On the emotionally charged One Last Time tour, Kris Barras and his band delivered crushing grooves as well as hearts in a career-spanning set that made their impending hiatus feel all the more poignant.
Kris Barras Band
The Garage, London – 13 October 2026
Words: Liz Medhurst
Photography: Luke Vaughan
Support came from 10 Years, a five-piece from Knoxville, Tennessee, with an established catalogue and a strong reputation in the United States.
The band do not often make it to the UK but arrived at the end of a European run supporting Black Stone Cherry and closed out their time on this side of the Atlantic with these dates. They were an inspired choice. Imagine the brooding weight of Deftones colliding with the industrial edge of Nine Inch Nails, delivered through a flawless post-Metal groove.
Highlights of the excellent hour-long set included Waking Up, Gravity, Wasteland and Fix You, the latter ending in a perfectly executed scream. A cover of Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box brought an extra dose of drama.
Billed as the One Last Time tour, the run follows Kris Barras’s announcement that he is stepping away from music for the foreseeable future to build a more stable financial life.
The news sent shockwaves through the industry for two reasons. First, Barras has achieved more than respectable success with high-charting albums, main-stage appearances at festivals including Download, Steelhouse, Stonedead and Ramblin’ Man Fair, and growing recognition overseas, including an appearance on Germany’s Rockpalast.
If an artist at that level cannot make the sums work, who can? It is a sobering indictment of today’s music industry.
Second, he is simply very, very good. Over the past decade, Barras has released a consistent run of excellent albums, beginning in blues rock before steadily developing a heavier edge.
Combined with electrifying live shows, that evolution has earned the band a growing following and enormous respect. There was genuine anguish at how much they will be missed, but the crowd at The Garage were determined to savour every second.
The new album, Monsters We Made, was released earlier in the summer and reached Number One in the UK Rock and Metal Charts. Its title track joined Beautiful Lie and Unspoken in a career-spanning set that balanced the band’s latest material with the songs that built their reputation.
For this tour, guitarist and right-hand man Josiah J Manning was unavailable for the happiest of reasons as he and his wife had welcomed their first child only a couple of weeks earlier, which left enormous shoes to fill.
Step forward Danny Dela Cruz, formerly of Inglorious and also a member of Thrxnes. He proved an ideal choice, blending brilliantly with Barras’s style as the pair delivered sharp, crunchy rhythms and soulful phrasing. A featured solo spot gave Dela Cruz room for an elegant, spine-tingling solo, played with a tone to die for.
The engine room of Billy Hammett and Frazer Kerslake must rank among the best in the business. Their power came through in crushing grooves, yet the playing retained a melodic sensitivity that anchored each wave of tension and release. The sound was massive, a full-body battering, perhaps, but an exquisite one.
Baras remains the consummate frontman, commanding, warm and funny. Emotion was never far from the surface tonight, though. Watching Over Me, dedicated to Barras’s late father, is always deeply moving, but standing at the threshold of a new phase in his life, every song and every cheer seemed to underline that this chapter really is nearing its end.
Barras is going out on his own terms, something he has done consistently throughout his career, and for that he deserves immense respect.
“We’re not here to be forgiven,” he sings on Devil You Know, one of several songs that drew the crowd in, and he has a point. His lyrics have always felt honest and his delivery believable. When he sings, “I’ll take you down in a riot of one,” on Riot Of One, it is not empty bravado. With his background as an MMA fighter, only a complete fool would volunteer to test the claim.
The encore could only be Hail Mary. Band and audience sang it with gusto, and then, this time, that really was it. What a show, and what a way to go out on a high.
It may be One Last Time for touring, but there remains a sincere hope that opportunities will arise to see Kris Barras Band in all their glory on stage again from time to time.
Until then, thank you for the past decade, Kris. You have been an almighty force for good, built an immense catalogue and made a great many people very happy.
