Biffy Clyro - Perth Concert Hall
Scottish trio make triumphant return to Perth
Biffy Clyro are swiftly becoming Scotland’s biggest musical export, taking over the world in the process. Having just completed a tour of the US, with Europe, Australia and New Zealand next lying in wait, it’s the UK’s turn to see the Ayrshire trio show off latest album ‘Only Revolutions’, and first up are the lucky people of Perth. Biffy haven’t played here since a tiny warm up show in the city’s Ice Factory venue back in 2006, and it seems people have travelled from all over Scotland to see these lads back here.
Opening up tonight are Sheffield’s Rolo Tomassi. A lot of hype surrounds these guys (and gal) but tonight they fall flat: the music is promising in places, but the vocals of siblings Eva and James Spence are dire and ineffective. The moments when Eva does actually sing are a massive improvement but a lack of diction doesn’t do enough to convince.
Glasgow’s Twilight Sad on the other hand are superb. Their new album ‘Forget The Night Ahead’ has been winning critics over left, right and centre and the majority of their half hour set consists of tracks from it. Their swirling sounds almost give a feeling of being engulfed by the music, and James Graham’s passionately sung vocals are the perfect compliment. It should be no surprise to see these guys making moves very quickly.
Despite the love shown for the Twilight Sad, the Perth crowd are itching to see Biffy Clyro and after what seems like an age of tuning guitars, checking drums and mics the band finally take to the stage and blast into furious opener ‘Golden Rule’, immediately opening up several circle pits. The Concert Hall knows it’s in for one hell of a gig. The monstrous ‘Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies’ is huge enough, but with the addition of Mike Vennart of Oceansize on second guitar, the songs take on a whole new level of ‘hugeness’ tonight. The funky intro of ‘Glitter and Trauma’ gets the crowd bouncing, but it’s nothing compared to the bounce that great catchy-as-hell new single ‘Bubbles’, a song which previously lacked a bit of punch live, but with Mike on board is staggeringly good. It’s a similar story on ‘9/15ths’ where Vennart plays in the violin parts to great effect.
As expected the band rattle out ten tracks from the new album, with six from ‘Puzzle’, leaving only five from the first three, which continues to disappoint to older fans. ‘Justboy’ gets its usual sing along, but ‘Bodies In Flight’, ‘Convex, Concave’ and ‘There’s No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake’, despite being absolutely superb, appear to only be recognised by a small pockets of the audience. Ultimately it will only encourage the band to play fewer and fewer older tracks - a tragedy given their greatest work appears on the first three albums.
Having said that, ‘Many of Horror’ is possibly the track of the night. It’s a gorgeous song on record, and even more stunning live, and you know that Simon Neil means every word he sings. Similarly on ‘Machines’, the emotive lyrics are delivered beautifully and sung back at such volume the front man is nearly drowned out.
‘The Captain’ is perhaps not the greatest set closer, but is nevertheless performed perfectly and leaves the ‘Only Revolutions’ generation of fans leaving on a high. Biffy Clyro never put on a bad live show and tonight does nothing to halt that trend, but we hope they don’t forget their earlier work too much, as it’s just too good.
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