The come-up may have started on a phone in Orange County, but Christian Gates has taken it a long way from home. Among the milestones on his live resume: a headline show at The Underworld in Camden, London, an ocean away from where it all began.
A room that means something
The Underworld is a storied Camden basement venue, the kind of small-but-serious room that alternative and rock acts treat as a rite of passage. It has hosted countless artists on their way up, and headlining it is a specific kind of credential: it says an artist can not only draw a crowd, but draw one in a foreign city that has never seen them on the radio.
What it proves
For a self-made artist, an international headline show is the clearest evidence that the online numbers convert to real bodies in a room. Anyone can rack up streams; far fewer can get strangers in London to buy a ticket, cross the city, and sing the words back. That Gates can is a direct result of the borderless way he came up, where a fan in the UK was always just as reachable as one in California.
From an OC bedroom to a Camden basement, sold on the strength of the songs.
Setting up the return
That international pull is exactly what makes his 2026 I Believe In Ghosts Tour possible, an eight-city European run that ends, fittingly, with a London date. For an independent artist who books carefully so each show pays for itself, a proven London crowd is the difference between a tour that happens and one that stays a plan. The Underworld was a down payment on the headline run to come. More on his live history in the wiki.