Dork has been escalating their efforts to do away with boring in 2025. The all-summer-long celebration of the magazine’s 100th issue reached its zenith last Wednesday, featuring Divorce, Westside Cowboy and Vegas Water Taxi all under the same roof – the roof of the 100 Club, no less. In the small but effervescent UK alt-country scene, Divorce and Westside Cowboy have emerged as the buzziest in the game. Despite Divorce only being a nascent indie success story, the evening nonetheless felt like an elder band passing on the torch. The Americana torch is now firmly in the hands of four young Mancunians called Westside Cowboy.
First to take the stage was the solo incarnation of Vegas Water Taxi, whose work lies somewhere between punk-blues and art-rock, with a folky comedic angle. Real name Ben Hambro, the singer adopts an age-defying look reminiscent of Tom Scott, his silver hair juxtaposed against his boyish face and Ozempic stature. Vegas Water Taxi are the perfect antidote to the self-seriously self-conscious generation of elder Gen Zs, with satirical lyricism mocking the natty wine and small plates. Song titles range from ‘Creative Director Blues’ to ‘Birkenstocks’. It brought me great pleasure to watch bespectacled Carhartt-wearers of a certain age point at one another during ‘Six Music Dads’. With his uneasy yet assured hybrid of Lou Reed and Bo Burnham, Vegas Water Taxi ought to be called Vegas Speed Boat the way they are soon to rocket up to the top of bills across London.
In 2025, it is rare for a debut single from an indie band to cement a career. It usually takes years of clout-chasing and chart-climbing to get a modicum of attention. Westside Cowboy bucked the trend with their debut single, ‘I Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love’, earlier this year, which had an immediate cultural impact. As of July 2025, the song has 19 upvotes on r/indieheads. Going on to support English Teacher and soon to support Black Country, New Road, the band truly do justice to the potent power poppery of their sound, achieving a wall-of-sound with just a few power chords. Helped by the frantic precision of their hyper-talented drummer, the band serves the classic songwriting of Big Star with an alt-country entrée. Their short set radiated pure potential, with a suite of pop songs that dangled their feet in the mainstream at the bottom of the valley, while clinging onto the post-Brexit edge above. They closed their set in a way I have never encountered before: all the members gathered round a single microphone, with one guitar and hand percussion, and entered a skiffle-adjacent shanty singalong. If they can incorporate this strange and loveable performance into future recordings, they are on to something major.
Divorce’s debut album, Drive To Goldenhammer, was an album about journeys and unfolding paths. For Divorce, that path has led to unequivocal success. None of the magic of that record was lost on stage, as the band delivered a set list full of warmth and humour. Highlights of the set included ‘Pill’ and ‘All My Freaks’, two art pop gems which were effectively translated into folk rock diamonds for the live setting. The standout performance, however, was ‘Where Do You Go’, a sultry and smoky Beatles-esque slice of soul, with a beautifully restrained performance by lead vocalist Tiger Cohen-Towell. When I spoke to the band before the show, I asked about whether there were any party tricks they like to bring out on stage: “you mean aside from the backflips and human pyramids?”. I didn’t anticipate the extent to which it would be the reverse. The band have an understated approach to showmanship, with zero theatricality, preferring to play the hits and waste no time on gimmicks. Nonetheless, their conversational, relaxed on-stage personas created the vibe of a desert campfire singalong, with enough country-adjacent panache to prove.
In 1976, another gig happened at the 100 Club. This particular gig featured The Clash and Sex Pistols back-to-back on the bill, before they sprung from the underground and blossomed above the surface. With the runaway success in Westside Cowboy and Divorce in 2025, breaking through the ceiling for UK country-inspired acts for the first time, I must wonder whether this event could be a Western-infused equivalent to that moment in the same room 50 years ago. Dork knocked it out of the park with this one.
