You Me At Six made a triumphant return to Glasgows’ Barrowland Ballroom on Friday night for the first of two sold out shows in celebration of their new album. Despite the album being delayed, the crowd sang along to tracks, new and old, like their lives depended on it for the entirety of the show.
Support came from Bears in Trees, The Maine & Waterparks – each of whom could have been a solo opener with the energy they brought into the room.
Opening the show with one of the singles from the upcoming album, ‘Deep Cuts,’ You Me At Six flew into a super tight set of fan favourites and their personal favourites.
Frontman Josh Franceschi’s vocals did not waver once in the high octane two and a half hour set – proving the band are aging like a fine wine, 14 years after their first shows together.
Tracks from older albums like ‘Liquid Confidence’ & ‘Too Young To Feel This Old’ sent the crowd spiraling into nostalgic bouncing before another newer track ‘heartLESS,’ only released a few weeks ago, blew through the Barrowlands with its massive riffs & catchy lyrics.
After a twitter poll ahead of the gig, the band announced they were in fact, going to play ‘Glasgow’ in Glasgow – much to the crowd’s delight.
It wasnt long before fans were being introduced to a track that hadn’t been released yet – ‘God Bless the 90s Kids.’ With a quick tutorial from Josh on how to sing along (although with the track being teased online for a few days beforehand, most knew the all important ‘god bless the 90s kids, 21st century misfits’ line already), YMAS had the Barrowlands in the palms of their hands singing along to a track that hadn’t hit the realms of Spotify & Apple Music yet!
‘Finishing’ their set with an acoustic rendition of ‘Noone Does it Better,’ the band left the stage to chants of ‘one more tune’ and ‘here we fxcking go,’ there was no option to avoid an en core.
Five more songs followed, with Josh encouraging fans to get on each others’ shoulders for ‘Take on the World’ – a track that I’ve heard live multiple times, yet never fails to blow me away.
The calm energy was brief however, and You Me At Six turned the volume right back up to play SUCKAPUNCH, Underdog, Reckless and Beautiful Way back to back & end their first of two nights in Glasgow’s Barrowlands.
Playing a show in SWG3 the night before, and with a packed out tour schedule, it would have been unblameable if it had looked like the band were slowing down any but it did in fact look like the opposite – You Me At Six are slicker and as exciting as ever and I, for one, cannot wait for their next tour already.
The new album, Truth Decay, is released this Friday, 10th Feb.
gigs & glitter. 