You Me At Six - Relentless Garage, London 8/2/10
4/5
By: Charlie Bradford
According to the title of the HMV festival of which this gig is a part, You Me At Six are going to be the Next Big Thing. And His Master’s Voice aren’t the only ones to have taken notice of this Surrey five piece of late. Despite only having been around since 2007, YMAS have certainly been busy in their short time as a band – highlights include signing to Virgin Records, a nomination for Best British Newcomers at last year’s Kerrang! Awards, and most recently seeing their second LP Hold Me Down reach the dizzy heights of number 5 in the UK album charts. Not too shabby.
Tonight they play to a very excited Garage crowd, their screams and whoops echoing around the room as the band launch headlong in to ‘Safe To Hate Her’, a heartfelt pop punk number that has all the required dimensions. As the room gets warmer and everyone pushes to the front, lead singer Josh Franceschi, takes off his jacket and cracks on with the next song. 'The Truth Is A Terrible Thing' does indeed sound quite similar to its predecessor, but again it comes as a perfectly formed pop punk package.
The aforementioned Josh is an excellent frontman, with real presence and a way with the crowd, he is unencumbered by a musical instrument and so throws all his passion into getting the audience on side. When he tells them it’s time for a circle pit, the music strikes me as perhaps not heavy enough to warrant one of those all out crazy spheres, but YMAS prove me wrong, putting all they’ve got into a short but sweet thunderous climax to the track.
The effortless upbeat hits keep on coming, 'Trophy Eyes' and 'Save It for the Bedroom', receive rapturous reactions, and you can even see a smile on the face of guitarist Chris Miller as his mouth occasionally becomes visible from behind the wall of thrashing long hair. During 'If I Were In Your Shoes', the band insist upon “complete and utter carnage” - the audience again briefly oblige, but this upbeat pop punk does not seem to engender the same desire to create vicious circle pits. A simple mosh will suffice.
Lead singer Josh decides to introduce the next song with a bit of contextual information. 'The Consequence' was written after a conversation with his mum about the music industry. It’s tempestuous and slightly angry, the bass screams through the track with a frantic pace and the drums claw away as Josh imparts on us his slightly rankled views. The set ends with current single 'Underdog', like the rest of their canon, a tightly wound structure of emo pop punk.
You Me At Six have seemingly perfected the American style of emo/pop punk. Evident influences such as Elliott Minor and Fightstar shine through, but what makes them even better is Josh’s voice - his powerful tones take control over each track. HMV’s Next Big Thing tag might be a daunting one, but it’s one YMAS are entitled to.
Artists in this article: You Me At Six
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