Biffy Clyro:
Review
Manchester Arena
25th March
2013
2013 is proving to be a huge year for Biffy Clyro. First
they scored a UK number one album (which really is a triumph in today’s pop
dominated charts), then they were announced as headliners for Leeds and Reading
festivals, all before embarking on a massive stadium tour.
I would love to be able to say that I have been with Biffy
from the start, that I saw them playing tiny shows during their Blackened Skies days, and have followed
their releases from their debut to the new ambitious double album: Opposites. Alas, I was one of the many
people who never came across Biffy Clyro until they broke through the surface
of rock in 2009 with Only Revolutions and
its steady string of strong singles. Since then, the band have become one of
the UK’s biggest rock acts, appealing to different people in different ways,
drawing fans of all different ages and background.
Previous to the Manchester gig, I had only seen Biffy in a
festival setting, back at Leeds Festival 2010 while Simon Neil was in his
blonde-beard, pink-skinnies stage. They made an impression on me with their
live show then, providing one of my festival highlights: Neil launching an
unruly amp offstage after it decided play up at the start of Many of Horror.
The Scottish rockers were greeted with the kind of roar that
can only be made from an arena at maximum capacity. Simon Neil appeared first,
taking his place in front of a huge white curtain that blocked the main bulk of
the stage whilst the opening synth of Different
People marked the beginning of the coming twenty six song set. As Simon
reached the chorus alone, lights began to glow behind the curtain, revealing
the silhouette of an enormous skeletal tree along with the rest of the waiting
band. When the curtain (and the song) dropped, this gig truly began.
And the band did not mess around early doors. They started
at 8:30 which is earlier than most concerts I have attended at Manchester Arena
and if any fans arrived late they would have missed some huge songs. They
wasted no time in racing into That Golden
Rule, Neil made use of one of the long walkways that branched off into the
crowd for the intense breakdown. The early part of the set list was Opposites heavy, and it included the
successful single release Black
Chandelier, which definitely proved itself as an anthem in the arena
setting.
It was during Modern
Magic Formula (which is one of Opposites’
heavier moments) when I realized
that the crowd was far from what I expected. My preconceptions of a Biffy Clyro
gig were that it would be quite chaotic in terms of mosh pit action and that
there would be but few moments where the rock concert crush would let up. However the crowd was quite relaxed and there
was actually more singing and dancing than there was anything else in the early
stages. Biffy’s rise to rock royalty has brought a royally mixed audience and I
doubt these kinds of large shows will recapture the atmosphere I have heard so
much about from their past tours. This isn’t necessarily a negative point in
the grand scheme of things; the arena shows definitely have their strengths.
The set continued to merge old and new songs, and despite
the changes the band have undergone over the years the lesser known oldies and
the album tracks from Opposites held
their own beside each other, each bringing something different from what is
rapidly becoming an impressive back catalogue. Justboy created a golden atmosphere; the band members looked down
from their giant screens as the crowd responded loudly to one of Biffy’s
earlier anthems.
Experiencing their live show fully proved to me their incredible
talent as a tight three piece band. The vocal harmonies, often driven by the surprising
power of drummer Ben Johnston, were superb throughout the entire show. As a guitarist, the intro of Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies
still baffles me, as its lack of pattern and its irrational timing would prove
a challenge to even the most adventurous musicians. They nailed it, as
expected. Neil advanced down a walkway to one of the in crowd stages and performed
the entire song there, with trademark head-twitches as each stabbing note hit.
Bubbles was
probably the best song for crowd participation, with the majority of the crowd
bouncing along and then either taking cover or getting involved with the
madness that took place during the song’s famous breakdown. I couldn’t get recently
released single Biblical out of my
head pre-gig and perhaps I wasn’t the only one, as it received a similar
response to Black Chandelier. Simon
Neil moved to the opposite platform and this time it was bassist James Johnston
who appeared closest to where we were stood, where he preformed his large part
in the song admirably.
After the insane screams of There’s No Such Thing as a Jaggy Snake (in which a mosh pit
seemingly opened just to smash one innocent spectator, then closed again) the
tempo of the set slowed, with Neil remaining in place to play an acoustic
version of God and Satan amongst a
sea of people. Despite being unable to see him at this point, the hundreds of
glows from mobile phones and lighters was a spectacular sight
.
The full band
returned to play an epic rendition of The
Thaw, where Neil stepped away from the microphone in his Johnny Depp-esc way
and cried the lyrics “the only thing to see us through” to a delighted seated
area . They finished this portion of the set with another incredible solo
acoustic effort, he returned to the stage in front of us to play Machines. It was a breath-taking moment,
summed up by one kid who pushed to get as close as possible to Simon then
screamed “that was the best moment of my life!” to his friend when the song
concluded.
The set then continued in the same vain as before, taking
songs from various albums and playing them with an intense passion which I am
certain was nothing of an act. The mangled Biffy tree also turned out to have a
tree house stage where Neil climbed to before the blazing Puzzle classic - Who’s Got a
Match?
The conclusion of the set was home to a few big songs from Only Revelations, along with a few other
good choices from the new album. Many of
Horror in particular brought the house down. I had an amusing mental image
of Matt Cardle’s head exploding as Neil put the punctuation mark of a “D” at
the end of the final howling “hit me hard”. The final pre-encore song was the Only Revelations lead single The Captain, where Biffy powered on with
the same energy that began twenty two songs earlier. They left the stage to
deafening arena cheers which continued long into the encore and then subsided
into continuous chants of “mon the Biff”.
The three song encore began with Skylight, in which Simon Neil climbed the stairs to the tree top stage
and performed, at first, lit by the just the lava lamp lighting, before then
being engulfed by a full scale light show in the second half of the song. It
should be noted that he doesn’t over-preform like some lead singers tend to. He
picked his moment here to remain reasonably still in this elevated position;
his stage presence even at this point superseding any amount of thrashing and
jumping around that a run-of-the-mill rock singer could muster.
There is usually at least one song at a concert that I
underestimate its live sound, for Biffy Clyro this was Stinging Belle. It sounds a hell of a lot heavier live, some of the
more crunching riffs were real ear poppers and even without the inclusion of
the bagpipes, the outro of the song sent shivers down my spine.
And to close, Mountains
was the perfect candidate to end the amazing set. The most vivid image that
remains with me from the night as a whole is Neil running down the ramp towards
the stage closest to us, sweat flying from his hair, and blaring out the line “nothing
lasts forever, except you and me” with one last push of energy. The set
fittingly ended with the entire band and audience singing the final line “I am
a mountain, I am the sea” in acapella unison. This brought an end to one huge
show.
Verdict: Despite
not being what I expected, I thoroughly enjoyed the show from start to finish.
It seems a Biffy show has many different levels and layers that contribute to
the experience described. It feels like there is a lot going on due to the
massive production value and the long set, but in reality Biffy Clyro just boss
the stage the same way they have always done, now they just have the show and
audience they have earned. I look forward to seeing how they tackle the
festival headline slots this summer. Mon the Biff!
