Pop Break Live: Bar Italia with Lifeguard and Horsegirl at The Brooklyn Paramount in Brooklyn, NY on Saturday November 22, 2025.
During Bar Italia’s 6th NYC performance in two years, the group brought cuts from their new LP, Some Like It Hot, to a manic set at The Brooklyn Paramount.
Bar Italia has been touring nonstop this fall, and the Brooklyn stop has been the show circled on the calendar. In the past, the band played venues with a capacity of roughly 1,000 people or fewer, but headlining The Paramount marks their transition to big rooms in New York.
Accompanied by Lifeguard and Horsegirl, the night had a “Celebration of the Matador Records newcomers” sort of feel. Lifeguard, a DIY punk outfit from Chicago, started the night. Their riffs are as fresh as lead singer Kai Slater’s vintage wardrobe. Packed into a thirty-minute set, the spunky boys made the most by playing loud and fast.
Horsegirl shifted the tempo with alleviation. Their soothing, melancholic noise buzzed into the crowd. Their most recent album, Phonetics On and On, is one of 2025’s best. They interspersed the bulk of the album into their set, gradually swaying the rock crowd into their grasp.
Without much intermission, Bar Italia arrived on stage. The aura of frontwoman Nina Cristante was immediately palpable. Her white, pirate-like dress caught the blast of the fan positioned under her mic, creating a Marilyn Monroe aesthetic. While Cristante floated along the wind, Sam Fenton (guitar, vocals) and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi (guitar, vocals) paralleled her.
Giving any member of the group the “front person” status is misleading; however, Cristante’s magical drifts can be too alluring to let go of. Her power is sensed through her voice, which draws on a young Lætitia Sadier.
At times, Fenton and Tarik Fehmi are equally as enthralling. The ladder often loses himself in a “guitar cyclone,” which leaves him looping at every end of the stage. Fenton tends to remain subdued behind his mic; however, his vocals are more frenetic than anyone else’s.
A Bar Italia song feels incomplete unless all three members take their turn singing a verse. Every time a different member takes the lead, the others step back, allowing the momentary frontperson to shine. The strength of three voices taking singular turns is felt on “fundraiser,” the opening track off Some Like It Hot.
The new record dominated most of the set, pleasing the fans sporting shirts with the “Bar Italia Wink.” When the trio wasn’t doing the new album, they surprised fans with their back catalog, including songs from Tracy Denim and The Twits.
With every song performed, it felt like the crowd inched toward the moshing stage of the show. After the first note of “omni shambles,” the pit shifted from pogo jumping to an all-out mess of sprawling moves. From then, the band played a series of upbeat jams until the encore.
For the encore, Bar Italia played four songs as a special gift to the Brooklyn crowd. The energy started during Lifeguard’s set and fueled into the final song of the night, “skylinny.” The group left the stage to Blur’s “Song 2,” a fitting close for one of London’s brashest bands.
Bar Italia brings the liveliness of a hip-hop trio into a rock n’ roll setting, making for a dazzling set. In Brooklyn, they revealed how the British Invasion is never really over; it just goes through new phases.
