CMAT
Alexandra Palace, London
13th March 2026
CMAT’s country-tinged pop ballads – searing confessionals with a dark comic edge – have propelled her to international acclaim. Steve Morgan joined a 10,000-strong crowd of weekend cowboys
It’s no coincidence that CMAT’s set is bookended by numbers that find her out in the crowd.
As 10,000 expectant souls await her presence, tickets snapped up in a piranha-esque hour-long frenzy and already razzed up by the countdown to a big-screen premiere of the Jamie Oliver Petrol Station video (spoiler alert – he’s in it), there she is. From under a spotlight in the bowels of Alexandra Palace’s Great Hall, she sings Janis Joplining – the jazz-tinged, slyly beguiling closer on Euro Country – before joining the band as Jamie Oliver Petrol Station is played for real.Driven by Hannah ‘president of lesbians’ Morgan’s metronomic, motorik beat, it swirls towards a ferocious climactic maelstrom only the brave would toss away this early in the set. But that’s the joy of CMAT. She’s all in. ‘Come learn my mantra’, she beckons. The choice to free yourself from being a rage-farmer’s battery hen is exactly that. A choice. And as a mission statement, it’s watertight.
Close on two sweaty, cathartic hours later, she’s lost in the melee once more, the crowd parting for a riotous Stay For Something. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go” she screams as the path is cleared.
Such moments offer the perfect distillation of a ceaselessly energetic desire to entertain. Matched with an ability to truly connect – and, of course, oodles of killer hooks and lyrics – it’s a potent brand that has helped propel the self-styled ‘Dunboyne Diana: the people’s mess’ to stardom. Mark my words, this is a bona fide superstar.
You could spend hours dissecting tonight. It’s a gig, sure, but it’s also a performance, a proper show replete with revue-style elements that show a granular knowledge of pop and kitsch culture smarts. For the seasoned heads, there’s a nod to the early theatrical flourishes of Kate Bush and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band – devotion to the latter certainly never hurt Robert Smith.
The 15-song set, drawn largely from last summer’s critically-acclaimed album Euro Country, flies by in a glorious sugar rush. It’s so cleanly executed, it’s a challenge to single out a specific moment. Where Are Your Kids Tonight? which begins as a stripped-back affair following a chat with keyboard player Colm Conlan, ‘forgotten’ after the Very Sexy CMAT Band are individually introduced, comes close. “This is getting camper every time,” he says. “Long may it continue.” Equally rousing are Running Planning, during which CMAT cavorts manically, tapping at her head, and the spine-tingling singalong encores of Euro Country and I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby. The latter is accompanied, naturally, by a mass swaying rendition of the ‘Dunboyne, County Meath two-step’. There’s even a bizarre interlude during which comedian Harry Hill enters dressed as a massive human dartboard for the band to queue up and take individual pot shots at – “one thing about all of us is that we fucking love the darts” CMAT grins as the trademark cries of ‘Oi, oi, oi’ fill the air.
There’s an impressive, battle-hardened togetherness about proceedings. The band plays like a gang of old session hands with an easy, unforced feel, rising or falling according to mood. The sound might seem like knockabout pop, but there’s some real chops on display here. In fact, the CMAT entourage is as much of a delight as herself – guitarist Jack Wolter and bassist Willy Bishop revel in a spotlight generously shared. Pedal steel player Daniel Vildósola, placed above the band on a riser as a neat comic touch, has a quiet, brooding presence reminiscent of the Marlboro Man. When not adding tasteful flourishes on violin, Holly Carpenter lends heft elsewhere, skipping and duetting coquettishly around CMAT for Take A Sexy Picture of Me and the excellent country bop of Tree Six Foive.
Self-indulgence is usually a crime in any review but hear my tale. My first CMAT rodeo was on a November night at The Troubadour, the fabled folk club in West London, back in 2021. It’s a tiny basement room, 100 capacity or so. During a truly miserable second COVID lockdown, I’d clutched at I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby like a lifeline. A touchstone in dark times. I played it on repeat, sent it to friends, finding its wonderful video a real crack in the clouds. The song itself seemed suffused with melancholy, but yet strangely optimistic and healing. I mention it now because it was a prized, close-up glimpse of a magic act that has blossomed so beautifully. Success may well have been hers regardless, thanks to that extraordinary soar-and-swoop vocal range, but her appeal is grounded in a wonderfully infectious laugh or cry ‘fuck it’ attitude. It’s an approach that can’t be worn lightly, it comes from having seen the bottom of the barrel. “Shall we do a song about some very severe depression I had when I lived in Manchester?” she says as an introduction to Coronation Street, under aptly blue lighting.
I left the Troubadour that night to an empty, West Kensington street. Here I exited to a cacophonous chatter and cowboy boot heels crunching a carpet of plastic glasses, collectively shuffling for the exit like happy penguins. “Holy fuck,” she’d observed at one point. “This is a lot of people. Either the culture is getting stupider or hornier – both things I feel would be better for the way of the way of the world.”
It felt like another level in the remarkable CMAT story had been unlocked. The ‘Dunboyne Diana’ could well surpass ‘Sinead in the sky’ as the Emerald Isle’s most celebrated pop jewel. Good luck to her, for she deserves every bit of it: a lighthouse for the lost and lonely. Shine on, you crazy diamond.
~
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Words by Steve Morgan. You can find Steve on BlueSky and Instagram
All photos © Paul Grace. For more of Paul’s writing and photos go to his archive. Paul is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and his websites are www.paulgrace-eventphotos.co.uk & www.pgrace.co.uk.
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