March 12th, 2025 – The line stretches down Spring Garden, bodies pressed together in the cold, pairs of hands stuffed in shared coat pockets. Palace has sold out Union Transfer, and as I step inside, the air shifts. Fragrant perfume and whispered conversations, a slow pulse of anticipation. The crowd is a sea of couples, fingers intertwined, leaning into each other like they’ve found the only safe place left in the world.
Photos + Article by @a.j. kinney
Palace’s music does that to people. It’s a sanctuary, a balm for bruised hearts. Their latest album, Ultrasound, is a study in longing—a sonic cathedral of love, loss, and the echoes that remain. There’s a hushed reverence as the lights dim, and when Leo Wyndham’s voice cuts through the darkness, it’s like someone opening a window on the first warm night of spring.
“Goodnight, Farewell” is the first offering, its opening notes washing over the crowd like a tide. It’s patient, deliberate, the kind of song that lingers in the air long after the final note fades. The crowd sways, foreheads press together. There’s a weight to the way people hold each other, as if the music is stitching them closer.
“When Everything Was Lost” follows, and then “Lover (Don’t Let Me Down),” a track that lands like a plea whispered into a pillow at 2 a.m. Palace isn’t here to entertain; they’re here to translate the quiet parts of us that are too tangled to say out loud.
Midway through the set, they strip it back. “Gravity” is almost too much to bear. The room breathes with it, and when the chorus crests, it’s as if everyone lets go at the same time, exhaling their own ghosts into the rafters. Some songs just do that—they take the weight from your shoulders and scatter it into the dark.
“Forever Ever After” arrives like a letter from a past self, a reminder of the roads we’ve walked and the ones we’ll never see again. It’s the sound of growing up, of looking over your shoulder and knowing there’s no going back. There’s something devastating in the way it lands, in the way the crowd tightens their grips on each other, as if bracing for the nostalgia that’s about to crash over them.
By the time they close with “Bitter,” there’s a sense that we’ve all been through something together. The applause isn’t just for the band—it’s for the moment, for the emotions we allowed ourselves to feel. As we spill back onto the streets, the city feels different, like it’s holding onto the echoes of what just happened inside.
Palace open doors into the rooms we’ve locked and tonight at Union Transfer, we walked through them together.
