The Lottery Winners - O2 Academy - 28th April 2022

With the energy from The Lottery Winners’ frontman Thomas Rylance, the air turns static; there is an electricity in his presence that is as shocking as it is magnetic. He is as much a circus ringleader as he is a singer. The man was built to perform.

Armed with a trilogy of white guitars, the band are all instinct. Their rowdy, cheeky stage personas force comparisons to bands like Dead Pretties or SWMRS, but this is enriched by a commerciality that neither of these contemporaries can claim for themselves.

Besides the bands’ shared love for ballsy British music, it seems obvious why The Lottery Winners are the support act for Sleeper. In a conversation The Bristol Gig Guide had prior to the performance, Louise Wener – Sleeper’s frontperson - explained the importance of having “bands that have women in as the supports for us”, to pass the opportunities she was given back in the nineties onto others. The Lottery Winners’ Katie Lloyd (bass and vocals) is clearly a celebration of this ethos.

One super fan starts to call out requests, and the Winners are quick to oblige. Performing three in quick succession like they’re slamming down playing cards, the band become a ringing, rocking jukebox, drunk on their own energy.

The band’s song “Favourite Flavour” is the tour de force of the act. The guitars shimmer like a hot day as the performance hushes in summertime. The nights get lighter with each word. It is a riotous promise of good times to come; what more can you ask for from a support act?