Live Review + Gallery | Ezra Furman @ Electric, Bristol

Ezra Furman

Electric, Bristol

3rd February 2026

Photography by Ella Nicholls

George Ward

Freelance journalist and online editor for CLUNK. Can be found out and about in Bristol, finding cheap records or having a pint on King Street.

Ezra Furman delivers beautifully raw performance at Bristol’s Electric, touring 2025’s ‘Goodbye Small Head’ and older classics

At this point of her career, you should be fully aware of Ezra Furman as a true legend in the indie rock scene. From 2008’s ‘Inside The Human Body’ with her band The Harpoons, to 2018’s epic ‘Transangelic Exodus’ to providing the soundtrack for Netflix’s ‘Sex Education,’ Furman has been one of the most consistent, passionate and joyous voices of the last two decades.

Now, with new album ‘Goodbye Small Head’ out last year, Furman returned to Bristol for the penultimate night of her UK/EU tour. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ezra Furman performs with complete confidence. Completely in control of both her sound and the crowd, she looks as at home playing alone with an acoustic guitar as she does shredding a solo with her full band. Having caught her several times throughout the years, Furman has never looked happier or to be having so much fun as she is at this stage of her career.

Opener ‘Grand Mal’ eases us into Ezra’s new world, familiarising older fans with the more polished sound of the most recent album. Though these new tracks are less raw, they come to life effortlessly on stage, making even more sense blasted through the crowd than they do on record. There are melancholic moments, of course, but there is also an overwhelming sense of optimism too.

Throughout the set, you can’t help but be reminded just how many bangers Furman has under her belt. No matter how many times she’s played each track over the years, every one is paired with a performance so primal and passionate that you convince yourself this must be the first and only time it will ever be performed. On ‘Driving Down To LA,’ she clenches her fists as hard as her teeth, smashing them against her chest, clasping them to her heart, screaming the lines “I don’t mind if we cross the thin white lines, over a cliff down to the ground”.

This rawness is present throughout the set, but manifests itself differently each track: sometimes as anger, sometimes as tenderness. On ‘Come Close,’ she plays acoustically, singing softly as if speaking privately to each and every member of the audience individually, telling them the tale of characters from her past, including Troy, “To whom I gave a quick handjob through the driver’s side window of an SUV.” As always, there’s the perfect balance of humour, melancholy and nostalgia.

It was a gig full of highlights, from an impromptu cover of Hurray For The Riff Raff’s ‘Hawkmoon’ to Furman putting every last drop of aggression into ripping guitar on ‘Body Was Made,’ a “song so gay and trans that you will all also become gay and trans”. However, it was the oldest track, ‘Take Off Your Sunglasses,’ that will stick with me the longest.

The track, from the 2008 album ‘Inside The Human Body,’ has been a long time fan favourite, with its harmonica solos and Jonathan Richman-esque ramblings. But, just a day before, Furman put out an Instagram post, celebrating her milestone of four years on hormone replacement theory, proudly stating that “being trans is one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me.”

Hearing these old lyrics in this new context really made me smile and, whether or not Furman’s choice to begin playing this track again is in any way related to her joy of transitioning, there was such a sense of joy for her throughout the crowd. With an inevitable encore of ‘I Love You So Bad,’ ‘Suck The Blood From My Wound’ and ‘Tell ’em All To Go To Hell,’ she was out, leaving us with the most euphoric gig we’ve seen in a long time.