Everything Everything | Live review & Photoset

Photos (c) Paul Lippiatt

The show proved that Everything Everything have built a secure fan base, who are still passionate after several years

Everything Everything sound exactly the same on stage as they do on the radio. Of course playing live; they are more atmospheric, intense and loud but they do sound like an exquisite carbon copy of the recordings that make up their three studio albums, with minimal, if any alterations to the songs, significantly decreasing the risk of singing along wrong.

They are eight years into an incredibly successful but understated career, that includes winning the BBC Sound of 2010, alongside nominations for the Ivor Novello Awards and three amazing albums, the most recent of which, ‘Get to Heaven’, forms the bulk of this tour. Their sound, which is influenced by pretty much everything, hence their name; is instantly familiar, but not really like anything else out there. They have evolved this year with more in-depth, thought out lyrics than ever before, which hint at universal themes of nostalgia, anger and reminiscence as well as personal reflections on politics, society and quite possibly a specific comment on the monarchy, with the lyrics of’ Fortune 500’ referencing the Queen and Palace.

Everything Everything were focussed from the instant they walked on stage; with the air thick with the vapour of a hundred E-cigarettes, clouding the venue that was already stacked from the ground to top floor, the atmosphere was intense. Opening with a powerful ‘To The Blade’, it wasn’t until a few songs later, when the evening felt as though it really started, we we treated to the unmistakable sound of ‘Regret’. This song lifted the energy in the room, from the front of the stage to the back of the bar and set a pace which was exceeded during ‘Zero Pharaoh’ with the line “Give me the un” being chanted back and forth.

Lead singer Jonathan Higgs became an obvious focal point as the rest of the band appeared to play the show somewhat distantly, as he stood centre stage, decked out in a floor length theatrical dust-coat which served to reflect the fluorescent lights flashing onto the stage. Higgs interacted sporadically with the crowd, warming the audience with a repetitive spluttering grunt by way of introduction to ‘Cough Cough’ –  the lead single from ‘Arc’ and the phenomenal predecessor to this years ‘Get To Heaven.’

With every album Everything Everything are developing and honing their sound, which is slightly off-kilter and unpredictable, but always addictive. The show proved that Everything Everything have built a secure fan base, who are still passionate after several years and remain loyal in the face of a fickle generation of Spotify streamers who are able to consume their music without commitment.

As the night finished the crowd swayed and danced at ease as the band closed with a trio of their most well received tracks, including the endearing, bizarrely worded ‘No Reptile’, which features the sticking line ‘It’s alright to feel like a fat child in a pushchair, old enough to run, old to enough to fire a gun’, a lyric as captivating as it is grotesque.

Check out ‘No Reptiles’ right here: