It’s been a long road to Brixton for Biffy Clyro. While they’ve released four critically acclaimed albums, each gaining moderate success, it’s only with the release of this year’s ‘Puzzle’ that the mainstream has stood up and taken notice of the Scottish threesome, and the sheer size of tonight’s crowd confirms that it’s finally happened for them.
Before they take to the stage though, The Matches make their first London appearance in just over a year. Still promoting their 2006 release, ‘Decomposer’, the set borrows heavily from it, with the likes of ‘Di Di My Doe’ and ‘Little Maggots’ making an appearance. However, The bands pop-rock sound seems to be failed tonight by the academy’s sound system, and ultimately the band end up sounding sonically confused.
Following on from them, Oceansize make a somewhat surprise appearance, which makes quite the impact on the crowd. Their spaced-out indie rock provides a sombre prelude to tonight’s headliners, and they are a band clearly deserving of such an acclaimed spot on the bill.
Tonight, however, is all about Biffy Clyro. Kicking off the festivities with ‘Saturday Superhouse’, the band play what is probably going to go down as their best set to date, squeezing in everything from ‘Blackened Sky’s’ ‘Justboy’, to the majority of Puzzle’s tracks. Most pleasing, is the fact that ‘Folding stars’ makes an appearance, despite frontman Simon Neil claiming before it was too emotionally hard for him to ever play it live again. Closing on a four track encore, tonight has confirmed what never really needed to be confirmed. Biffy Clyro are without a doubt one of the best bands the UK has had to offer in the last decade, and in the same way that Jimmy Eat World don’t make bad albums, Biffy Clyro do not play bad live sets.
Andy R