Review: Cats In Space, Support Empyre

The Drill, Lincoln (October 12^th, 2025)

Reviewer / Photographer – Dan Mann

It was almost a case of deja vu having only photographed both bands a few weeks ago at NWOCR Livefest 4, and Cats In Space last month at Nene Valley Rock Festival. As the night’s gig was at The Drill, an excellent venue, and reasonably local, it was a ‘no brainer’ to cover it.

Before I go onto the the two band’s performances, I must once again give a well deserved shout out to The Drill, with their very helpful staff, great sound and even though the lighting has been great the last few times of visiting, the venue have in the last few weeks installed an impressive new lighting system.

And so to the night’s support band, Empyre. I think they’re very much like Cats In Space in that they cannot truly be pigeonholed genre wise. Now that certainly isn’t a bad thing. However the rock crowd can at times be a fickle lot and the ‘wrong’ description can put off said fans, to the detriment of the band, and to the loss of the fans!

I’ve heard Empyre called dark progressive rock, whilst this may be true to some degree, their music isn’t something that forboding, it’s not the sort of music you’d need to listen to Lenard Cohen so as to ‘cheer up’ afterwards! From my point of view, they can indeed be a tad intense during the song’s performances, but you’ve only got to hear the chat between songs to realise that whilst they’re very much serious musically, they don’t take themselves seriously one bit.

The smallish audience didn’t put off the band in their deliverence of a polished set, one that I can honestly say I really enjoyed. For me Empyre are a band better to experience live rather than recorded, not that their recordings are by any way shabby I must add. 

click on photos to enlarge

Setlist:

1. We Didn’t Like You First
2. Waking Light
3. Relentless
4. Homegrown
5. Hit and Run
6. Only Way Out
7. Titanium
8. New Republic

And so to the headliners. Cats In Space are a band I’ve seen & photographed a few times over the last ten years (it’s ten years?). The first time was their album launch at a crowded Half Moon in Putney. Having known Greg & Andy from their previous band Moritz, and knowing what at the time seemed a bit of a gamble when Greg and drummer Steevi Bacon decided on starting Cats In Space, the gamble has very much paid off. What the band have is an incredibly strong and loyal following, not always an easy thing to get these days, as well as an impressive catalogue of albums.

The guys always deliver the goods. They show what is possible, what a SHOW is all about. It’s not just turning up and plugging in. The whole package of songs, the incredible visuals by James Heron, and the sound quality makes a Cats show a proper evening’s entertainment.

With a sixteen song setlist, there was no chance of being short changed, the only disappointment was the smallish crowd, something which does not accurately represent Cat fans, although the magority were not casual bystanders, it was pretty obvious that these were proper fans of the band.

If you do get a chance to get along to any of the remaining shows on this 10th Anniversary Tour, then do it, and experience a great show, performed by incredibly experienced musicians.

Setlist:

1. Too Many Gods
2. Immortal
3. My Father’s Eyes
4. Narnia
5. Kickstart the Sun
6. Queen of the Neverland
7. Crashing Down
8. This Velvet Rush
9. Jupiter Calling
10. Bootleg Bandoleros
11. Revolution
12. Occam’s Razor (Not the End of the World)
13. Hologram Man
14. Greatest Story Never Told

Encore:

1. Thunder in the Night
2. I Fell Out of Love With Rock ‘n’ Roll

©All photographs are copyright of Dan Mann – RPR Photography. They may not be altered or used without express permission.