This was the fifth edition of this annual all-day musical festival in South London. In its first iterations, A Sunday In September was heralded as a progressive music event, but since last year its organiser, Chris Parkins of London Prog Gigs, has subtly changed that definition to ‘an all-day boutique festival of eclectic, progressive and alternative music’. That was reflected in the line-up of the 2025 show with three prog-centric groups that nevertheless had strong orientation towards classic, psychedelic and jazz rock respectively, one band with very tenuous prog links, and one with none. To use an astronomical comparison, if the sun represents hard-core prog then the bands at A Sunday In September 2025 could be considered Venus, Earth, Mars, Pluto, and an unidentified planet somewhere in the Alpha Centauri system! This willingness to take on board acts from prog-adjacent or prog-distant territories is one of the strengths of this festival. In addition, there have been five acts each year, but I believe only one of them (Emerald Dawn) has played the festival twice. One only has to look at the tired-looking repetitive lineups at the major prog festivals to appreciate the freshness that A Sunday In September brings.
Musical proceedings were scheduled to start at 2pm but most fans were there much earlier to get seats at the prized tables close to the stage. Nevertheless, The Bedford is one of the most comfortable small venues in London with seats for almost everyone and high ceilings that give it a rare sense of spaciousness. First on stage were the husband-and-wife duo of Richard and Farrah West, operating under the very prog-sounding name of League Of Lights. Richard was probably the most widely known artist of the whole day thanks to his long-standing position as keyboard player in English prog metal giants Threshold. He was dressed unassumingly in black, while Farrah also chose black but in a more flamboyant feather-laced dress which made her look like the lead singer of a gothic or symphonic metal band to me. Mid-set they played a song called Fox which was pretty much in a symphonic metal style with a quite heavy guitar riff and contrasting light and shade passages, so well-suited to her dress, but much of the set could be categorised as melodic synth pop, with West’s keys the dominant sound (well, the only live sound apart from his wife’s voice, with other instruments and backing vocals pre-recorded). On a couple of occasions, they slowed the pace down with ballads – the moving I Still Remember, and a new song called Line In The Sand, if I heard correctly.
Another positive aspect of A Sunday In September is that there is no unseemly attempt to squeeze the time of the acts on the early slots. League Of Lights had time to get through eleven songs in their fifty-minute set, giving them the space to demonstrate that they were much more than just radio-friendly synth-pop. League Of Lights also used video backdrops, sometimes like Youtube visualisers with the lyrics in real-time, and sometimes giving more context to a song– for example, the backdrop of the Pac-Man game helped identify that Ghosts was a tribute to that game and not a song about scary movies or the like.
Second act up were PerKelt who rather aptly describe themselves as ‘Pagan speed folk inspired by medieval and Celtic music heritage’. The word Celtic gets most in the UK thinking about Scottish or Irish people, but historically the Celts emerged from central Europe so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that at the heart of the band were two Czechs: Stephan Honc (acoustic guitar and vocals) and Paya Lehane (recorder and vocals). The Scottish fiddle player Duncan Menzies and British drummer Kaya La Bonte-Hurst completed the line-up.
Some in the audience might have expected pleasant melodies in the style of The Chieftains. If so, they would have been shocked by the assault on their senses. I only recall one song where Honc picked delicately on his acoustic guitar; for the rest he was frantically strumming chords at breakneck speed to provide momentum to each song. Meanwhile, the focus of attention was mostly on the extraordinary virtuoso playing on the fiddle and the recorder. You may be wondering why I used ‘virtuoso’ and ‘recorder’ in the same sentence; after all, most of us would associate the recorder with clumsy attempts to play Frère Jacques at junior school. But Lehane plays the instrument so fast and furiously that it’d probably make Ian Anderson blanche. It was a revelation of what can be done with the instrument. When she wasn’t going at it nineteen to a dozen then Menzies usually was (often playing his fiddle while posing on one leg!). At times, the two of them interleaved or overlapped, almost egging each other on. The songs varied, with some having the occasional feel of a jig, some using strong rhythmic drumming to create a more pagan feel to them, and others sounding more traditional, but the common theme was the overwhelming energy and excitement that Perkelt generated. Did they sound like the Chieftains? No, in comparison, Perkelt made The Pogues sound like The Chieftains! A spontaneous standing ovation greeting the conclusion of their set, and rightly so. Apparently, this was the first time an act in the afternoon set has generated such enthusiasm.
The third and final act of the afternoon session was Seven Impale, a much-lauded group from Bergen that were playing their first ever UK date. If there’d been a prize for the most soberly dressed set of musicians at A Sunday In September 2025 than it would have easily gone to Seven Impale. But the modestly dressed sextet are also the proudly self-declared Norwegian ‘lords of jazz prog madness’ and their music was anything but modest or mild. Just picking apart that phrase, yes, prog was at the core of their music with lengthy compositions and frequent changes in rhythm and style. Jazz was also there, most visibly in the form of saxophonist Benjamin Mekki Widerøe, even if their music was less jazz infused than I had anticipated. The secret ingredient was hinted at by the band’s musical influences which were worn on their sleeve. Well, actually, they were worn on two of their T-shirts: Tool and Enslaved. It’s these metal influences that adds originality to Seven Impale’s sound which at times was surprisingly aggressive (the passage of death metal riffing and screaming in the closing Sisyphus comes to mind) and did indeed seem on the verge of going completely off the rails at times. Jazz prog madness, precisely.
Stian Økland’s vocals gave another original touch with his low bluesy tones sometimes slipping into an operatic baritone. Økland’s guitar work was also notable. There were no showy metal licks, and his solos were more of the restrained jazz-style variety, but the speed of his finger movements was at times astonishing. All six of them were clearly outstanding musicians and they were a joy to watch. Seven Impale played songs from all three albums that they have released. The five tracks they played had some great moments, and I was most impressed by God Left Us for a Black-dressed Woman from 2014’s City Of The Sun.
Despite the set being thoroughly enjoyable, the apocryphal comment from Emperor Joseph II to Mozart on hearing his opera came to my mind: “there are simply too many notes, that’s all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.” Mozart apparently retorted asking which notes to cut, and Seven Impale could rightly do the same to any such criticism. Theirs is music without obvious hook lines or structure, and hence not an easy listen first time around. But I suspect a few repeat plays on your favourite streaming service would help absorb the complexities of their music, and that’s something that I, and I suspect others that were in the audience, intend to do.
The evening session began with Zopp, a British duo consisting of multi-instrumentalist Ryan Stevenson and drummer Andrea Moneta, who were joined on stage tonight by a guitarist, bass player and saxophonist. That saxophonist continued the interesting costume parade, wearing a beret and sunglasses, and looking distinctly French as a result. Zopp played just five songs, including the two lengthy epics – You and Toxicity – from their most recent album Dominion as well as an even longer new and as yet unnamed song. It may have been the effect of hearing Seven Impale previously, but Zopp’s music seemed relatively straight forward despite its length.
What was disappointing in Zopp’s set was the fact that the psychedelic and Canterbury overtones which are present in their studio material didn’t really come across live. It may have been caused my position in the room – both Stevenson’s vocals and keyboards sounded low in the mix to me, with his organ work sounding especially muted. This did allow me to appreciate other elements of the sound including the fantastic bass work that underpins the groovier moments of his set. Overall, though, Zopp seemed the least original of the five bands, and in my mind the quality of the material didn’t justify the length of the songs (just five of them in a near hour-long set). They were well received though so I admit mine might be the minority view.
Finally, we arrived at the much-anticipated headliners, Franck Carducci & The Fantastic Squad, who are probably as famous for their theatrical live stage show as much as they are for their music. Their opening was dramatic – and that was before they played a note! Taped snippets of classic rock hits helped build expectations and they marched onto the stage in flashy glam costumes to the accompaniment of smoke bombs. Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz said: ‘I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore’, and I felt very much as if we weren’t in Balham anymore, and the stage had been magically transported to Los Angeles.
Carducci is a natural showman and within the first song, the infectious rocker Slave to Rock ‘n’ Roll, he’d made the connection with the audience and got them clapping along. In many ways, Carducci’s music is straight forward ‘70s classic blues rock, but the set was cleverly peppered with more ambitious prog-oriented pieces. Of these, Alice’s Eerie Dream is one that attendees are unlikely to forget as the band theatrically recounted their own version of Alice In Wonderland (in which, Alice appears to have become a prostitute). Musically though, I thought the standout prog track was The Betrayal Of Blue with its gorgeous opening melody and its striking use of the theremin. That theremin playing was courtesy of Carducci’s secret weapon, Mary Reynaud, who as well as being a consummate theremin player, guitarist and singer, also added the more theatrical elements, dressed as Alice in Alice’s Eerie Dream and in sharp contrast as an angelic being in the bluesy ballad Angel. Reynaud’s performance in Angel is perhaps the highlight of the set, as her inspired vocals were combined with a mesmerising costume with illuminated Angel wings.
Carducci ended the set on the rousing Love Or Survive before their usual encore of Road To Nowhere sung a cappella. Thus concluded ninety minutes of pure entertainment that was a fitting finale to the 5th A Sunday In September. The punters certainly looked like a happy and entertained bunch as they headed off towards the tube. They were probably already looking forward to A Sunday In September 2026.
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