TENTH anniversary tours seem to be popping up here, there and everywhere at the moment (some more warranted than others), but it feels especially strange when some bands still relatively new.
Enter Everything Everything who have hit the road in celebration of their iconic indie favourite ‘Get To Heaven’, now ten years old. Then again, the band are 17 years and seven albums into their career – it just helps that their music still sounds as fresh and invigorating as it did when they first emerged with their weird and wonderful debut ‘Man Alive’ in 2009. Whether it’s Jonathan Higgs’ manic range and incredibly unique vocal delivery, or their creative, colourful sound – veering from frenetic indie to glitchy electronic to proggy pop – they are as inventive now as they were back then.
Perhaps their biggest breakthrough moment though was the brilliant ‘Get To Heaven’ in 2015 – the album that saw them shift from a genre-bending novelty to bonafide Radio 1 favourite. Full of enduring hits like ‘Reptiles’ and ‘Distant Past’, it’s their biggest success to date – with songs that still remained littered throughout their sets to this day, and continue to gauge huge reactions. No surprise then that the Manchester band wanted to give it another well-deserved moment in the limelight – in front of audiences who still hold it dear to their hearts.
Of course, having played all over Glasgow in the last decade, the Barrowlands was the perfect location for such a celebration. The fervent audience was more than ready for a trip down memory lane and the band delivered with gusto, arriving on stage in the iconic venue dressed in coordinate orange suits.
They appropriately opened with ‘To The Blade’, a blazing opening salvo which set the tone with its climactic peaks and big guitars, before diving into the agitated and hyperactive ‘Blast Doors’ with Jonathan Higgs effortlessly navigating the complex tempo changes with his rapid-fire, tongue-twisting falsetto.
Given that the album is rather top heavy, the band made the good decision to splice it up rather than perform it in full – event making way for B-sides that appeared on the recent tenth anniversary reissue. And despite having never been heard before that point, the tracks were met with just as rousing a response from the crowd – particularly the anthemic ‘President Heartbeat’ and the dark yet danceable ‘Yuppie Supper’.
From the start of the gig, it was striking how slick and cohesive they were as a band, with the tight drumming and polished bass lines forming the backbone of their kinetic sound. Meanwhile Higgs led the way throughout – never missing a note or beat over their expertly layered arrangements, whether it’s impressively garbling over a complex, quick-shifting number like ‘Only As Good As My Good’ or staying emotive and subdued ‘We Sleep In Pairs’, or even delivering that keening falsetto on ‘Distant Past’.
Naturally, “Regret’, with its strutting rhythms and chanting vocals, was an early highlight while ‘Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread’ incited a mass singalong with hands aloft in the air and everyone dancing along to its themes of anxiety and existential dread. Interestingly, the album’s themes of societal tension, uncertainty and the pressures of modern life are still every bit as relevant today as they were in 2015 – perhaps more so – which adds a certain kind of urgency and intensity to the performance.
Magnified by their excellent stage presence, ‘Distant Past’, burst to life with driving, propulsive rhythms and one of the biggest choruses to date, while ”Reptiles’ was a beautifully performed – really hammering home the strength of the album and their discography. Opening in meditative fashion, it builds and builds to a cathartic finale – with Higgs delivering one of his best vocal performances of the night.
Bringing things back to earth with the considered ‘Warm Healer’, it was another excellent showing from one of the country’s most inventive outfits – and a strong reminder of their cherished place in the indie canon.
