You Me at Six are back on the road this year, touring in support of new album ‘Truth Decay’ (out now!) and they’ve brought a stellar line-up along with them as they play Newcastle’s City Hall tonight.
Up first are London-ased Bears in Trees, who, if you are unfamiliar with them, are described by guitarist Nick Peters as “somewhere between Carly Rae Jepsen and Metallica, near the middle, but slightly closer to Carly Rae Jepsen, which is okay cos that’s what we’re about”.
The band are well received as they deliver a bouncy and energetic set of upbeat emo-indie songs during which bassist Iain Gillespie thanks You Me at Six for inviting them on the tour, and goes on to mention just how special it is to them personally as they were the first band they saw live.
Second on the stage tonight are The Maine, who do absolutely everything in their power to get this crowed even more hyped for the main event, with vocalist John O’Callaghan pleading for the crowd to “Stand up, this is a rock concert. I need some energy, fucking entertain me!”.
After fourth song ‘Dirty, Pretty, Beautiful’ the audience seem to be waking up as O’Callaghan reminds the crowd “We’ve got You Me at Six coming up, come on, stretch it out, stretch it out, stand up!'”, before pointing to someone in the front row and promising “If you down that beer in one, this next song will be sick!'”.
What follows is a joy to witness.
“I have 3 simple words for you Newcastle…” – those three words are, ‘”When. I. Was.”, and with that City Hall turns into a karaoke bar, the crowd belting out the opening verse to My Chemical Romance’s ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ in its entirety. This somehow then transforms into Smash Mouth’s ‘All Star’ before O’Callaghan re-names the band as “Your new favourite band, ‘My Chemical Smash Mouth’”.
Final song, ‘Black Butteflies & Deja Vu’ sees them grab an audience member who’s birthday it is to sing along with them, It’s a beautiful moment and perfectly sums up everything I’ve seen from this band tonight.
Safe to say, The Maine put on an incredible show, and John O’Callaghan has the crowd in the palm of his hand throughout, the only slight fault I could possibly find with tonight’s set (and I’m not 100% sure it’s a fault at all) is that I’ll remember it for the interactions between band and crowd, rather than the songs themselves.
Waterparks are next up, and they bring the energy during a significantly longer set than the previous two bands on display, with frontman Awsten Knight bounding around the stage throughout, stopping only to bring out their tour manager, Lucas, so that the crowd to sing happy birthday to him. A nice touch.
During acoustic number ‘Lucky People’ Awsten asks all the couples in the crowd to get up on their other halves’ shoulders. They oblige, twenty-three of them in total, while the rest of the room hold up their phones with torches turned on and wave them along to the music, truly a beautiful spectacle to behold.
Throughout the set they play several songs from upcoming album ‘Intellectual Property’ (out in April 2023) which goes down a storm, including ‘Brainwashed’ and ‘Funeral Grey’.
The crowd are in great spirits and great voice during the break, singing along in unison to various emo bangers as they wait for tonight’s headliners to arrive.
You Me at Six are a band who have grown up in front of our eyes over the last decade and a half, the once emo-punk upstarts, with now classic hits such as ‘Save It For The Bedroom’, ‘Kiss and Tell’ and ‘Jealous Minds Think Alike’, have matured into a different band entirely, with a whopping eight studio albums to their name (including ‘Truth Decay’, released just this month).
The setlist tonight reflects this, none of the tracks mentioned above find a place, with only three songs from sophomore album ‘Hold Me Down’ making the cut, ‘Liquid Confidence’, ‘Stay With Me’ and encore number ‘Underdog’.
With such an extensive back catalogue and a brand-new release, you can hardly blame them for being so progressive with their song choices, in fact, their dedication to keep things fresh should be praised, with a hefty dose of tracks from ‘Truth Decay’ as well as 2021’s ‘Suckapunch’ on display this evening.
Their set is full of sing-alongs, with the chorus of ‘Liquid Confidence’, ‘Cold Night’ and newer song, ‘God Bless The 90’s Kids’ being standouts (I did tell you the crowd were in great voice tonight!).
Speaking of great voice, Josh Franceschi is on fire tonight, and gives a particularly incredible vocal performance during ‘Give’ and following track, the anthemic ‘Stay With Me’.
When displaying the handful of songs from ‘Truth Decay’, such as set opener ‘Deep Cuts’, ‘heartLESS’ and ‘No Future? Yeah Right’, the band don’t miss a beat, with the crowd responding as though the songs have been around for years.
‘Bite My Tongue’ is dedicated to “anyone who feels pissed off, misunderstood and misrepresented by the Tory scum down in London”, and is followed by a trio of more up-tempo numbers, ‘What’s It Like’, ‘No Future? Yeah Right’, and ‘MAKEMEFEELALIVE’.
Franceschi tells the audience this is his favourite Newcastle show to date and that ‘this is a special city, I hope you all know that’, before the band bring the evening to a close with an encore consisting of ‘SUCKAPUNCH’, ‘Underdog’, ‘Reckless’ and ‘Beautiful Way’.
TONIGHT was special, and I’m certain that all of those in attendance know that.
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