By Andras Paul, Rock At Night London
Live Review: Of Mice & Men with Ghostkid and Gore – Electric Ballroom, London, UK – December 11, 2025
The Electric Ballroom has seen some wild nights in its century-plus history, but few have felt as emotionally raw and physically unrelenting as Of Mice & Men’s headline show last night. On the penultimate date of their sold-out 2025 European headline run, the California quartet turned Camden into a pressure-cooker of crowd-surfing chaos and sing-along therapy, proving that even 15 years in, they can still hit harder and mean more than almost anyone else in metalcore.
Openers Gore. and GHØSTKID had already done serious damage. Gore.’s intoxicating blend of seductive melody and outright violence – frontwoman Haley Roughton prowling the stage like a panther – left the early crowd properly blooded. Then GHØSTKID detonated the room with their industrial-trap-metal hybrid, Sebastian “Sushi” Biesler screaming heartbreak over pounding electronics while the pit spun itself into a blender. By the time the headliners’ intro tape hit, the floor was slick with sweat and the balcony was shaking.
Of Mice & Men didn’t ease in. They detonated.
Kicking off with the brand-new single “Another Miracle” – still so fresh most of the room was hearing it live for the first time – Aaron Pauley’s soaring clean vocals locked instantly with Tino Arteaga’s machine-gun double-kick. Phil Manansala’s riffs sliced through the haze like broken glass, and the first crowd-surfer was airborne before the first chorus even landed. From that moment the tone was set: this was going to be 70 minutes of zero mercy.
“Feels Like Forever” into “Would You Still Be There” formed an early emotional one-two that had phones in the air and throats already shredded. “Wake Up” and “You Make Me Sick” followed in quick succession, each breakdown triggering a fresh tsunami of bodies over the barrier. Security barely had time to catch one surfer before the next launched – at points it looked less like a metal show and more like a human waterfall in reverse.
The middle stretch was pure brutality. “Obsolete”, “Another You”, “Back to Me”, and the brand-new “Flowers” (making its UK live debut) kept the intensity white-hot, while “Troubled Water” – a deep cut that rarely surfaces – felt like a gift to the die-hards who knew every word. “O.G. Loko” detonated the kind of circle-pit pandemonium that makes you glad the Ballroom’s floor is concrete; anything less and it would have caved in.
Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for.
“Second & Sebring” – still the song that defines this band, still the one that reduces grown adults to tears in the pit – dropped like a bomb of collective grief and gratitude. The entire venue became one voice. Phones became lighters. Crowd-surfers slowed almost to a respectful float, arms spread wide as if the room itself was holding them up. Pauley let the crowd carry half the choruses, his eyes closed, clearly moved. Fifteen years after it was written as a tribute to a lost mother, it remains the most powerful four minutes in modern metalcore.
They closed the main set with “Bones Exposed”, a song that somehow still feels like it’s trying to tear its own skin off every time they play it, and the encore-free sprint to the finish line left everyone gasping.
No encore. No need. They’d already given everything.
In an era where so many legacy metalcore acts coast on nostalgia, Of Mice & Men are still swinging for the fences – mixing stone-cold classics with some of their most adventurous material yet, and delivering it with a live ferocity that borders on religious. The crowd-surfing never stopped (seriously, it was borderline performance art), the sing-alongs shook the foundations, and when the house lights came up you could practically see the catharsis steaming off people’s clothes.
9.5/10. One of those nights you’ll still be telling people about in ten years.
PHOTO GALLERY
Of Mice & Men
Gore and GHØSTKID
Andras Paul came from a traditional art background back in Hungary. He studied drawing, painting and animation and later began his interest in photography too.
Open to any kind of gig with decent music-- let it be a big concert or the smallest darkest pub on earth.
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