Edinburgh's Hogmanay 2025 review: The Concert in the Gardens

Playing support at Edinburgh’s first Hogmanay Concert in the Gardens in two years, after strong winds meant last year’s event had to be called off, Glasgow’s Lucia and the Best Boys were perfect for the occasion. They’re young and up-and-coming, and their sound is melodic, mainstream rock with an interesting gothic edge - perfect for getting an unfamiliar crowd onside without making the experience comfortable or unchallenging.

Wearing a occasion-suiting black leather jacket and long red tartan skirt combination, singer Lucia Fairfull has a Siouxsie-esque delivery which sounded powerful but mysterious on the dark So Sweet I Could Die and Angels Cry Too. They also brought an end to a year of recording by debuting some new material like the radio-friendly Lonely Girl. “It's annoying how quickly these things go,” Fairfull said. “You look forward to them for ages and then they're over in a blink.” Their set was short, but their closing cover of the Blue Nile’s The Downtown Lights as a moody synth groove was one of the evening’s highlights.

From one elegant, energetic Scottish performer to another, with a hometown performance from the widely celebrated Hamish Hawk. In a black bolero jacket and wide trousers, the white-blond singer (whose band also bears his name, as he reminded us) strode and scampered around the stage, thanking everyone very politely for the opportunity. He played music with an edge though, including haunting songs of desire in Machiavelli’s Room, A Firmer Hand and You Can Film Me (“so please do,” Hawk joked with the tourist-heavy crowd). There was also a tender, romantic duet with bassist Lizzie Reid on Rest & Veneers and a bit of folk-adjacent Scottish pastoral in Calls to Tiree.

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There was a brand new song for the new year, too, in Half of Paris, a light-hearted journey through perhaps Hawk’s signature song, The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion 1973, and a bit of blunt New Wave to finish with the grimy Caterpillar. Lyrical, well-mannered but dark under the surface, this was the most Edinburgh set I can remember seeing at a Hogmanay Concert in the Gardens.

Finally headliners Wet Leg appeared, as is tradition, for a set split down the middle by a show-stealing, six and a half minute firework display on the stroke of midnight. Their performance itself might also have split opinion, because although they’re the buzziest alternative band in the UK right now – one of the few generation-spanners as at home on the playlists of Radio 1 and 6 Music – they aren’t an established hit machine like past headliners Pet Shop Boys, Pulp or Blondie.

Instead, they were arguably the most brilliantly weird Hogmanay headliner ever, and it seemed those who had bought tickets for the band themselves were right there for it, while a substantial number cleared out after the fireworks. That was a shame, because they missed the best part of the set as it careened towards its end: a thumping, primal, call-and-response version of the ubiquitous megahit Chaise Longue and the energised closing double of CPR and Mangetout, the former’s neat pop shape interrupted by a segment where singer Rhian Teasdale delivered a verse as conversation into an aged, crackly telephone.

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One of the most fashionable individuals of 2025, Teasdale certainly won this extremely stylish line-up hands-down, complementing her signature, space-age silver hotpants and sports bra with ball-shaped fluffy white mittens and a magnificent round-hooded fluffy coat. She resembled a large, humanoid microphone against the flaring strobes and stage smoke, an extra layer of oddness against their opening double, the punky Catch These Fists and the TikTok-brained nursery rhyme indie-pop of Oh No.

Wet Leg have a bunch of stand-out songs, including Supermarket, the pre-bells finale Wet Dream, Ur Mum (complete with communally-screamed “Happy New Year”) and the jittery Angelica, but – especially when the first set wound down with the mellow Davina McCall and 11:21, and the pounding sounds of 2manyDJs broke through from the street above – many might have preferred to be experiencing them under a concert hall roof.

This was a welcome and well-curated return for the Concert in the Gardens, but perhaps a happier musical New Year for those who were deeply invested in the bands appearing.

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