Laundry Day recently completed a US tour. Image credit: Bethany Cordery
‘Sometimes you find yourself tripping into a treasure trove, stumbling onto a band you feel have been waiting for you.’
Summer was winding down, and I was in a hot Victoria Park. It was the weekend of London’s ‘All Points East’ festival, and all anyone could talk about was its dying landscape. Online discourse the week prior had told attendees to bring face coverings and water, in preparation for a ‘dustbowl’. Watching the dust settle through London’s sunset cemented the day’s lingering dystopian feel. During her set, Lorde, the festival’s headliner, mused about ‘the mission’.
‘There’s so much every day making us fall asleep… stay awake, stay alive’ she said from the stage.
A fortnight later, I found myself in the nucleus of the mission… across the Atlantic ocean, in the back of a Chicago butcher's shop, watching Laundry Day.
For the first time in our shared fangirl history, my best friend and I were in a different continent for a concert. Coming from the rural north east of England meant travelling to concerts was a common occurrence growing up; driving two hours to Leeds on school nights or skipping lessons and sleeping on coaches to Manchester. But never before had we heard the call to go abroad. That was until New York quartet Laundry Day announced their North American ‘Larger Than Life’ tour for the autumn of 2026… and we knew we had to be there.
The ‘mission’ wasn’t just making it from gig to gig; it was about finding purpose and community in live music spaces.
Chasing the Laundry Day tour across the States. Image credit: Cate Murtagh
I’d been listening to Laundry Day since high school. Their 2023 album, ‘Younger Than I was Before’, was the first I played alone in the car once I’d passed my driving test, screamed gracelessly while flying over northern backroads.
Their sincerity was magnetic. The band’s first record was born out of bedrooms and Macbooks, released at sixteen like they were releasing to an audience of millions. Sometimes you find yourself tripping into a treasure trove, stumbling onto a band you feel have been waiting for you. Luckily, Laundry Day has documented every step of their past decade together.
Their content ranges from self-made album documentaries to tour vlogs. They were unlike anything I’d heard before, a misshapen band in second-hand clothing, nestled softly between the gloss of a boyband and the pretension of an alternative rock act. A live video of ‘10 Speed’, the explosive opening track of 2019 album ‘Homesick’, made in the boys’ final year of high school, is an invitation into their world; a universe bursting at the seams with uncontrollable youth and dreams of a big future from a generation living in crisis.
In May, I’d found myself at the front of The Garage, in a room of hungry people reaching for a band that had for so long felt unattainable. The room was giddy with a sense of belonging. After Laundry Day’s London appearance, and the guiding words of Lorde back in August, we planned a trip that would catch the beginning of the band’s ‘Larger Than Life’ tour across northeast America. We would sofa surf in the front rooms of friends studying in the US. It was my first time across the pond, with a ‘mission’ I knew to be completely worthy.
“They were unlike anything I’d heard before, a misshapen band in second-hand clothing, nestled softly between the gloss of a boyband and the pretension of an alternative rock act.”
We watched Laundry Day perform in Boston and Ann Arbor, before making a last minute decision to catch a final show in Chicago, depositing us on a six-hour Greyhound.
We weren’t the only ones making a similar pilgrimage. There is a ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude surrounding the band, from their bedroom-pop roots to the sprinter van they still drive – an unglamourous journey to gigs only makes you feel more part of their community. It was a feeling that sat in the air between my best friend and I, dozing on the flight from London to Boston, or with heads lulling back and forth on the various buses carrying us to various unknown cities.
That feeling was laced through each young girl lining up outside the venue with a pocket full of homemade pin badges, hoping to pass them on to members of the band as much as each other. From the young women in Paul Frank shirts (the artist responsible for their re-imagined deluxe ‘Earworm’ album cover), to the young men in thrifted outfits echoing the band’s signature style of graphic tees, jeans and basketball shorts, the crowds had an undeniable feeling of the miscellaneous. The age range also varied, from girls dropped off by mums, arguing about what time pick-up would be, to college students and chic city couples.
“Laundry Day have cut through the noise, remaining unapologetically themselves. In doing so, they’ve fostered a fanbase that completely understands them, clinging to the band and one another like a life raft.”
For the first time in my life, I was truly part of a scene. This melting pot of DIY creates something that feels like a pulsing heart of youth culture, beating at the centre of a music scene that often feels oversaturated and murky. Social media’s tool as a platform for music promotion can make it increasingly difficult to find acts you genuinely connect with. Even when it comes to the shiniest of pop stars, playing to the biggest crowd you’ve ever been in, it’s possible to lose a sense of identity and purpose in the space.
Yet Laundry Day have cut through the noise, remaining unapologetically themselves. In doing so, they’ve fostered a fanbase that completely understands them, clinging to the band, and one another, like a life raft. Their music provides a guiding light through the harrowing calls of a future characterised by its uncertainty. Attending their concerts provides a certain hope that can only be achieved by being around one another.
‘Thank you for supporting live music tonight, this is all we got, being here together in real life’ lead singer Jude Ciulla-Lipkin proclaimed from the butcher shop in Chicago. As the crowd embraced each other, sweat-soaked through ‘FRIENDS’, the final song of the night, I remembered the words Lorde had spoken in the London heat. The room was awake. It was alive.
Alive with the kids from around the corner, the fangirls driving four hours back home that night, the partners dragged along, the parents at the back of the room… And my best friend and I, leaving the band to go back to our real lives, all bellowing out the chorus, the defining motto for the scene that will grow to define these years of our lives: ‘name a time and place / we’ll be fine’.
Laundry Day’s audience, from May’s London date at The Garage. Image credit: Bethany Cordery