Kiefer Sutherland and his band played a night of great music at London’s Union Chapel, mixing newer material with songs that have already had time to settle in. He opened with Down Below, then moved through an unexpected and energetic cover of Garbage’s Only Happy When It Rains before turning to Goodbye California, the second single from his new record.
The show also made room for Something You Love, an older song, and Come Back Down from the new album, Grey, which is set to arrive at the end of this month. Sutherland wore a dark suit, cowboy hat and white boots, and he looked every bit the part of a performer who knows how to own a room without leaning on the name above the marquee.
That matters because Sutherland is not selling nostalgia, even if much of the audience may have arrived through his acting in 24 or Designated Survivor. He has three very good records under his belt already, and this fourth album is being launched on the Love Will Bring You Home tour with enough confidence to suggest the music now stands on its own. The set at Union Chapel made that case plainly: country, Americana, rock and, at times, a little blues, all folded into a live show that never felt like a novelty act.
He has been doing this long enough to know the difference between a side project and a second career. Several years ago, the writer discovered his music by chance, and before COVID closed everything, saw him live for the first time. The impression has held up. Sutherland is a very good live performer, one who brings warmth and bite in equal measure and makes the songs feel lived in rather than assembled for a crowd.
He also spoke in a way that matched the music’s plain-spoken honesty. Sutherland said life is too short not to do something you love, and he described songs as being like one’s children: you should not have favourites, but you inevitably do. That instinct showed in the set list, which gave equal weight to the new material and the older songs that have helped define his catalogue. Grey may be the latest step, but the night at Union Chapel suggested the larger story is already clear. Kiefer Sutherland’s music is no longer an offshoot of his fame; it is a body of work with its own pulse, and the next record should only strengthen it.
