Iconic indie band shouldn’t have bothered with new shows because fans don’t want to go-Danni Scott-Entertainment – Metro

Catfish and the Bottlemen are back but fans aren’t convinced (Picture: Marc Grimwade/WireImage)

It’s been a decade since Catfish and the Bottlemen burst onto the indie music scene with their iconic debut album The Balcony.

Yet despite early success, it seems the Welsh band’s latest announcement has not gone over well with fans.

Catfish and the Bottlemen — consisting of Van McCann and Benji Blakeway — have revealed two stadium gigs in August 2025, one in Cardiff and one in London.

Their performances at numerous festivals in 2015, including Reading and Glastonbury, were highly acclaimed and set the group up to be the next big thing.

But fans have declared the new concerts will be ’embarrassingly undersold’ as the group no longer has the following to fill between 60,000 and 75,000 seats.

‘Stadium headline shows – August 2025,’ announced the Kathleen singers on X, revealing the two show dates and confirming ‘pre-sale starts 10am Wednesday’.

The group shot to fame with their debut album The Balcony in 2014(Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Their latest tracks have failed to impress (Picture: RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

The Cardiff Principality show will be on August 1 before the London gig at Tottenham’s Hotspur Stadium two days later on August 3, 2025.

‘Are they… big enough to do this?’ wrote Mia as Kieran declared: ‘This is going to be embarrassingly undersold.’

Sebastian added: ‘Who told them they could pull this off? A 10 cities tour would have sold out in hours.’

‘Wish I was as confident as these lot thinking they can even get close to selling out a 60k+ capacity stadium,’ joked Louis.

‘I’m not sure they were big enough to do these gigs before they had their break, they’re definitely not now…’ wrote Dan Thompson.

Irnbrutes asked: ‘What’s the rationale behind this new trend of – at best – arena bands trying to fill stadiums?’

Stadium tours have been a huge pull recently as artists like Harry Styles, Beyonce, and of course, Taylor Swift sell out massive venues around the world.

Adele even had a stadium purpose-built in Munich, Germany, for her highly-anticipated return to Europe.

Not every artist is capable of selling out over 60,000 seats for a gig though and it seems Catfish may have overestimated their appeal, according to fans.

The group’s debut album propelled them into the dizzying heights of chart success, right at the 2010’s peak indie-alt guitar band phase.

Singles like Homesick and Pacifier became instant classics and hinted at huge things to come for the Llandudno-born singers.

Follow-up album The Ride, released in 2016, landed straight at number one with tracks like Soundcheck, Twice, and 7 leading the charge.

However, this is where the momentum of that debut began to fizzle out as their sophomore record was met with mixed reviews and complaints of sounding too similar to The Balcony.

Lead singer Van McCann formed teh band in 2007 (Picture: Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Half the group — Johnny Bond and Bob Hall — had left by 2022 (Picture: Mat Hayward/Getty Images)

The Balance was released to some success three years later, peaking at number two on the UK album chart but complaints of repetitive tracks resurfaced.

In 2021, a month after headlining Reading and Leeds Festival for the first time, drummer Bob Hall exited the group.

He was shortly followed by Johnny Bond, the guitarist, who left in June 2022 and stated: ‘I feel that both the professional and personal relationships had become entirely dysfunctional.’

Despite the group splitting in half, Catfish and the Bottlemen teased new music in February and released single Showtime — which peaked at number 49 in the UK.

In 2018 they played to huge crowds in Cardiff (Picture: Mike Lewis Photography/Redferns)

Fans are unsure these new gigs will sell out (Picture: Mike Lewis Photography/Redferns)

Although the band’s mass appeal appears to be dwindling, some fans were excited by the announcement and stated they would ‘be there’.

One huge concern was the possible stadium ticket prices, given the recent trend of expensive gig tickets sweeping the UK music industry.

The Cocoon hitmakers have not stated how much tickets will cost for the two gigs next year but recent arena tours — let alone stadiums — have been priced at £100 upwards.

Tickets for Catfish and the Bottlemen’s stadium gigs go on sale at 10am tomorrow (Wednesday, August 21).

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