ALT BLK ERA live review: UK duo bring a warm blast of rave-rock energy to Stockholm
ALT BLK ERA are not an easy band to put in a box, and that is rather the point. The Nottingham sister duo, made up of Nyrobi Beckett-Messam (22) and Chaya Beckett-Messam (19), have spent the last few years smashing together rock, electronic music, drum ‘n’ bass and hip hop into something that sounds entirely their own. Since their earliest singles in 2022, and through EPs including Freak Show, the pair have built a reputation as one of the UK’s most exciting alternative exports, culminating in a MOBO Award for Best Alternative Music Act and live appearances on Later… with Jools Holland. In October 2025 they brought that sound to Sweden for the first time, supporting drum ‘n’ bass giants Pendulum in Stockholm. This July, they returned, headlining their own show at Gröna Lund’s smaller stage, Lilla Scen.
It was their 2025 debut album, Rave Immortal, that turned casual listeners into converts, myself very much included. Topping the UK’s official Rock & Metal Albums Chart, the record is packed with instantly memorable, infectious songs that blend heavy guitars with club-ready electronics and the occasional flash of rap, and it made ALT BLK ERA’s breakthrough feel less like a possibility and more like an inevitability. This spring’s follow-up EP, Our World, continued that streak: five tracks, every one of them strong enough to be a single in its own right, a rare feat for a genre-hopping act still so early in its career.
Much of that strength comes down to the sisters’ complementary voices. Nyrobi, the elder of the two, sings with a deep, dynamic power that can shift from tender to ferocious within a single line, while Chaya’s lighter, younger-sounding voice provides a striking contrast. Watching how those two textures interact live, and hearing how they will likely evolve as both sisters mature as vocalists, is one of the more fascinating aspects of following this band in real time.
A loud soundcheck hinting at what’s to come
Arriving early at Gröna Lund, I spent a couple of hours in the area near the stage while the band ran through their soundcheck, which gave away rather more of the setlist than intended.
Snippets of “Silhouettes in the Mirror”, “Come Fight Me for It” and “I’m Normally Like This” drifted across the park, and Nyrobi’s vocal power was already on full display: the repeated intro to “Come Fight Me for It” alone suggested this was going to be a genuinely strong performance, long before a note had been played for the actual crowd.
Settling into the spotlight
When the band’s live line-up, guitarist Alex Plant and drummer Sam Brooks, took the stage first, it was hard not to notice their own distinct looks: Plant sleeveless and coiffed in a way that recalled a young Gavin Rossdale, while Brooks brought his own style to the kit, long hair styled into two ponytails, dressed in a mesh top.
A crack of light then appeared behind Brooks before the black curtains parted to reveal the sisters.
They opened with the title track from Our World, a comparatively restrained way to start a show built largely around high energy. It quickly became clear how much rehearsal had gone into the performance: the choreography was tight and deliberate, and both sisters clearly relished being on stage, even if their stage personas differ.
Nyrobi handles most of the talking, throwing herself into big, expressive movements and plenty of humour, while Chaya is more reserved, carrying herself with a quieter kind of cool. Both wore their signature stage looks, Nyrobi head to toe in white, including white hair, and Chaya in black, full-coverage, long-sleeved outfits finished off with boots to match, a striking choice on a genuinely hot Stockholm summer day.
A touch of first-song nerves was visible in both sisters early on, which made that gentler opener feel like a fitting way to ease in, and as the set progressed they visibly grew more comfortable, taking bigger swings and pulling the crowd in closer with each song. By the later stages of the set, Nyrobi even asked the crowd to move in tighter, joking, “I know it’s warm, and we’re British”, with a knowing smile.
From rowdy to reflective
That gentler opener gave way quickly to the huge “My Drummer’s Girlfriend” and “Silhouettes in the Mirror”, before the set properly caught fire. “Come Fight Me for It” was the evening’s first genuinely rowdy moment, cranking the intensity up several notches, only for the band to pull back into the more reflective “Come on Outside”, a track that, to my millennial ears, has always sounded like a more melancholic cousin of Incubus’s early-2000s hit “Wish You Were Here”.
Rock meets rap
The live version of “Lost in the Back of My Mind” swapped the record’s programmed trap beat for Sam Brooks’s live drums, giving the song a heavier, more traditionally rock-band feel, while the palm-muted guitar line in the verses played from backing tracks. Here, too, Plant made up for the pre-recorded verse guitar with extra stage energy, leaping about between his largely power-chord-driven parts, a fitting match for how much more of a traditional rock song it becomes in this live form.
Songs like “Come Fight Me for It” and the newer “Okay (Cyber Racing)”, from the Our World EP, brought out the group’s hip hop leanings, with rapped verses delivered in a way that never really breaks from the song’s melodic core; the sisters are strong enough singers that pitch and phrasing stay locked in even when they switch into rap.
Millennial echoes and crowd power
“Hunt You Down” pulled another nostalgic thread, recalling the more electronic end of Garbage’s Version 2.0 era (Garbage themselves played Gröna Lund earlier this summer, a gig this long-time fan is still hoping to catch live one day).
The pair of “Upstairs Neighbours” and “I’m Normally Like This” leaned further into the band’s electronic side and brought some of the strongest crowd interaction of the night. “Upstairs Neighbours”, a song about disturbing the neighbours downstairs, had the audience crouching before exploding upward on the repeated chorus refrain of “jump” – a moment that could very easily shake the ground at a bigger festival stage.
“I’m Normally Like This”, one of the duo’s earlier releases from 2023, saw the band talk about the importance of being yourself, raising a middle finger to the sky as a gesture aimed squarely at anyone who has ever made someone feel they weren’t enough, with the crowd happily joining in.
Charming banter about ‘Nashdukar’
The warmth continued into “Tissues”, before which Nyrobi explained that the band likes to ask each country’s audience what the word ‘tissues’ is in the local language. “Näsdukar!” shouted one man in the crowd. Nyrobi, visibly surprised, asked him to repeat it, then attempted her own version, landing somewhere around “nashdukar”, a genuinely endearing moment. Chaya made a game attempt too, followed by a giggle. It was one of the most charming bits of stage banter of the night.
Closing the set on a high
The main set closed with the earworm to end all earworms, “Run Rabbit”, an injection of pure energy that left the crowd wanting more after roughly fifty minutes.
The band returned briefly for an encore of the title track from Rave Immortal, another high-energy, rave-leaning cut that made for a fitting closer, bringing the total runtime to around fifty-five minutes.
ALT BLK ERA’s biggest show in Sweden so far
The band mentioned on stage that this was their biggest show in Sweden so far. Their October 2025 support slot for Pendulum may have taken place in a larger venue, but this was a shorter set played for someone else’s crowd.
At Gröna Lund, the audience was entirely their own, and the sisters made a point of saying they would stick around afterwards, repeating the promise, “so don’t go anywhere”, more than once during the show. True to their word, Nyrobi and Chaya later appeared unannounced behind the round Polketten stage, posing for selfies before heading down to the barrier to greet fans and hand out stickers in what amounted to an impromptu meet and greet for anyone who had stayed.
Access and inclusivity at the heart of the show
Inclusivity is clearly central to how this band operates. The seating area to the left of the stage had been reserved for wheelchair users throughout the show, and ahead of “Straight to Heart”, Nyrobi spoke openly about living with a hidden disability, telling the crowd up there that when she attends concerts herself, “I’m up there, with my little wheelchair.” Longtime followers of the band will know this refers to the chronic fatigue syndrome that Nyrobi lives with, something almost impossible to guess watching the sheer energy she brings to the stage.
A friend of mine, who uses a rollator and was seated in that same area, later told me how moved she was by how often Nyrobi turned to look up and smile warmly in that direction throughout the night. From her seat, angled above the stage with barely a view of the crowd below, it had felt almost like a private show just for them.
Gröna Lund’s own staff deserve real credit here, too: medics were on hand to treat an injury to my concert companion’s foot mid-show, and crew members moved through the crowd handing out water on what was a genuinely hot evening, something Nyrobi herself joked about on stage, noting there was “a lady” with water for anyone who needed it, before quickly adding, “not me, another lady”, to a good laugh from the crowd.
Part of a bigger wave
The name ALT BLK ERA hints at a new era for alternative music, and it is genuinely exciting to see alternative rock diversifying, alongside acts such as Meet Me @ The Altar and Kenny Hoopla.
Another clear trend right now, especially on the British scene, is the rise of the two-piece format within rock, a genre that has traditionally leaned on four- or five-member, largely male line-ups. It’s a trend reflected in ALT BLK ERA’s own touring plans, supporting another rock duo in September: Scottish two-piece VUKOVI.
The wider landscape of alt-rock duos includes British acts like Nova Twins, Blood Red Shoes, Royal Blood, ARXX, as well as Melbourne’s Cry Club and Honey Revenge from the LA scene. Among them, both genders are well represented, alongside non-binary artists – a genuinely encouraging sign of openness and community within the genre.
A duo worth following
Ever since Rave Immortal and the Our World EP arrived, songs from both efforts have taken turns being stuck on repeat in my head, and every new release has brought something fresh to the table.
If their show at Gröna Lund was anything to go by, ALT BLK ERA are proof that two people can make just as much noise, and just as much impact, as any five-piece, and it’s genuinely exciting to follow a duo with this much momentum right now.
Setlist
- Our World
- My Drummer’s Girlfriend
- Silhouettes in the Mirror
- Come Fight Me for It
- Come on Outside
- Lost in the Back of My Mind
- Straight to Heart
- Okay (Cyber Racing)
- Hunt You Down
- Upstairs Neighbours
- I’m Normally Like This
- Tissues
- Run Rabbit
Encore:
- Rave Immortal
This show was shot with
Camera bodies
- Sony a7 IIIClose-ups, long-range shots
- Sony a7R IIWide-angle shots
Camera lenses
- Samyang 35-150mm f2–2.8Close-ups, long-range shots
- Tamron 16-30mm f2.8Wide-angle shots
Concert photo gallery
