30 July 2026

CMAT Live at The Piece Hall – The Best Performer of Our Generation

Francesca Lynes 30 July 2026
CMAT turns and smiles at the crowd, a big EURO-COUNTRY sign in the shape of a euro coin with her face on it is in the background. She is wearing a floaty green silk top that floats in the breeze/her movement of spinning round. She wears polka dot hot pants and patterned tights, her hair dyed her signature red.

Image credit: Cuffe and Taylor

CMAT’s set at The Piece Hall in Halifax has to be the best time I have ever had at a concert. Abundant, gaudy, camp, sexy, funny, loud, CMAT is more than a popstar. She is a multi-talented, once-in-a-generation artist. 

Katy J Peason kicked off the night with a stellar set ahead of CMAT’s arrival. Image credit: Cuffe and Taylor

Kicking off with the absurd ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’, CMAT swanned onstage in draped green silk and polka-dot hot pants. CMAT, or Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, effortlessly commanded the sold-out 6,000-capacity crowd. Cowboy hats and pride flags galore, the Halifax audience – a bubbling pot of all ages and genders – seemed more than ready to belt ‘Ohhh-kay, don’t be a bitch’ right back at ‘The Very Sexy CMAT Band’.

This is making no sense to the average listener

Let me try to explain myself in a few words

[…]

She’s really mental, it’s not just acting.

This is where CMAT excels: on the lyrical line between absurdity and relatability. A song about Britain’s ‘naked chef’, ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’ is both an unpacking of a dislike of the famous chef and an analysis of CMAT’s stream of consciousness. Her songwriting is always honest, almost confessional, but somehow never mean. Similarly, her onstage interactions with the crowd are teasing but warm. 

To begin with, Ciara warns the crowd of the many Yorkshire jokes to come, before fangirling over one woman in the crowd who was the Director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum. This was just one of the many unique moments of this pop-powered performance, which led to CMAT’s apt Yorkshire tribute: a cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’. The already vocally heightened classic was reimagined by CMAT to euphoric levels. The crowd was there with her, trying to reach the notes to the best of their ability. Despite our efforts, it is only Ciara who nails it, delivering a cover – almost drag queen-esque – to be remembered.

Image credit: Cuffe and Taylor
Image credit: Cuffe and Taylor

The setlist is nonstop singalongs, each track deserving its moment in the dipping Northern sun. It is a testament to her talent and her repertoire, reaching into the still relevant 2022 ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’, 2023’s ‘Crazymad, for Me’, and of course, 2025’s ‘Euro-Country’. ‘California’ from ‘Crazymad, for Me’ was a favourite of mine that was missed, proving just how rich her discography is. There are no fillers or mistakes: each song seems chosen to create a particular playlist. It could be a live album of its own. 

The fun of many of CMAT’s songs lies in their hidden intensity. Where internet toxicity and insecurity come to the forefront of hit ‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’, so too did hundreds of women shouting ‘Now tell me, what was in it for me?’. CMAT takes social standards of ‘sexiness’ and redefines it. Her persona, both euphoric and angry, is the honest antidote to a familiar doomscroll. Where the music is intense in feeling, so too is it warmly reassuring in its authentic confusion. 

I’ve peeled through the forums

And there’s no cure for old sis

But here’s a message to the party girls

Dragged out by their ankles

I’m here if you need me, deep in your afters.

Image credit: Cuffe and Taylor

CMAT is an artist to be seen live. If not for her tightly structured, pop-powered set, then for her quick wit and nuanced political commentary. It’s hard to hear of the hate she has received, particularly in criticising her physical appearance. Introducing ‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’, CMAT explains this bullying and undermines it. Each show, she brings the hate to centre stage, and humiliates it. It’s not just about CMAT or her band at that point; there is an underlying energy of understanding in the crowd. Whether its feelings of anger or excitement, choosing to dance and sing, there is a sense of camaraderie, of community rarely felt in so large a venue.

Her band are excellent too. CMAT has described herself as a guitar music performer as well as a popstar. The rest of the band’s ability to complement Ciara’s energy works beautifully, and the onstage harmony between instruments and bandmates is truly something special. CMAT (and The Very Sexy CMAT Band) has announced that she will not be playing any live shows next year. I hope she gets some time off after 6 years on the road. But, as we walked out of the venue to the sound of Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’, I couldn’t help but hope for another CMAT album to soon be in the works. 

Words by Francesca Lynes

CMAT played:

‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’

‘I Don’t Really Care for You’

‘When a Good Man Cries’ (CMAT shouted out Olivia Rodrigo for her recent cover at the BBC Live Lounge)

‘2 Wrecked 2 Care’

‘Aw, Shoot!’

‘Running/Planning’

‘Wuthering Heights’

‘Have Fun!’ (notable mention to the person in front of me with this tattooed on their arm’

‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’

‘Where Are Your Kids Tonight?’

‘Nashville’

‘Rent’

‘Billy Byrne From Ballybrack, the Leader of the Pigeon Convoy’

‘EURO-COUNTRY’

‘I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!’

‘Stay for Something’