Sunday (1994) live at EartH Hackney

Words by Emily Whitchurch

Photography by Tallulah Totten 

According to their Spotify profile, Sunday (1994) are making music ‘for the newly weds and the nearly deads’. It is this blend of romanticism and cynicism that makes the pair so intriguing, and for a band that released their debut single last year, they have garnered quite the crowd. Earlier this month their UK tour came to a rapturous close in the theatre of EartH Hackney, one of London’s finest intimate venues. Its tiered seats were packed with a varied audience, from the curious to the devout, to receive a thorough baptism into the carefully crafted world of Sunday (1994). 

Having written music together for a decade before releasing their own, the duo have certainly mastered the delicate art of dream pop with a sound, and performance, that feels both ethereal and grounded. Their Anglo-American roots - lead vocalist Paige Turner is from Los Angeles, while guitarist Lee Newell hails from Slough - may have something to do with this, resulting in a show packed with charm and cheekiness in equal measure. 

Experiencing Sunday (1994) live means experiencing a heavier, rockier iteration of their discography. Shimmering guitars and thumping percussion gave more melancholic numbers like ‘The Loneliness Of The Long Flight Home’ a gritty edge without losing the tenderness imbued across their music: ‘I took some pictures / Of me and you and I superglued / Them over scriptures / So, I can worship something true,’ Turner sang on ‘Stained Glass Window’ with crystal-clear cadence and endearing sincerity. 

Decked out in white lace, Turner proved to be a brilliantly charismatic frontwoman, encouraging the audience to join her in songs of heartbreak, adoration and faith. Despite amping up the percussion and guitars, the storytelling at the core of each track still shone through, from the unconditional devotion on ‘Rain’ - ‘I’ll love you from the slammer to Heaven’ - to ‘Silver Ford’’s tale of a loved-up American roadtrip. It was fitting, then, that the band walked onstage to the theme song from David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’ - Turner and Newell clearly have a strong cinematic vision for the project, and one which was executed with complete conviction from start to finish. 

For ‘Picking Flowers’, a bittersweet breakup number, Turner performed with a placard bearing the lyric ‘nothing stays the same’ in hand: a testament to finite relationships, but also to Sunday (1994)’s rapid rise thus far. There’s no doubt that the pair will draw an even larger crowd upon their next visit to London, with whispers of new music on the horizon for 2026 sure to expand their loyal congregation.

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