The best UK music concerts in 2025

Kendrick Lamar and SZA's Grand National Tour: two 'high demand stars' take on the world

(Image credit: Getty/Jamie Squire/Staff)

last updated 30 May 2025

It was a "truly stonking year" for big-ticket music gigs in 2024, said Time Out, yet "somehow" summer 2025 is managinges to look "even bigger", with "all-conquering tours" by Oasis and Coldplay, as well as plenty of performances by newer heavy hitters like Billie Eilish and Sam Fender. Here are the stand-out shows coming to the UK this summer.

Beyoncé

"Beyoncé doesn’t just take the stage – she takes the narrative back," said Bryan Armen Graham in The Guardian. Her 2025 world tour of her most recent album "Cowboy Carter" is a "sweeping, theatrical spectacle" that reclaims country music and "reminds everyone who's still driving pop's evolution after all these years". The show "sizzles" with heavy-hitting numbers while "every movement" of choreography demonstrates Queen B's "unmatched" attention to detail. She may not be "circling the globe" as in earlier days, but British fans can still see her perform in London for five nights in June.

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Just one year ago, Kendrick Lamar sent his rival Drake's reputation up in "flames", and the rap world is still feeling the heat from the "embers", said Andre Gee in Rolling Stone. His tour partner, SZA, has also not been idle. Her buddy comedy film "One of Them Days" was released at the start of the year to a warm reception. The pair's "Grand National" world tour has SZA in "full starlet mode", with visuals of "serene landscapes" accompanying her "dreamy catalogue". Lamar, on the other hand, "has fireballs going off" while he rolls out his generation-defining hits, especially during the infamous diss tracks. These two "high demand" stars have performances scheduled in multiple UK cities until late July.

Fans were "sent into a frenzy" last summer when Noel and Liam Gallagher announced they would be putting their differences aside for a "long-awaited 2025 reunion tour", said the Daily Mail. It will be the first time the brothers take the stage together since going their separate ways following a "backstage brawl" at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris in 2009. The tour has been "shrouded in mystery" with the set list yet to be revealed. Tickets, as you'd expect, are notoriously difficult to get hold of.

Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.