Fotoverslag | Amy Macdonald + Better Joy - Ancienne Belgique

Amy Macdonald @ Ancienne Belgique

Last Sunday at the sold-out Ancienne Belgique, Amy Macdonald returned to what she called her favourite venue in Belgium, and we could feel she meant it.

The evening opened with Better Joy, who warmed up the room with intimate, relationship-driven songs, like “Plugged In,” that really caught my attention, and was inspired by falling in love, carrying a fragile honesty that immediately resonated. They were also the best fit for the main act of the night.

Amy walked on stage with “Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For,” setting the tone with that unmistakable directness that has defined her career. “Spark” followed early in the set, sharp and urgent. Between songs, she was disarmingly candid: joking about avoiding touring territories where tickets don’t sell, like in France… and the US, reflecting on the exhaustion of writing songs that are hard to sing after nights sleeping on a bus, and half-seriously comparing her schedule to Bruce Springsteen (noting he probably doesn’t deal with quite the same rock-and-roll logistics anymore). She didn't forget to thank Brussels for selling out the show so quickly and neither taking her traditional crowd photo (ten years of rating audiences, apparently), right after calling out people glued to their phones. “Don’t Tell Me That It’s Over” hit with full force, while “Slow It Down” turned into a collective exercise, Amy conducting the audience’s backing vocals with a grin. During “Run,” the room transformed: hundreds of phone torches lit up the darkness, a constellation above the pit. And when the first chords of “This Is the Life” rang out, the entire AB sang along, loud, on a song that probably soundtracked so many of our younger years. The encore stripped things back with an acoustic version of “We Survive,” intimate and grounded, with just her voice, a guitar, and a room that didn’t want to leave, me included.

Ten years of crowd pictures, countless nights on a bus, songs written between soundchecks. Amy Macdonald still makes it feel immediate. And in a venue like AB, that connection lands exactly where it should.

Amy Macdonald

Better Joy

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Zondag, 22 februari 2026, Ancienne Belgique (Brussel, BE) | Foto's & tekst: Cristina Vergara