Diary Pages, Leopard Print Chaos and Pop-Punk Catharsis: LØLØ Blows the Roof Off Manchester Academy
- Luke Storey
- 3 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Manchester Academy, May 11th , 2026
WORDS / IMAGES LUKE STOREY (ShotbyStorey)
There’s something gloriously filthy about Manchester Academy on a sold-out pop-punk night. The floors are sticky before the first chord even hits, the air already humid with anticipation and cheap cider fumes, teenagers in eyeliner and platform boots bouncing around like they’ve consumed nothing but Monster Energy and emotional damage for three straight years. It’s one of those venues where every gig feels slightly on the edge of collapse — too loud, too hot, too emotionally unstable — which made it the perfect setting for a night headlined by LØLØ, a performer who seems to thrive on weaponising chaos and turning insecurity into an arena-sized singalong.
Before she even hit the stage, the crowd had already been whipped into shape by supports Dawson Gamble and Ella Red.
Dawson opened things stripped completely bare — just a guitar, a voice and enough charm to win over a room full of restless early arrivals. By the time he got everyone chanting “treat me right, treat me right” back at him during “French Girls,” the room had started to properly wake up.
Then Ella Red arrived like a glitter bomb detonating in the middle of a therapy session. Every self-made dress looked like it belonged in some alternate-universe Bratz doll apocalypse, perfectly matching her hyperactive pop energy as she sprinted, spun and practically hurled herself across the stage. At one point she launched into the crowd with such commitment it genuinely startled half the room. “He Asked For It” hit especially hard, but it was the closing run of “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” into “I Like You Best” that finally tipped the Academy into full scream-along territory. By then the crowd wasn’t warmed up anymore — they were feral.
And then came the giant leopard-print robot looming ominously at the back of the stage like it had escaped from some deranged teenager’s fever dream. The lights dropped, the opening “dear diary” monologue rolled out over the speakers — LØLØ narrating her Manchester adventures like the star of the world’s most emotionally volatile sitcom — and suddenly the whole room exploded into motion as she tore into “The Devil Wears Converse.” From there the night became this gloriously unhinged collision of pop-punk confessionals, theatre-kid melodrama and pure sugar-rush energy. What makes LØLØ fascinating is that she doesn’t perform like somebody trying to become a pop star — she performs like somebody exorcising every embarrassing thought she’s ever had in real time and dragging the audience into it with her. Song after song from the new album landed like established classics, which even she seemed baffled by considering the record’s only been out three weeks. The crowd screamed every lyric back with terrifying devotion.
“The Floor Is Lava” cranked the energy into overdrive before “Debbie Downer” turned the Academy into some kind of emotionally damaged cheerleader convention, pom-poms flying through the audience while LØLØ hauled a fan on stage to finish the song with her. It should’ve been cheesy. Instead it felt weirdly triumphant. There was something beautifully reckless about the entire performance — the constant jumping onto the barrier, the clean vocals somehow surviving all the chaos, the recurring diary voiceovers turning the set into this strange coming-of-age musical for the chronically online generation. Even the crowd vote between “Hurt Less” and “Lonely and Pathetic” became its own miniature drama because obviously everybody wanted both and frankly so did she. “Hurt Less” eventually won, though judging by the reaction there probably would’ve been a riot if she’d walked off afterwards.
But of course she didn’t. The fake encore routine arrived with the crowd already chanting for more, only for another diary voiceover to appear asking Manchester to scream louder. Then LØLØ walked back out grinning: “Did somebody say two more songs?” Suddenly the chaos paused for “Wish I Was A Robot,” stripped back acoustically and delivered with surprising vulnerability beneath all the glitter and sarcasm. And then, because subtle endings are apparently illegal in pop-punk, she detonated the place with “Hot Girls in Hell,” sending the Academy into one final bouncing frenzy of limbs, screams and catharsis.
Standout moments? “Dumbest Girl in the World,” “Junkie” and “007” all hit like emotional car crashes wrapped in bubblegum hooks. But honestly the whole night felt like watching somebody turn anxiety, heartbreak and internet-age oversharing into a communal celebration. LØLØ talked lovingly about discovering toasties for the first time and repeatedly told the crowd how insane Manchester’s energy was, but by the end it felt mutual. This wasn’t just another tour stop. It felt like the kind of night people will talk about in a few years with that annoying sentence every music fan secretly loves saying: “I saw her before she got massive.”
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