Content Guide
When The Holloways went into the studio in 2006 to record “So This Is Great Britain?”, nobody was thinking about vinyl. CDs ruled the racks back then, Spotify was still two years off, and a 12″ pressing of a debut album from a young indie band was not exactly standard practice or even logical. “Lots of singles, but Albums were still CD in the main,” says bassist Bryn Fowler. “LPs were old hat or just a collectors thing, although that did rapidly change.”
Twenty years on, that gap is finally closed. The Holloways have announced a one off anniversary show at Oslo, Hackney on Friday 30th October, and for the first time ever, the album will be pressed to wax, signed, and sold exclusively to people in the room.
It is a tidy bit of symmetry. The band that never got their debut on wax are putting it out the same way they built their following in the first place: in person, in a room, with the people who showed up.
Making the Record
Bryn remembers the sessions in two distinct chapters. “Generator” and “Two Left Feet” came first, then the band returned for a longer stretch to finish the rest of the record, working with the production duo Langer and Winstanley. What stands out for him now is less the songwriting and more the texture of the process: a fire extinguisher standing in for a cowbell, the band crowding round a single mic to fake a rowdy crowd, setting up in the studio hallway chasing a sound that felt right rather than one that was technically correct.
“It was the feeling of togetherness, everyone pulling in the same direction,” he says. The band wanted the takes to feel alive rather than polished, and when a track was not landing, the answer was not another twelve takes. It was a walk to the pub to catch some of the 2006 World Cup, then back in with a clearer head.
Listening back now, Bryn does not hear a different band. “You can hear the youth in the voices,” he says, but he stands by the songs, and admits he appreciates the record more now than he did while he was buried inside making what many would agree are still indie anthems.
Why It Never Went to Vinyl, and Why Now
The absence of a vinyl pressing was not an oversight so much as a sign of the times. CDs were the convenient format in 2006, easy to rip onto an iPod, and the vinyl revival had not yet taken hold. Bryn sees the timing of this pressing differently. “People love physical media and to have STIGB out like this is so special,” he says. “The songs sound richer and feel bigger through Analogue media.”
There is also a pointed comment in there about how people listen now. Streaming has made albums disposable in a way Bryn clearly has mixed feelings about. A vinyl pressing forces a different kind of attention. “The 12 inch means when you put it on you will listen and take it in, not just treat it like a disposable bit of music.”
The Venue
Oslo Hackney was not a random pick for the gig. The Holloways spent their early years grinding through gigs across North and East London before they broke through, and Bryn describes the venue as a natural home for the show, run by a smaller specialist group and sized just right for what they wanted to do. Expect the album played in full, the hits, and a handful of songs that have not been dusted off in a long time.
Looking Back at the Scene
Ask Bryn about how the mid 2000s indie scene is remembered now and he has clearly thought about it. He pushes back gently on the “landfill indie” label that got attached to a lot of bands from that period, his own included, calling it a bit insulting to acts who were genuinely passionate about keeping guitar music alive in the UK. He is more sympathetic to the recent indie sleeze reframing, which he thinks gets closer to what the scene actually felt like: DIY, scrappy, bands forming constantly, club nights stacked with local talent and the odd touring act passing through.
He talks about touring for £150 a show, sofa surfing, van life. “It did get a bit grimy but never dirty if you get my meaning.” There was fun in it, and he wants more credit given to the range of styles that existed under that one loose banner, from art rock to jangly indie folk to ska punk influenced dance tracks to the rap stylings of artists like Plan B and Jamie T. No fixed sound, just a shared attitude that music mattered and so did saying something with it.
The Question in the Title
So “This Is Great Britain?” was always part celebration, part complaint, and Bryn thinks the question has aged uncomfortably well. The themes around Britain’s fixation with American celebrity culture and a directionless generation feel, to him, more relevant now than they were then, not less. “We are still in hock to the cult of celebrity,” he says, pointing to social media and the rise of the super rich as things that have only deepened what the album was getting at.
But there is warmth in the record too. Bryn points to “Generator” as the flip side of the album’s argument, a song about waking up, accepting where you are, and moving forward anyway. The band used to open the track acapella with the line “Everybody gets down every once in a while, music’s where we turn to if we need to smile.” He is careful about how he frames that now. It was not meant as a solution to anything serious, just an honest account of what music did for four people getting through difficult stretches, and a hope that it did something similar for whoever was listening.
The Show
The Holloways play Oslo Hackney on Friday 30th October 2026. Doors open at 18:30, the show is 16+, and tickets start at £20 plus booking fees through SeeTickets, Gigantic, and other major outlets. Every ticket holder gets the chance to buy the signed vinyl, the first and only pressing of S”o This Is Great Britain?” in its twenty year history.
Given the venue’s size and the fact that this is genuinely a once only chance to own the record on wax, tickets are unlikely to last.
For more information, click here.
He discovered the gem when he was 12 years old and still has it now, claiming it to be why he fell in love with music. He likes to play disc golf when he's not writing about music. He is a one-of-a-kind individual who is always the first to bust out his air guitar on the dance-floor.
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