YOU ME AT SIX + NOISY + HEIGHTS – BRIGHTON DOME 15.2.25
I must confess that I read last year’s announcement from You Me At Six that they were going to split up at the end of their 2025 tour with a degree of bafflement. Here was a successful and popular band at the top of their game saying they were going to bring their career to a close somewhat prematurely, at least in my view. I really did think that as the day approached, the band would change their mind. Yet here we are at seemingly the band’s last ever show in Brighton.
You Me At Six do seem to have made an effort to make this show an event, with two very different support artists, the first of which is Chelsie Tyrrell aka Heights who is a Brighton based but Manchester born singer / songwriter. Tonight she is accompanied by a drummer and a bassist. Again – no names are given. It’s a shame, because their musicianship is far too good to be anonymous.
The drummer is on a partially electronic kit. Synths and occasionally other instruments are on the backing track, although these may be samples triggered by the drummer. Chelsie is an extraordinarily tuneful vocalist, who occasionally reminds me of Liz Fraser from the Cocteau Twins. The music in general has a very 1980s feel, although the thumping bass drum on ‘Astronaut’ gives the song something of a generic drum and bass flavour.
Many of Heights’ songs are about “figuring out who you are”. ‘Multiply’ is a love song. However, Chelsie’s vocals are occasionally too low in the mix, so it’s sometimes difficult to hear what she is singing about. During ‘Honey’ one of Chelsie’s in-ear monitors is hanging down her back. This doesn’t seem to have an adverse affect however as she sounds like she has perfect pitch. This song is an earworm, as every other song in the set seems to be too. This is quite an achievement. Writing a memorable pop song is probably one of the most difficult arts to master. Final song ‘Breathe’ is something of a highlight as Chelsie plays electric piano. It’s the only time that she touches an instrument during the whole set, and she does so to impressive effect. Heights is a very interesting artist. Gratitude to You Me At Six for putting her on the bill.
Heights:
Chelsie Tyrrell – vocals and electric piano
‘Unknown’ – bass
‘Unknown’ – drums
Heights setlist:
‘Glow’
‘Astronaut’
‘Swinging As We Go’
‘Dreaming Of You’
‘Multiply’
‘Belong’
‘Honey’
‘Breathe’
Our next aural adventure is provided by Noisy, who are very aptly named and their name is stylized in capitals. The easiest comparison here is The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy. Watching them is a little like travelling back in time thirty years or more, but they do a very good job of recreating the spirit of the past. Keith Flint would have loved this! The keyboards appear to be in some sort of camouflage, as are the band. There are elements of hip-hop, rap and industrial rock here, although the closest comparisons are the aforementioned ones.
They are a three-piece comprising singer / rapper Cody Matthews, guitarist Connor Cheetham and producer / guitarist Spencer Tobias-Williams, who interestingly were all in a band called High Tyde from 2012 to 2018. For live shows they are joined by a drummer, as they are tonight. The music mostly comprises keyboards and samples, with occasional bouts of guitar. During opening song ‘Alligator’ Cody calls for “respect for the guitar!” Unfortunately at this stage of proceedings it is so low in the mix as to be virtually inaudible. On the plus side, Connor is playing what appears to be a Schecter Telecaster, so he gets bonus points for that.
Cody is a gregarious frontman. He asks all of the sober people to cheer, and is greeted with an astonishingly loud response. He points at the exit and tells the audience to “go to the bar now!!!” I like this guy! Cody calls for a mosh pit, but the pit that forms is very small and is more of a ‘mosh spot’. ‘Rudeboy’ includes a snatch of ‘Rockafeller Skank’. This doesn’t encourage any more moshers unfortunately. Could the residents of Brighton be too posh to mosh??? ‘All Of You’ is a love song and briefly features Connor and Spencer on guitars at the same time. They’re louder than they were, but still not loud enough. No matter. The band now have most of the crowd jumping, after giving them a huge amount of encouragement. One thing that is clear is that Noisy would go down an absolute storm at a festival.
‘Jackin’ The System’ is preceded by Cody’s exhortation to “f*ck the system”! This is the first time that Noisy have played Brighton Dome. I must confess that it’s not a venue that I’ve ever associated any kind of encouragement to insurrection. I have a sneaking suspicion that revolutionaries are pretty thin on the ground here tonight. For the final song ‘Young Dumb’ they put a guy called Conor (there seem to be one or two of them here tonight) in charge of the mosh pit. He manages to recruit about half a dozen others so fair play to him. Noisy aren’t really doing anything new per se, but they do what they do really well, and I would expect to see them continue their upward trajectory. As Wallace would say: they’re a cracking live band Gromit!
Noisy:
Cody Matthews – vocals
Connor Cheetham – guitar and synthesiser
Spencer Tobias-Williams – synthesiser and guitar
Noisy setlist:
‘Alligator’
‘I Wish I Was A…..’
‘Put A Record On’
‘Rudeboy’
‘All Of You’
‘Green Light’
‘Jackin’ The System’
‘Young Dumb’
Finally it’s time for You Me At Six to take to the stage. Considering that this is the beginning of a valedictory tour, the atmosphere is far from funereal. Indeed, it’s more celebratory, with the crowd singing along to ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ by Oasis before the band come on. When they do appear it’s initially without vocalist Josh Franceschi, who makes an entrance to a roar of applause after the band start playing. He is clearly the star of the show, but only in as much as every other lead vocalist is the star. But wait: drummer Daniel Flint is missing! Josh later tells us that Daniel is unwell and as late as 5 o’ clock the show was very close to being cancelled. However, drummer Harry Jennings from Defects stepped in at the last minute, learning the whole set in four hours, which is massively above and beyond the call of duty.
Replacement drummer or not, there is certainly no lack of spark in this band’s playing. There’s an absolutely kick-ass version of ‘Loverboy’, which the crowd roar along to (‘singing’ simply doesn’t do it justice) making vocalist Josh temporarily redundant! ‘Stay With Me’ is similarly far meatier than its recorded counterpart. The crowd are absolutely loving it. The stage lighting is extremely bright for most of the gig, which means that the audience are very visible to the band, and that the crowd’s reaction to them is very obvious. ‘Deep Cuts’ has a fabulous drum intro, and wonderfully chunky rhythm chords. The band are really going for it. When you see a band play like this it makes you wonder how Coldplay can possibly be one of the biggest bands in the world. It just isn’t right!!!
‘Fresh Start Fever’ has a keyboard intro on the backing track, but otherwise You Me At Six are resolutely a guitar band. The songs are lean and muscular and there isn’t an ounce of waste anywhere. As I said earlier, some significant effort has gone into making this, the band’s last ever gig in Brighton, an event, and a special treat tonight is the appearance of Ben Thatcher from Royal Blood to drum on ‘Straight To My Head’. It’s a powerful performance, and then some!
The first crowd surfers of the night appear during ‘Lived A Lie’. The band are initially amused, but security clearly are not. Josh asks for “no more crowd surfing”. Well, good luck with that. To be fair it does die down. Josh asks the crowd to “make some noise for the security at the front”, and they do, which is fair enough. There are still one or two crowd surfers, especially during ‘Crash’. One of them, on being helped over the rail by a security guard, kisses the guard on the cheek. The security guard looks disturbed…
Josh tells us that the three song section commencing with ‘Suckapunch’ is “designed for moshing”. The mosh pit is pretty tame initially, but it does get better. ‘Mixed Emotions’ is apparently about the band, although I suspect, given the title, that tonight it’s being perhaps viewed as being about the end of the band. It’s dedicated to Josh’s friend Alan who passed away during the summer of last year. ‘Liquid Confidence’ features just Josh and guitarist Max Helyer on acoustic guitar. As the song starts Josh tells the story of how the band formed. They became friends first before they formed the band. Apparently one of the key criteria for people joining the band was whether they looked cool or not!!! Whatever, it seems to have worked well!
The rest of the band return for ‘Take On The World’, which is dedicated to the LGBTQ community. Josh tells us that “love is love”. Never a truer word spoken. Very apt too. Especially in Brighton. Everyone in the crowd seems to have their phone torches on, and the crowd sing most of the song. The main set ends with ‘Beautiful Way’, and the band leaves the stage for what seems like a nanosecond before they return. When the band return Josh promises three more songs, and the band are true to his word. ‘Bite My Tongue’ is one of the most powerful songs of the night. ‘Reckless’ includes a snippet of ‘When You Were Young’ by The Killers. Whilst ‘Underdogs’ features the crowd singing incredibly loudly. As the band leave the stage poorly drummer Daniel Flint appears and waves at the crowd. It really is quite emotional.
I’m left wondering how the band can even contemplate leaving all this behind. Even with a substitute drummer, they’ve played brilliantly. The crowd reaction has been fervent. Most of the rest of their tour is sold out, and they’ve had to add two additional dates at Wembley Arena because of demand. They’ve surely been given cause to have second thoughts. If I was a betting man, which I’m not, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them back onstage within five years or so. However, if this really is to be their last ever tour, they’re quitting at the absolute top of their game.
Tonight, You Me At Six are:
Josh Franceschi – vocals
Max Helyer – guitar
Chris Miller – guitar
Matt Barnes – bass and backing vocals
Daniel Flint – indisposed drummer
Harry Jennings – replacement drummer
You Me At Six setlist:
‘Room To Breathe’
‘Loverboy’
‘Stay With Me’
‘Save It For The Bedroom’
‘Deep Cuts’
‘Give’
‘Fresh Start Fever’
‘Straight To My Head’
‘Lived A Lie’
‘Crash’
‘Suckapunch’
‘Makemefeelalive’
‘No Future? Yeah Right’
‘Mixed Emotions’
‘No One Does It Better’
‘Liquid Confidence’
‘Take On The World’
‘Beautiful Way’
(encore)
‘Bite My Tongue’
‘Reckless’
‘Underdog’
