DMA’S celebrate Hills End at 10 with a Manchester homecoming

Desh Kapur
2 hours ago
2 min read

O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester - 6th February 2026

WORDS / IMAGES DESH KAPUR

DMA’S celebrate Hills End at 10 with a Manchester homecoming — Photo Credit Desh Kapur

There’s something about the O2 Victoria Warehouse on a wet Manchester night that suits bands built on communal release. All concrete, steel and echo, it’s a venue that amplifies both noise and feeling — and on this rain-soaked Friday it was packed wall-to-wall with a crowd largely in their late 20s and beyond, the generation that grew up with guitars ad choruses. They were already singing before DMA’S even hit the stage.

Formed in Sydney in 2012, DMA’S have long worn their love of British guitar music proudly on their sleeves, and tonight’s show — marking the 10th anniversary of debut Hills End — felt like both a celebration and a quiet victory lap. Tommy O’Dell, Matt Mason and Johnny Took played the record in full and in sequence, resisting the temptation to cherry-pick hits. It was the right call. Hills End still sounds alive: raw, melodic, anthemic — a record that never chased trends and has aged all the better for it.

The album’s emotional centre of gravity lands squarely on “Delete.” Stripped-back and fragile compared to the album's bigger guitar moments, it gave O’Dell the space to deliver one of the strongest vocal performances of the night. As the song slowly built toward its huge, cathartic chorus, the room erupted — thousands of voices, It was pure.

What stood out most was how fresh the record still felt. You could see on stage the band clearly enjoying the rare chance to play the album as a complete statement. That sense of purpose carried into the encore, which quickly shifted into a short, sharp best-of moment including the song everyone was waiting for.

“Silver.” If Delete is near-perfect, this is perfection. Pulled from The Glow, it arrived like a tidal wave — shimmering guitars stacked into a wall of sound, a thick, driving bassline, and O’Dell’s soulful vocal soaring above it all. Bittersweet, euphoric and massive, it was met with a roar that said everything: this song has long since outgrown the studio.

DMA’S weren’t just “good” tonight — they were great, confident, and completely in sync Ten years on from Hills End, they’re not simply revisiting the record that made them; they’re reminding everyone how great it is. In a room full of people who found something of themselves in these songs, DMA’S proved that guitar music built on feeling never really dates.