Words & Photos: Magda Campagne
★★★★★
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Some nights are just that extra special, and that Wednesday at Union Chapel certainly felt utterly magical. From the setting itself, complete with stained glass windows and squeaking floors, to the intimacy of the live performances - it was one of those nights I felt genuinely privileged to have witnessed. It was already remarkable that after a string of critically acclaimed albums and GRAMMY nominations, Perfume Genius decided to take their live performances back to their humble beginnings, and the ‘Duo’ tour consisted only of Mike Hadreas and Alan Wyffels, Hadreas’s longtime partner and collaborator. But witnessing the final night of this tour was spine-tingling.
Photo: Magda Campagne / Perfume Genius
Opening for Perfume Genius was Dan English, with a similarly intimate set-up. He performed on an acoustic guitar with an accompanying electric piano, and it was the perfect warm-up to Perfume Genius’s set, which English himself called ‘devastating’. With similar themes throughout and songs that are as poetic as they are ethereal. English performed predominantly from his 2025 sophomore album ‘Sky Record’. ‘Need’ became my instant favourite, with a partial reading from Anne Carson’s ‘Short Talk on Major and Minor’.
“Major things are,
Wind, evil, a good fighting horse, prepositions, inexhaustible love, the way people choose their king,
Minor things include dirt, mood and not having a mood, the correct time.”
Photo: Magda Campagne / Dan English
He was full of gratitude for the time he spent with Mike and Alan on this tour and shared a vulnerable anecdote on how a few weeks ago, while he was broke and just before getting a long-awaited record deal, he was killing time in a van and “Mike recommended me this card game, and it was 10 bucks, and I just couldn’t afford it, and Mike just sent it to me. Thank you for taking me on this tour.”
Soon after his 30-minute set, the last remaining pews of the chapel filled, and Hadreas and Wyffels took to their two electronic pianos; it felt as if the whole chapel took a breath and remained spellbound for the next hour. I was pleasantly surprised that the set took us through the full Perfume Genius catalogue, and within the first few songs we travelled back to 2017’s ‘No Shape’, 2020’s ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’ and 2025’s ‘Glory’. The minimalist arrangements shone a different light on the familiar songs, and the love and trust between Hadreas and Wyffels emanated from every note and every pause.
As the set progressed, I realised the theme was ‘time’. It opened gently and set the tone with ‘Whole Life’.
“Half of my whole life is gone,
Let it drift and wash away,
It was just a dream I had,
It was just a dream.”
Between songs, Hadreas reminisced about how they started performing together 15 years ago, and how they would play, just the two of them, at the front of the stage. “Remember that grey shirt I wore to every show for three years? It was like a blanket. The first time we performed in London was at Hoxton Hall in July 2010, so if you were there, that’s cool…” - to which a single, loud “WHOOP!” was shouted out right next to me. “This is the final show of this whole era, tour, record... it feels very special”, Hadreas added - and it was impossible not to see why.
The most beautiful moment came during ‘Dreeem’, for which Hadreas and Wyffels swapped pianos. Hadreas sat at Wyffels’s piano and, after observing him from a distance, Wyffels came over, embraced Hadreas tightly, and they played the piano together - it was such a privilege to see such an intimate moment between the musicians, and their shared story needed no additional words.
“My face melted away,
You were there.
You still knew my name,
And you still held me exactly the same way.
Nothing had really changed,
Except my face had melted away.”
Photo: Magda Campagne / Perfume Genius
‘All Along’ from 2014’s ‘Too Bright’ was the first finale, with the chorus “You wasted my time”, sealing the overarching theme. With no pretence, Hadreas returned quickly for the encore solo, just to be joined for “the real last song” by Wyffels - and they dueted on the piano again for ‘Learning’, and Perfume Genius left us with one last poignant lyric.
“But you will learn,
To mind me.
And you will learn,
To survive me.”