My second review this year was originally supposed to be
“Frightened Rabbit live from Manchester Gorilla” but due to unforeseen
circumstances regarding needed ID (damn
my youthful looks) I never made it in. Now the year is almost up, but
thankfully I managed to sneak a Frightened Rabbit show in anyway – this blog would have felt incomplete without
it.
For those of you who haven’t heard Frightened Rabbit, they
are a Scottish five piece with a unique sound. Lead singer Scott Hutchison’s
lyrics are often poetic and explore themes of loneliness, separation, sex and,
frequently – death. Early on Hutchison joked about a recent gig: “I said “this
next song is about wanting to kill yourself” and a guy shouted out “which one?””
Though their themes are often bleak and coated in
self-loathing, the live show is Frightened Rabbit’s third dimension. Their set
in the Ritz was a rollercoaster of emotion. They are modest, but that doesn’t
mean that they don’t have you in the palms of their hands from the very first
song.
The atmosphere was great, both sing-a-longs and hold your pints
in the air moments were at home in this set. Their opener Holy (from their newest and now well-toured album Pedestrian Verse) sounded crisp and
Scott’s voice was noticeably on form – recently touring and playing with The
National can’t do a guy’s confidence any harm.
They aren’t the type of band to try too hard to work a
crowd, but that’s part of their charm. They get on with their jobs whilst
providing great backing vocals for Scott to work with. His voice isn’t always
note perfect, but in the second song The
Modern Leper it became clear that perfect vocals do not matter at a
Frightened Rabbit concert. Scott’s voice is raw and honest and he uses this to
his advantage – as when he pushes himself, for instance the line “I cut off my
foot to spite my leg”, his voice has an uncanny ability to send a shiver down
your spine.
They mixed it up with dancing song Old Old Fashioned, which was the first chant-based song of the
night. December’s Traditions shows
how tight Frightened Rabbit have become as a band, the song works upon the same
few riffs but layers are added as the song progresses. It strange how an album
track from the new album can be as engaging as an old favourite.
Scott introduced The
Wrestle as “a song about being eaten by a shark”, it really took me by surprise
as it gets somewhat lost within the watery depths of The Winter of Mixed Drinks, but it bares its teeth live, earning
its place in a strong set.
The band became a three piece for Nitrous Gas, Scott’s brother Grant left his drums and took to the
front of the stage to provide backing vocals and guitarist Andy Monaghan
remained to join in with the “ohhs”. Scott was then left alone for the acoustic
portion of the set.
He introduced support act Lanterns on the Lake’s Hazel Wilde
to the stage to perform the first ever live duet of the chilling Fuck This Place. This was a real treat,
with Hazel’s blissful tone matching Scott’s wistful lyrics stride for stride.
With Hazel gone, Scott now called on the crowd to provide
backing vocals for Floating in the
Fourth. These acoustic moments are a great showcase of his brilliant song
writing and it is a pleasure to see the songs in their most stripped back form.
The absence of Poke from the acoustic
section surprised some nearby crowd members but Frightened Rabbit aren’t scared
to chop and change songs from their set. Some would see this as a problem, but
I would like to think that when a song becomes a set rarity it becomes that bit
more special.
It would be hard for them to leave out My Backwards Walk. It is changed noticeably from the album version,
with rhythmic drums powering the song forward. There were loud cheers of appreciation
when the drums briefly let off and Scott belted out “I’m working on my
backwards walk, ‘cause there’s nowhere else for me to go”, before the song’s
cracking alternate-rock outro.
Scott thanked Manchester for sticking by the band since they
had played a support slot in the same venue some years back, and repaid that
debt with Midnight Organ Fight single
Head Rolls Off. One of the most
impressive songs of the night was Acts of
Man, its extended outro got heavy,
which is not usual associated with Frightened Rabbit. But, their set did seem to
constantly be simmering just beneath this explosion of rock energy, and so when
it came, it was well worth the wait.
The last three songs were the strongest of the night.
Beginning with The Woodpile, any of
the three songs would have amply filled the position of the set closer. Scott
introduced Keep Yourself Warm by saying they promised themselves they wouldn’t
play the song this year, but they wouldn’t be back for a while so it seemed necessary.
And I think the whole venue would have agreed! Scott took the microphone from
the stand and fell to his knees roaring “you won’t find love” during the
rousing outro.
The set ended with The
Loneliness and the Scream, a song which strays between reflective and
chaotic, and live this battle takes centre stage, the musical result being quite
breath-taking. The crowd continued the song’s final chant as they filed out
into the night.
Verdict: This gig was a different experience entirely
to any of the previous gigs this year. With a relaxed atmosphere backing it, it
was easy to just sit back, watch, and get lost in the music. And, if you do
have knowledge of Frightened Rabbit, your favourite imagery-loaded lyrics are
guaranteed to send tingles down your spine.
I booked tickets for The 1975 a while back, and in that time
my opinion on the band went through several changes. The band emerged with two
very impressive pre-album singles and a fresh sound; my initial feeling was of
optimism. I then listened to the EPs and with that my optimism grew. B-sides
such as Me, Antichrist and Head.Cars.Bending
suggested that the lead singles were just a foundation for a much darker
building – one with a few skeletons hiding in the closet. Then, with the
release of the album I had a stroll around that building, and found a
disappointing lack of substance.
It’s definitely a matter of opinion, but the band seemed to
ignore the side of them displayed in the EPs and focused specifically on their
other side: the side that would surely gain them wider mainstream acclaim. It’s
fair enough. The album hit number one and The 1975 are enjoying instant success
in a difficult industry. However, I wonder how the album would have sounded if
those aforementioned skeletons had been given room to dance.
So the Manchester homecoming gig gave me a perfect chance to
finally make my mind up on the band. Their stage set up stayed true to their
artwork – a single outlined rectangle shone in the backdrop, powerful in its
simplicity.
Despite the phenomenal demand for tickets, the venue wasn’t
too crowded, and was filled with a mixed bunch (footwear choices ranged from
pumps to high-heels). The 1975 arrived, wearing typically black and white
attire, and began with The City, leather
jacket cladded lead singer Matt Healy taking the microphone for an early walk around
the stage and returning to centre for chorus keyboard duties. It was instantly
clear that Matt’s voice holds up live, which was one of my worries, but he hit
the notes effortlessly.
It is interesting seeing how bands with just one album
tackle these kinds of shows, The 1975 worked it well, mixing their B-sides in
with the album tracks - at this point, both are probably equally well known. My
problems with the album seemed distant once I was soaking up the live
atmosphere; songs such as M.O.N.E.Y have
an enhanced and genuine sound when performed. Matt, now wielding a guitar,
rocked out at every opportunity, his hair has a presence of its own.
There was a place for Head.Cars.Bending
mid-set, but it was the following track, Settle
Down, which provoked the first really bouncy reaction from the crowd. The
band are definitely driven by the charisma of their lead singer, however
drummer George Daniel deserves a lot of credit for his backing vocals. Daniel
adds emphasis where it is needed, and he is definitely the unsung hero of The
1975.
Even Girls (the
single which really made me question my allegiance to the band) had an
annoyingly infectious presence in the set and left me with nothing to say about
that more “poppy” side to The 1975. No, I still can’t take it seriously as a
standalone song, but you have to appreciate a track which can get a room
dancing.
A highlight for me was Robbers,
a polished live song that they toured for a long while before the album came
out. It progressively rises to a dramatic peak, both its sound and lyrically –
and this translates brilliantly to the stage.
Healy addressed his home town, thanking them for the crazy
year they’ve had, before counting into the band’s breakthrough single, Chocolate. He oozed confidence at this
point, allowing the crowd to sing large portions of the verses while he mouthed
the words from the edge of the stage. Obviously, the response from the audience
was massive, and the main section of the set ended at its highest point.
“We want Sex” was
the chant from the crowd, holding meaning for both the section of screaming
girls, and also the group of waiting pitters who lay dormant until this point.
The band returned, including a shirtless Healy who drew yet shriller screams
from the girls, who then began Sex. A
central pit appeared immediately - almost as if it had been there the whole
time. The song is perhaps their strongest to date: the lyrics a summation of
The 1975’s themes of teen-angst, the song’s strobe-friendly breakdown providing
a moment of pop-rock brilliance best saved for late in the set. The finale was
EP track You – and here, you could
really feel the love in the room for The 1975. Healy stood on the drum kit
during the outro, while the strobes flashed and the crowd bounced – the song
earning its place at the very end of the set.
Verdict: Although the set was short (only a little
over an hour), in that time the band managed to win me back around. They bring
with them a feel-good atmosphere, which is created credibly by a fine set of
musicians. The 1975 may have roots in the past, but they are a band who have a
definite place in both the present and the future of the UK music scene.
When I was just starting to really get into music, Muse
already had a reputation as one of the world’s greatest live bands. It is quite
daunting to think that the Devon trio’s ground-breaking third album Absolution is now ten years old. At the
age of eleven, Muse’s combination of progressive rock, heavy metal and
classical styles was a lot to take in, but even then I knew that they were
something special.
Already with three genius albums and a legendary Glastonbury
headline slot behind them, the warped yet undeniably intelligent mind of lead
singer Matt Bellamy pushed for greater things. The release of Black Holes and Revelations propelled
them to the heights of London’s Wembley Stadium; it was here that they proved
that their live shows were made for a grander scale, with their showcase of raw
talent, energetic performance and brilliantly designed production fusing to
create the spectacle which is a Muse stadium show.
This was to be my first stadium show since seeing Coldplay
at Bolton’s Reebok Stadium back in 2005. Entering the Etihad gave me the
festival feeling, passing food vans, travelling towards the pitch entrance like
cattle, people relaxing with a drink in the sun– all these factors contributing
to an atmosphere which preceded an exciting day of music. The support in
Manchester came from Bastille and Dizzee Rascal. Bastille played a humble set, not interacting
with the crowd too much at all, but impressing with their live sound all the
same, the filling stadium appreciated hits such as Laura Palmer and, a song that has been sitting high in the iTunes
download charts since its release, Pompeii.
Next up: Dizzee Rascal. I was confused to why Dizzee had
been given a supporting slot for Muse, at the time of the announcement it
seemed like utter madness, the supposed pioneer of Grime could stylistically be
no further from the bill toppers. His performance went down as expected. Only a
section of younger audience members seemed to get any enjoyment out of the
repetitive set which consisted of Dizzee spinning around on stage while he and
his brother attempted to work the crowd using some of the most desperate tricks
in the book, including “my side is louder than your side” and even the classic
“oggy oggy oggy” chant. About half way through the set I concluded that the
involvement of Dizzee Rascal was effective in a sense, I doubt I was the only
one thinking I would appreciate Muse a lot more after such an unimaginative
display of worn-out, mind-numbing bollocks.
The wait from when Dizzee was sarcastically clapped from the
stage to when the sound begin to well at the start of the Muse set seemed to
drag for an eternity. The humungous stage, which had been pretty bare for the
support acts, lit up bright, looking more like a spaceship launch than the
beginning of a gig. The band appeared onstage, and with a blast of fire from
the end of the walkway, they cracked straight on.
When paying 49.50 for a standing ticket, you expect not only
a top notch performance, but good production too. The stabbing opening notes of
Supremacy were accompanied by
fire-belching chimneys at the top of the stage; even from my position, the heat
belted against my skin. The Etihad also provided surprisingly good sound
quality and was necessarily loud for Chris Wolstenholme’s bossing bass riffs.
After the frantic ending to Supremacy opened
an early first mosh pit, Muse played through a crowd pleasing run of Supermassive Black Hole, Panic Station and
Bliss. The production proved to be
consistently superb, each song having its own production narrative, for
example, Panic Station was
accompanied by grotesquely exaggerated animated world leaders who marched along
in the background. Muse continued to make playing complex music look easy in
the foreground, Bellamy using all the space available from the stage and the
walkway, playing the entirety of Bliss in
the centre of the pitch, a successful attempt to bring the show closer to
everyone in the stadium – at least at some point!
A suited business man was the focus for Animals, at first just on the screens, but later appearing on the
stage with the camera man following him. A few spectators on the front rows of
the crowd caught some of the Muse themed money he was throwing around as he
headed down the walkway. Later, we all felt a little richer, as when the song
dropped, the Muse money exploded confetti-like, sending the audience scrambling
to catch it and hoarding it up from the floor: perhaps Bellamy’s intention
here? Eventually the business man collapsed, the screens lingered on him even
as Wolstenholme appeared beside him and began the Man with a Harmonica intro to Muse anthem Knights of Cydonia.
Video credit to vibrantXhearts
After a typically chaotic crowd response to the song, I
noticed a guy with a bloody nose and a wide grin recovering on the edge of a
large pit; it wouldn’t be a Muse gig without a few casualties after all.
Wolstenholme and drummer Dom Howard then played an impressive drum and bass
jam, allowing some recovery time before Bellamy began United States of Eurasia on a piano around the kick off spot. It
was just beginning to get dark as Hullaballoo
favourite Dead Star caused yet
more crowd chaos; It was a tribute to Muse’s success and long-standing fan base
that a B-side received a similar reaction to their main singles.
There was definitely an underlying theme of corporate
destruction throughout the set. During Feeling
Good, a business woman was the voyeuristically followed bythe camera as she screamed down her
mobile phone, again appearing on stage and again meeting an abrupt death at the
end of the walkway. Meanwhile Bellamy insisted he was feeling good, in contrast
to the fortunes of the business woman, who remained still as the sun finally
deserted the stadium.
Bellamy owned Follow
Me, taking full advantage of not having a guitar part in the song, dropping
to his knees as the second chorus hit, a performance that oozed emotion. Then,
Wolstenholme took lead singer duties for another gem from The 2nd Law,Liquid
State. This now gave Bellamy reigns to enjoy only have a guitar part, he roamed
the entirety of the stage, making sure the seated crowd on the flanks were not
left out. Recent single Madness received
a great ovation after its initial mixed reactions at the time of its release.
Matt eyeballed a camera, wearing lyric-generating glasses, for the first period
of the song before rocking the Brian May-esque solo out and then harmonizing
with Wolstenholme brilliantly during the song’s epic finale.
The crowd then took role of lead vocals as Bellamy led them
in a verse of House of the Rising Sun, from
which the fuzz bass intro of Time Is
Running Out emerged. The Absolution anthem was followed by a
roulette style choice on the screen between New
Born and Stockholm Syndrome, a
win win situation which ended with the tiny white ball signalling the later. The
speed that Stockholm Syndrome reaches
invites an insane light show and the song’s intensity peak was marked by a line
of steam jets that engulfed the stage once unleashed.
After a brief interval, all three band members arrived on the
b-stage, Bellamy asking for phones and lighters raising for the gentle Unintended. Before the gig, we discussed
the giant light bulb waiting in the stand and its possible functions, we found
out the answer during Blackout.
Bellamy laid down on his back on the edge of the stage and began to sing, as
from our right, the light bulb took flight and hovered above the crowd. About
half way through the song, the spotlight hit the light bulb and a ballerina
dropped from within with a flurry of confetti and danced, suspended over the
crowd, eventually drifting away to the opposite side of the stadium as
Bellamy’s softer tones brought the song to a haunting climax.
During Undisclosed
Desires, Matt left his band mates on the b-stage as he hopped down to crowd
level to shake hands with as many of the audience members as he could as he
headed back down in the direction of the main stage. He took a brief detour
under the stage where he stood, hand outstretched, above coffins containing the
business man and woman who had earlier met their theatrical onstage demises. He
then continued his lap of the crowd’s edge, one fan got a large cheer when Matt
pointed out their Origin of Symmetry tattoo
to the camera man, and he pushed on to get through a good hundred more
handshakes before the song ended.
The encore began with Unsustainable,
the controversial dubstep inclusion to The
2nd Law. This song featured a special guest, Charles the Robot,
a twelve foot monster whose contribution was to blow steam from his ears in
unison with the fires blown from the stage’s chimneys. It seemed that many of
the Muse fan base seem to have accepted the dubstep track, it would have been
hard for naysayers to dismiss the song whilst some of the most amazing live
production took place in front of their eyes.
Twenty-three songs in and Muse still had enough stadium
sized tracks to provide the epic finish required. Plug in Baby turned the stadium volume up a notch, Bellamy
patrolled the front of the stage, letting the crowd sing the second chorus,
before shredding an additional Sweet
Child O’ Mine style solo to bring the song to an end. Wolstenholme then
pointed to a portion of the crowd in front of him and signalled them to join
him in the clicking of fingers, beginning Olympic anthem: Survival.
Another encore later (not the typical silence but Isolated System), the band returned for Uprising. The crowd gleefully accepted
this song, chanting along with Matt in the chorus. It was brilliant to see 60,000 people singing “they will not
control us, we will be victorious” within this politically confused world. Matt
played the breakdown with one hand, punching the sky with the other, leading
the crowd to do so too; this stuck out for me as a truly triumphant moment in
the gig.
Muse closed with Black
Holes and Revelations hit Starlight, the
crowd clapped along with the Queen-style beat and Bellamy gave up guitar duties
for the song so he could venture down the walkway and work the crowd one final
time. After the final note, the band received their deserved praise and Matt announced
“the North beats the South again!” before leaving the stage.
Verdict: With
such an impressive live reputation built up over the years, Muse did the
unthinkable and surpassed even my high expectations. Matt Bellamy in particular
seemed to have built upon his already mesmerizing performance skills and added
an extra element of showmanship to his arsenal. Also, this tour seems very much
like a landmark in the history of concert production history. Recently on
Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto stadium tour
they dared to push similar boundaries with the addition of the flashing fluorescent
wristbands every audience member was given on entry, these went on to light up
at the appropriate times during the gig. Muse have now set the bar for what is
possible in the stadium environment, making sure that there is enough going on
to keep even the Musers on the back row of the top tier on the edge of their
seat with their innovative and futuristic show. What an exciting time for live
music, and what a band Muse have become.
It is incredible what Alt-J have achieved on the back of a
single album. Before the gig, someone asked me the question - what are they
like? And I stuttered my way through the answer. After seeing them live I am no
closer to shaping a solid response to that question, but I can say that they are
a band with a massive future.
With chance to carefully
pick my words here, I’ll have a go at describing the unique sound that Alt-J
have added to the UK’s ever-expanding arsenal of music. Their sounds and song
structure justify their inclusion in the experimental rock genre. Bands who
inhabit this genre often fail through the alienation which comes when breaking
away from the norm. Without a connection with an audience, no matter how
impressive the actual musical talent is, a band can never truly succeed. Alt- J
are one of the exceptions. They combine memorable keyboard and guitar riffs
with lead singer Joe Newman’s exceptional voice to create something quite
special.
There have been many
comparisons with Radiohead, and I see how this idea may have come about. I
don’t entirely disagree with the statement, but I would say it is premature,
for if you played Alt-J’s debut An
Awesome Wave back to backwith
Radiohead’s Pablo Honey there would
be an obvious shift in theme and genre. The comparisons with Thom Yorke and co
seem more justified when you examine them next to the other artists who were
appearing at the time, their sound was unique then, just as Alt-J’s is unique
now.
Manchester Academy was packed, it had sold out months ago
(forcing me to pay an extortionate amount on eBay) and there was a warm buzz of
expectancy from a crowd highly populated by students. The band members were
quick in making their way onstage, in front of the bizarre tangles of the An Awesome Wave themed backdrop. They
opened with album opener Intro, followed
by a song in which Newman and the majority of the crowd confessed “Triangles
are my favourite shape”. Tessellate has
the formula to become a modern day anthem.
It was nice to experience a truly relaxed crowd, who danced
and sung their way through the radio friendly Something Good, this venue was a clearly filled with people united
by their love for a single album. It can be guessed from their onstage
performancethat Alt-J are a shy and
extremely modest bunch of lads, as they do not attempt to work the audience
much at all. In fact, their performance mirrors the crowd, as they seem to
simply enjoy the songs they play as much as the fans enjoy hearing them. Stage
presence is not their strong point, but the perfect song recreations backed
with a frantic lightshow goes some way in making up for this.
An early highlight of the gig was Dissolve Me, which featured a goose bump conjuring vocal harmony
that led back to the tropical sounding keys. The band do not tend to extend
their songs as you may expect, but an improvised addition of Newman’s voice can
add a dimension to the song that will stick with you; I can no longer listen to
Dissolve Me without the memory of one
of these moments hitting me.
I have to thank Manchester Academy for the booming bass of
their sound system. It was necessary for fan favourite Fitzpleasure, which shook the place as the bass line hit, Newman
swaying from side to side after he signalled the trip-hop beats with lyrics (to
the effect of) “in your snatch fitzpleasure, a broom shaped pleasure”. This was
followed by a cover of Kylie Minogue’s Slow
Dre, which would have easily passed as for an unknown song of their own to
anyone who did not have a look at the set list. One of the many qualities of
the album is that everyone seems to have a different favourite. This helps the
live show as each song receives a similarly colossal ovation; tracks such as Matilda, Bloodflood and Ms kept this flow going strong.
After a forgivable false start (Newman got carried away with
the “na na na na nas”), Alt-J dropped their most well known track, Breezeblocks. This received the best
audience reaction, fans climbed on the shoulders of their friends to show
appreciation to the band and the majority of the audience was bouncing by the
“please don’t go” section of the song.
A note on the encore: when they left the stage it was one of
the most continually loud roars for a band to return to the stage I have ever
heard! The set up to this point was much appreciated. Again, they didn’t keep
the crowd waiting too long, and returned with album track Hand-Made and a cover of College’s A Real Hero (which you may have heard during the Ryan Gosling
fronted film, Drive).
Taro remained to
supply a strong finish. In previous live reviews, many reported that Gwil
Sainsbury’s finger-tapping, bhangra-esque riff was overpowered by the rest of
the band in the live setting. I don’t know if they have read these reviews, or
even just noticed on their own backs, but for me, it all came together perfectly.
The audience thrived off the song, shouting “hey Taro” in unison after the
familiar crunch of the strikingly dark guitar. The gig flew by. It was only an
hour long, the shortest I’ve attended this year, but after playing the brilliant
An Awesome Wave in its entirety, plus
some b-sides and covers, Alt-J can be forgiven for this.
Verdict: Alt-J seem
to have hastily grown into a more successful band than they could have possibly
imagined when they first started writing music in their student halls in Leeds.
With an already remarkable amount of crowd-pleasing songs, another album of
similar quality could propel them to festival headline slots (they are already
headlining the Reading/Leeds NME tent this year), in similar fashion to Arcade
Fire’s sudden emergence to bill topping heights in 2010. Alt-J’s main strength seems
to be touring on the back of a Mercury Prize winning debut album, there isn’t too
much they can do wrong when they can recreate its much loved songs so flawlessly
live. There is some room for improvement in terms of stage presence but with some
of the most powerful harmonies in music and unmistakable instrumental talent
there is more than enough to enjoy.
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!
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