Massive Wagons @ Backstage By The Mill, Paris - December 5th, 2025

I had heard the name Massive Wagons before, but until a couple of years ago I must admit I had never heard a single note from the English rock band. For some reason I even assumed they were a pop rock group in the vein of McFly. Nothing could be further from the truth, even if they do lean heavily on big pop hooks and chorus driven songwriting, which is simply a sign of craft. It took a drunken English spectator at a concert to finally make me pay attention. For twenty minutes, the inebriated Brit I had never met insisted, completely unprompted, that I listen to Massive Wagons. I promised I would as soon as I got home. Of course, I did not. Then one day, a track popped up on a random playlist. I checked the name and, sure enough, it was Massive Wagons. I listened to the full album immediately and I was hooked. It turns out the boozy limey was right about one more thing: live, these guys deliver big time. A positive, cathartic, inclusive and genuinely transformative rock and roll experience.

Musically, they are unmistakably rooted in hard rock, with nods to English heavyweights like Thunder, Quireboys and The Wildhearts, a solid metal bite with echoes of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, hooligan pop choruses that would not feel out of place on an Oasis record and a layer of Buzzcocks-style punk grit as binding agent.

After an intro tape of Cheap Trick's "Hello There" (the At Budokan version, of course) the band came on stage and didn't let up for the following ninety minutes. The setlist was built largely around Earth To Grace, their latest album, and those newer songs were chanted by the crowd almost as loudly as staples like "House of Noise," "Fuck the Haters" or "Back to the Stack."

There is an unmistakable working class quality to Massive Wagons. It runs through what they write, how they write it, how they play it and how they put it across on stage. This is not demagoguery: they are deeply invested in giving people a good time. There is anger in their music, frustration too, as there should be in any band with their punk rock baggage. But there is no cynicism, no posturing, no pretense. It is genuine, it is fun, and it is loud. Feel good music. Live music. Music that reminds you why this whole rock n' roll thing still matters.

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