5 must-see livestream sets to tune into this September

As live music tentatively returns, there's still a glut of livestream sets to occupy your ears. Here's our picks for this month.

Posted: 15 September 2020 Words: Tom Curtis-Horsfall Photos: Marcos Manrique

It'll likely be a while before we can smell the dense stench of another's armpit, or feel a sturdy elbow crash into your lumber during a sweaty front-row moshpit. They way we consume live music is very much different, albeit temporary, but at least our favourite artists still intend to beam their bangers into our brains.

Over the course of the past few months, livestreams have become paramount and for better or worse a real game-changer. The longer live music ceases to take place, the greater the quantity and quality of livestreams become.

Gigs are tentatively returning with social distancing fully in place, but if that's not your idea of a 'proper gig', then you can gather round your own telly from the comfort of your own home with your pals (as long as there's no more than six of them?) and immerse yourself into your favourite artists' work whilst you wait for them to return to the stage.

There's plenty of livestreams to tune into this September, so here's our top picks:

Fenne Lily - Rough Trade Transmission - 18th Sept, 18:00 BST

It's been a major year for the Bristolian singer-songwriter, having signed to Dead Oceans for upcoming album BREACH, and gaining a fanbase consisting of contemporary indie darlings like Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, the latter of which appears on Lily's new album. Not allowing a global pandemic to curtail her upward trajectory, Lily plays an album release day livestream for Rough Trade Records' social channels this Friday.

Tune in here.

Perfume Genius: Live From LA's Palace Theater - 19th Sept, 20:00 BST

Tissues at the ready. Backed by a six-piece orchestra, Mike Hadreas aka Perfume Genius will take to the stage of LA's Palace Theater performing tracks from critically lauded album Set My Heart On Fire Immediately in a live setting for the very first time.

Buy tickets to the stream here.

Jessy Lanza: Back To School Virtual Fundraiser - 24th Sept, 12:30 BST

Honouring her beginnings as a teacher, electronic producer, vocalist, and all-round maestro Jessy Lanza is setting up a fundraising livestream for Homeless Children's Network, a non-profit mental health organisation. Only snag is, it's being streamed from San Francisco so will be an earlier experience for those the other side of the Atlantic.

Buy tickets to the stream here.

An Evening With Courtney Marie Andrews - 24th Sept, 21:00 BST

Another first-time outing for her new album due to cancelled tours, Courtney Marie Andrews will be a play a series of shows from Parthenon Nashville for global audiences, performing Old Flowers in its entirety. Intimate, mesmeric, and quite frankly, unmissable.

Buy tickets to the stream here.

Levitation Sessions: Osees - 26th Sept, 19:00 CDT

This one is a real doozy - despite never really knowing what their specific name has been altered to (Osees, Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees), the inimitable but regularly imitated psych-rock cult heroes, led by the effervescent John Dywer, will no doubt whet appetites for anybody with a penchant for fuzz. Tantalising the prospect of new, never heard before tracks alongside a host of favourites, if you fail to bear witness to the hefty outfit's protean jams, filmed from dusk till dawn with California's Pioneertown as a backdrop, you'll kick yourself for being a major buzzkill.

Buy tickets to the stream here.