Music > Live Reviews
Years & Years @ UEA
15/10/15
I want to make it clear from the off, I am a fan of Years & Years and my expectations were high for their recent show at Norwich UEA. I feel this disclaimer is necessary so the following slating of the show in question doesn’t seem like I’m just another anti-mainstreamist slagging off chart music to fuel my own ego – I’ll leave that to NME.
Wandering in late to the sample-heavy nightclub sound of Oscar Key Sung, the room sounded more like Prince of Wales road on a Saturday night than a pop concert, the young Australian performing solo with nothing more than a MacBook and a microphone. Somewhat out of place in a room I quickly found was full of pre-teenage kids and hordes of 30-something office staff, Key Sung’s crisp and smooth act was left unappreciated by the sparse audience.
Second support Tove Styrke, a twenty two year old electro-pop singer from Sweden, may well have been the best act on the bill. Backed by a female guitarist and male drummer, the trio donned bright orange jumpsuits (full on Misfits style) and lit the room up with a vibrant blend of energetic euro pop. Borderline stood out with its catchy chorus and after a cheeky “I think you might recognise this one”, an attitude drenched cover of Hit Me Baby One More Time did too.
After a longer than average changeover period – which involved unveiling Years & Years’ spectacular LED album cover back drop – the three piece took to the stage alongside a drummer and two backing singers. As was the case at their Big Weekend and Latitude sets, I expected complete silence and awe as frontman Olly Alexander demonstrated his phenomenal vocal capabilities over the deep, churning electronic beat of opener Foundation. This however, was not the case. I like to think I’m not one of those pretentious pseudo-hipsters who tell people how to behave at gigs, but shouting over and constantly filming performances, for me, isn’t what live music is meant to be about. As the band progressed into the bass heavy Take Shelter it became obvious that this wasn’t to be a particularly lively evening; a brief glance around the empty dance floor showed that almost no one knew a single lyric and as for movement? An occasional drunk arm wave was the closest attempt at a mosh pit. Memo saw Alexander take to the piano for a heartfelt and impressive performance, his vocals especially noteworthy, but the sentiment was tarnished by a majority of the audience immediately outstretching arms to Snapchat the whole thing. “We actually played this venue with Clean Bandit about a year ago”, Alexander mentioned, “so it’s nuts to be back doing our own show.”
A highlight was Shine, one of the band’s more cliché pop songs but simultaneously one of their more energetic ones. Alexander reflected this, enthusiastically jumping down off stage to serenade the screaming teenagers on the front rows, but the rest of the band didn’t so much; to his right and left respectively, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen seemed almost bored to sleep as they lulled over their vibrantly decorated decks, pushing buttons almost mechanically, as if they were just another part of their synthesizers. In the crowd it was a similar story – whilst Alexander seemed shocked that “there’s more people here than I thought”, the outer edges of the venue hosted the majority of the audience, the dance floor almost empty and the least energetic I’ve ever seen it. A cover of Breathe by Blu Cantrell (taken from the band’s Take Shelter EP) saw Alexander bring a member of the audience on stage to perform it with him – “oh she knows the words!” his infectious charm bursting out when he exclaimed “I feel so bad… I just got sweat on your head”.
Ending the main set on Real, the crowd finally began to get moving but too little too late, as the band hastily left the stage afterwards. After a brief encore they returned, announcing to widespread disappointment that they only had one song left. “Alright, I’m just gonna lose my shit”, Alexander announced, “-this is King!” leading the room into a sing-along of the hit single and admittedly concluding the evening on a high.