Laura Stevenson @ The 100 Club, 16th October 2026

A few years ago, I saw Laura Stevenson for the first (and only other) time, in a small dark room somewhere in North London.  It was a fairly low-key gig - just her and her guitar, and a small crowd not given to dancing - broken by a magical little moment when the whole crowd began to softly join in with the chorus of Runner, a couple of hundred people whispering to each other ‘this summer hurts’.

It’s a good line.  Repeated over and over in the chorus, it starts as an acknowledgement and ends up as an affirmation - yes, this summer hurts, but we’re strong enough to get through it.

Seeing her again, I admit I was hoping - perhaps unfairly - for a similar magical moment, but these things don’t happen very often.  I didn’t get that.  What I did get was a good gig in a great venue.

It was the first time I’d been to The 100 Club, a spacious Oxford Street basement which has to be some kind of money-laundering front because I don’t see how they can possibly afford to be a spacious Oxford Street basement.

But it’s a great place.  Like every venue in London, it says it’s the best venue in London, but this one might be right.  Certainly it’s the first one I’ve been to in ages that felt like it might steal my heart away from the Lexington.  It’s wide and open, the acoustics are good, you get a decent view of the stage from pretty much anywhere and the beer prices start with a 6.

Laura Stevenson, decent view of.

The records have more instrumentation but live, it’s just her and an acoustic guitar.  The stripped-back nature works - she’s a funny, engaging performer.  There’s a new(-ish) album out but she doesn’t let it dominate the setlist, it has just 4 of the 16 songs and we also get crowd-pleasers like Runner and Moving Cars.

Every song comes with a story (“So this one isn’t really about death but it’s kinda about death”) and some of the stories come with digressions (“Oh God, I’m still talking”).  She covers half of ‘Come In From The Cold’, which is a deep Joni Mitchell cut but still Joni Mitchell, so a brave choice for any woman-with-guitar to tackle, but all the original material easily holds its own against it.

It’s a fun night.  The room should have had more people in it.  Everyone sometimes needs someone else to turn to them and agree that yes, this summer hurts.