Photo Credit: James Mirfield

After supporting James on the opening night of Live at The Piece Hall’s 2025 summer series, Earlestown band The K’s were invited back to the venue for 2026, but with them topping the bill. From headlining the T’Other stage at Tramlines to main stage slots at Splendour and Truck leading the band into this show, their Piece Hall appearance marks a momentous point in The K’s career as one of their biggest headline shows to date.

Billed as the main support on the night, Sunderland rising star Tom A. Smith returned to The Piece Hall for a fresh approach, attire and new music. Smith and his band’s energy hasn’t gone away, in fact, it has become much more predominant. Kicking off the set with ‘Let’s Go Dancing‘, that is exactly what the young Mackem did right from the get go, following up quickly with ‘SFX‘. The bands chemistry continues to be as mesmerising as the first time Smith and co graced a stage together all those years ago and no matter how big or small the setting is, they always bring it. With the addition of Rowetta’s presence and vocals during ‘Put On A Record Tommy‘, it served as the most powerful hit of the set for sure before concluding with ‘Fashion‘ to bow out of Tom A. Smith and his band’s Halifax return in style.

With a handful of festival slots becoming the ideal warm-up ahead of their Piece Hall performance, The K’s made their grand entrance to the stage. A roaring Halifax crowd greeted them with open arms, and voices ready to be heard. In usual fashion, the band opened with ‘Icarus‘ to get the place bouncing, and their hopes and dreams were already being met. Wasting little to no time to get through as many songs as they could, the Earlestown quartet quickly followed up with ‘Before I Hit the Floor‘ and then crowd favourite ‘Chancer‘ to give the Piece Hall audience another well known track to join in with.

For a brief time ‘Gravestone’ was an opening track for some performances back in 2025, but has now found itself further down the bill and still remains one that gets the crowd pumped up even more. The shared vocals between Jamie and Ryan shines through perfectly just in time for the next track brought things down a notch. As ‘Hoping Maybe’ began, people were climbing on top of shoulders, the lights were on the crowd and emotions were high for this heart wrenching track, to Boyle’s delight throughout. Further set list regulars such as ‘The Bends (Here We Go Again)’, ‘Glass Towns’ and ‘Hometown’ kept the entire venue entertained, as ‘I Wonder If the World Knows?’ getting an almost entire play through by the end. The only track not to feature was ‘Valley One’, but there was still plenty of big hitters for the sold out crowd to enjoy.

Now a year on from topping the charts with ‘Pretty on the Internet’, tracks such as ‘Rat Poison‘ and ‘Perfect Haunting‘ did keep those who are fans of the latter record gripped and ready for something much bigger to come, and The K’s never disappoint with that. Now into the final stages of the night, ‘Helen Oh I‘ and debut single ‘Sarajevo‘ had the entire Piece Hall singing once again before rounding off the night with a rare addition of ‘TV‘ before ending with the song most fans clamour for, that being ‘Dacton and Wanderella‘ to see off The K’s most spectacular display to date.

Who knows what is left for the band to go on and achieve, but this feels like the beginning.

Photo Credit: James Mirfield