 songs had been extremely moving in a more haunting sense, the choice to have one of Cain’s most upbeat songs last was extremely effective as everyone in the standing area started jumping and dancing with a specific kind of energy which hadn’t been present before the encore.
Cain is already set to return to Scotland for the Willoughby Tucker Forever 2026 UK/EU Tour. She will be playing Usher Hall in Edinburgh on the 28th of June.
📸 – Lewis Mclaughlin
Listen to Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You here: