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Live Review: Everything Everything (with Outfit) at Heaven
Indie | Friday 15th February 2013 | Charles
An glorious night of the best British electronic rock
Throughout the month of February the NME have put on a bunch of ‘Award’ shows to show off some of the best upcoming and recent bands the alternative scenes got going for it, and perhaps one of the biggest of these shows was from Everything Everything who’s recent top 5 hit album Arc and Mercury nominated debut Man Alive led to this being a sold out show at Heaven.
Support for the evening comes from Scouse five piece, Outfit, although another slot had been allocated to Londoners Arthur Beatrice who are mysteriously absent. Outfit, though, are a band I’ve never been afraid to spew forth compliments about sounding like a mixture of tonight’s headliners with the sultry nature of Wild Beasts and releasing possibly 2012s best EP in Another Night’s Dreams Reach Earth Again and they open with a slice of that as ‘Drakes’ beautifully shows of the dark, atmospheric yet entirely catchy and danceable nature of that EP. They then to proceed to play four new tracks from the forthcoming debut album and though none of them stun, Outfit have never been a band of instant first-listen appeal. Upcoming single ‘Performance’ stands out with a much more primal feel making it sound strangely un-single like. In contrast, of these four tracks ‘House on Fire’ is the highlight driven by a great memorable albeit 80s tinged chorus and more experimental rock-out near the end. However they close with the cannon in their arsenal with the early single and buzz-inducer epic of ‘Two Islands’ that prevents anyone watching from having any chance of forgetting them (Lord knows I didn’t, this is my sixth time seeing them live after all).
By the time Everything Everything reach the stage Heaven is essentially packed as the blow open with ‘Undrowned’ (that’s just been used to advertise Charlie Brookers Black Mirror) before going into most of their new record Arc as well as a selection of the highlights from their 2010 debut. If Everything Everything suffer it’s due to the live space not accommodating the off-the-wall intricacies their records entail but instead we get a much more rock heavy atmosphere and which plays to the crowd. Due to this slower and soft tracks like ‘Final Form’ and ‘The Peaks’, two of their best suffer but the riffage on ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ and ‘Photoshop Handsome’ is a blasting burst of energy that keeps this from being close to a deal break.
After ending the main set on top 40 hit ‘Cough Cough’ the band comes back for an extended encore starting with ‘My Kz, Ur Bf’ before ending with Arcs closer, the incredibly 80s sounding but incredibly fun ‘Don’t Try’ with an extended fade out of sonic experimentation that I’d love to see used more on the inevitable third album. It’s a testament to the band that the set still feels like it’s missing some classics like ‘Come Alive Diana’ and ‘Feet For Hands’ despite this being a 16 track set only a month after their sophomore LP. Key to any live show though the band is clearly having a shit-tonne of fun, and that’s an experience shared by the crowd as they (for the most part) fail to sing along to the bizarre lyrics of one of the UKs best art-pop bands.
Charles Pegg
@chaspegg
