Back in October, Panic Shack stepped out into the glowing studio lights of Later… with Jools Holland for one of their most important live opportunities to date. Even for a band that has played over 150 gigs in 2025 — traversing the UK, much of Europe and even a pitstop in Brazil — this wasn’t just another performance.
‘Performing on Jools Holland felt like such a surreal moment,’ bassist Emily Smith tells M from a hotel room in Madrid, where the band are gearing up for a sold-out gig in the Spanish capital. ‘It felt representative of everything we’ve worked towards as a band.’
Having released their riotous and irrepressibly colourful self-titled debut album in July, the Cardiff-formed four-piece have spent much of the rest of the year piling into vans, rolling into basement venues and living off adrenaline — the unspoken agreement being that the ensuing chaos is worth it. Performing on national television, Emily adds, was an ‘honour’, and evidence that the wider music industry was starting to meet the band where they’d always been headed.
Before the Jools producers came calling, Panic Shack — comprising Emily, vocalist Sarah Harvey and guitarists Meg Fretwell and Romi Lawrence (touring drummer Nick Doherty completes their live line-up) — spent years grafting on the gig circuit as an independent act. Fostering an informal network of fans and local promoters off the back of their incendiary live show, a palpable energy courses through the Panic Shack album. All skittish, fierce guitar breakdowns and snarling punk vocals, their debut feels perfectly attuned to the lively grassroots live music scene that has nurtured the band since they formed in 2018.
Since then, Panic Shack have earned slots at Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds Festivals, as well an appearance at SXSW in Austin, Texas with the support of a grant from PRS Foundation’s International Showcase Fund. With just two more gigs left this year — tomorrow night (4 December) in London before a sold-out Cardiff show on Friday (5 December) — M caught up with the band for the latest edition of our On The Road series to hear, in their own words, what it's been like to evolve and thrive as a live act in 2025.
Emily: ‘Our recent European headline tour has felt like a fever dream. The crowds have been amazing, they’ve been moshing throughout every show. Nearly all of the venues have been sold out. There is a difference between our fans over here and our fans back home, in that the audience is made up of predominantly young people, and women and queer people. That’s been really interesting to see — we’ve loved it.’
Romi: ‘What’s funny is how when we get to talk to the fans after our show each night, all they want to talk about is how much energy we have when we’re on stage. Often they are like, “Wow, how do you do it?”’
Sarah: ‘We played Paris recently, which we didn't have on our cards for being the best gig of the tour so far. The crowd absolutely smashed it; they really uplifted us. They were really going for it during each and every song, which gave us a lot of energy. I think we needed that after a lot of travel.
‘What’s funny, too, is how differently you get treated as a touring act in Europe compared to back in the UK. A lot of venues will give you home-cooked food, while the wine is great. We got given a vegan ham platter at one of the recent shows — you wouldn’t see that back home!’
'In Paris, the crowd absolutely smashed it and really uplifted us.' - Sarah Harvey
Meg: ‘It's been an amazing experience playing all these gigs, but it's also been hard as this year is the most we have ever toured as a band. There was one day recently where we were in Munich and we thought, “Where are we going to pull the energy from for this show?” But you do it, you always find a way. You bounce off the crowd, and they can make the entire show. You sometimes think to yourself, “I’m gonna give as much energy as the crowd is giving back”. We’re fortunate that our fans are always up for a party with us.
‘Really, the show is the easiest part of touring. It’s easy to forget about all the logistics that go into getting ready in the green room; all the travelling; psyching yourself up before a show. We keep ourselves grounded by going to the gym and laughing together every day.’
Sarah: ‘It’s easy to get carried away with the adrenaline that comes with touring. When you’re on the road and playing shows night after night, you could very easily drink every night — and we have in the past. It’s good to hone in on looking after yourself and thinking about longevity as a band.’
Emily: ‘Seeing our shows get bigger and bigger has made us realise what we’re capable of as a band. To see the difference between where we came from and where we are now… you don’t even realise it’s happening when you’re in the throes of touring relentlessly! But then you get off the road, pause for a second and think, “Oh fuck, we have a bigger team, playing bigger shows and bringing in bigger crowds”. It’s amazing to realise that we can still keep growing together.’
Romi: ‘We recently played a show in Brazil, and the offer for that came at the very last minute. Booking flights in itself is terrifying, let alone when you have an unexpected show ahead of you! As we’ve grown, it’s been nice having tour managers who can take the reins for us. In the past, we did everything ourselves. Moving away from having to juggling everything on our own to relinquishing control to other people has felt really good.’
Meg: ‘The concept of the festival we performed at in Brazil was that nobody knew who was gonna play — there wasn’t an “officially announced” line-up. We were among the likes of Chaka Khan, TV On The Radio — it was madness! We had big-ass production too, it was incredible. We’ve always loved playing festivals and relished in the feeling of winning people over.’
‘Seeing our shows get bigger and bigger has made us realise what we’re capable of as a band.' - Emily Smith
Romi: ‘PRS royalties have helped us to play a lot of festivals, too. At the start of us being a band we were just figuring things out ourselves, and PRS is one of the first things we signed up for. We wouldn’t have done so many of the things we have done without it.’
Meg: ‘A few years ago we received PPL Momentum funding, which was so important to us. As soon as that came in, we set the intention to use the money to write our first album. It took a few years for us to get there and finish the record, but having that financial support allowed us to be able to gig more and write more when we were a newer act. It meant we could get ourselves out there while we worked away on the album.’
Emily: ‘We’ve worked so hard this year but are already looking forward to what’s next. We would love to start playing about with lighting and stage production, and just show how much we can achieve on stage between us four with our guitars and Nick on drums. I can’t even imagine what the show will look like after we start to add a bit more pizzazz to it!’
Panic Shack's UK and European tour concludes on Friday (5 December) in Cardiff. Main image credit: Ren Faulkner.
