Photo: Pick Your Teeth Up Photography ©
Since 2pm on the day, an excited queue began snaking around Bristol’s O2 Academy in two different directions, up one street and down another as Bristol is the first of fifteen performances from Pop Rock giants, You Me At Six, as they rally around the UK, promoting their brand new album ‘Night People.’
Inside, bodies are crammed into every available space, with the crowd chanting their name before the lights go down, it’s pretty impossible for this show to fall on deaf ears, although the rumble of eager feet is somewhat deafening.
Storming to the stage, are support act VANT, a British Indie Rock band formed in 2014 by frontman and songwriter Mattie Vant and now successful product of Parlophone Records. The band are relatively unheard of by some, myself included but don’t they make a first impression. A lot of VANT’s lyrical themes deal with political issues, with Mattie citing inspiration from global issues; “My concerns are worldwide things, wars, global conflict, global warming.” With this philosophy, VANT prefer to refer to their origin as ‘Planet Earth’ – rather than associate with a particular nationality and at the risk of sound cheesy, they definitely gave an out of this world performance. See what happened there?Performing songs from their debut EP
Performing songs from their debut EP ‘Karma Seeker,’ they’re technically adept grooves and popular melodies really brought those Indie vibes to the floor and expertly collected a room full of foot tappers and head bobbers because it’s impossible not to do either, when you’ve got so much funk going on around you.
This short but sweet set ended on a high and only added to the anticipation of seeing You Me At Six in the flesh again, after an almost seven-year absence from Bristol’s music scene.
Photo: Pick Your Teeth Up Photography ©
The lights die down and the smoke rises up, the heat from all of the body’s pushed up against the barrier is almost toxic and through the haze of dry smoke, you could cut the excitement with a knife. The suspense plummets to the floor when the introduction to ‘When I Was Younger’ begins to play in the background and the crowd just lose, their, shit.
‘Bite My Tongue’ and ‘Fresh Start Fever’ lead the show on and continue to raise hell, as the crowd slay each song, word for word, right back at the stage, where frontman Josh Francheschi, does his utmost to avoid the camera sharks lurking in the pit below his feet. Being one of our previously mentioned favourites to hear, ‘Bite My Tongue’ was a real pleasure to witness in the flesh and it also needs to be said that despite having been away from the stage for some time, it is still evident that the band’s natural talent hasn’t evaded them and their sound is unbelievably on point and not a note is missed, not a chord out of place.
Wowing the excitable crowd with renditions of some of their most successful and highlighted tracks such as ‘Loverboy,’ ‘Reckless,’ ‘Lived A Lie’ and of course, the absolutely heartbreaking ‘Stay With Me,’ the boys also treated Bristol to an exclusive listen to a handful of tracks from their upcoming album.
‘Plus One’ & ‘Swear’ made their debut’s and charmed themselves into our intrigue as each song demonstrates just how far this band have come since their days of Take Off Your Colours and tease us with the endless possibilities of where this new album might go.
Bringing the house right back down to earth, a poignant performance of ‘Too Young To Feel This Old’ echoed throughout a silent auditorium. As the crowd stood captivated by Vocalist, Josh’s sincere delivery of this very personal track, he stops to talks over the haunting melody in the background. Reminding us all to recognize love and compassion for one another, especially now that we live in a world were politics overpowers personality and he’s not wrong.
“Not everybody is a dickhead, I promise you that,” are the words that linger on everybody’s lips and in everybody’s minds and it’s on this note, that the show is brought to a close with ‘No One Does It Better’ and the band’s brand new single and title track ‘Night People.’
What an emotional rollercoaster but one that of course, did not disappoint.
Tickets are still available for the rest of the tour, for now anyway so get yours quick right HERE.
