Concert Reviews

The Church - The Singles Tour Photos and Review

by Brooks Robinson

Updated June 12, 2026

The Church – Fonda Theatre – June 10, 2026

The Church are celebrating their long history, and are out on the road with their “The Singles Tour 2026 – 45 Years of Timeless Singles Live”. Los Angeles was the fifth stop in their twenty-eight-city tour of the US, and they hit the ground running to showcase the best of what the LA Times called “dense, shimmering, exquisite guitar pop”. The LA Times were right, and the night proved to be magical.

The Church

I arrived at the 100-year-old Fonda Theatre in the heart of Hollywood thirty minutes after the doors opened and was surprised to find almost nobody there. It is considered the norm in Los Angeles to arrive for events fashionably late, but there were only 100 people in the 1200 capacity theater – the best shows always happen when the room is full, and I hoped it would fill up as it got closer to showtime.

I asked security what time the opening band would go on and was told there wasn’t an opener - The Church would be doing all of the heavy lifting, and carrying the night by themselves. While waiting for the show to start, I kept looking back at the crowd from the pit in hopes that the room would fill in, but eventually got consumed with lenses and camera settings. By the time the show started and my three songs in the photo pit were up, it was almost impossible to pass through the crowd, who had materialized out of thin air. The venue was filled to capacity with passionate fans of all ages, and the band’s enduring music blasted cleanly through the PA system.

This night was awesome on many levels, but different than your average rock or metal show. Because it was a career-spanning retrospective, they played songs from 14 albums going as far back as 1980, including 3 tracks from 1988’s seminal Starfish record. What made the night unique was that in addition to the 23 songs on the setlist, vocalist Steve Kilbey offered commentary in between. In much the same way The Kinks’ Ray Davies did during his 1995 solo tour supporting his autobiography “X-Ray” (which later became the blueprint for VH-1’s “Storytellers” series), songs were introduced along with stories on how they were written, and what the band was going through at the time. Steve is an excellent storyteller, bringing not only tales from the studio and road, but also his great wit to the forefront. We heard stories about everything from what happens when you play a town on the fringe and the all they want to hear is your single…and you spite them by not playing it, to UFO encounters deep in the woods, to performing early on and trying to live up to impossible expectations based on glowing newspaper reviews – all presented by someone as gifted at orating as he is at songwriting.

The show was divided into two sets with a short 15-minute intermission in between. Song after luscious song flowed easily from the stage. The Church write timeless music, and hearing it in an intimate live setting was a gift, especially after the postponement of their 2025 tour due to illness. The show concluded after almost 2.5 hours, and every song you would hope or expect to hear was covered. The Church’s fans are diehard, if a little late arriving, and hearing decades of beautifully crafted songs made for a perfect evening.

The Church is:

Steve Kilbey – Vocals/Bass
Nicholas Meredith – Drums
Ian Haug – Guitar
Ashley Naylor – Guitar
Matt Wicks – Guitar/
Timothy Powles - Keyboards/Percussion

Setlist:

Set 1:

1) Columbus

2) Electric Lash

3) Tear It All Away

4) The Hypnogogue

5) The Unguarded Moment

6) Block

7) Metropolis

8) It's No Reason

9) Realm of Minor Angels

10) Reptile

Set 2:

11) Almost With You

12) When You Were Mine

13) Ripple

14) Western

15) Destination

16) Constant in Opal

17) Another Century

18) Already Yesterday

19) Numbers

20) Under the Milky Way

21) Tantalized

Encore:

22) Sacred Echoes (Part Two)

23) An Interlude

Brooks Robinson Photographer & Writer

Brooks Robinson is an LA-based concert photographer, and 30+ year freelance camera operator for film, television, and music videos. He has photographed some of the largest film/TV projects in history, and hundreds of music videos in MTV's heyday.

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