Words: Kimmi Naidoo
On the penultimate night of their “Mountainhead” UK tour, Everything Everything’s live performance has only ever gotten better. The four piece have been releasing music for over a decade now so if there’s one thing this band knows how to do, it’s a concept album.
“Mountainhead” sees a society in which the people’s purpose is to dig a pit in order to grow the mountain above them. Starting the show with the second single from the album, “The Mad Stone”, felt like a bold move but definitely one that payed off, as it set the tone of the whole evening as the crowd knew every single word. This
continued through the next couple songs off “Mountainhead” which were sung by the crowd with just as much passion as the opener. One of the downsides of having such a phenomenal discography is not being able to please every fan with a setlist of just 20 songs
so the shouted request of “R U Happy?” that was heard in every fleeting quiet moment was never fulfilled, but did provide a bit of comedy to the rest of the crowd.
Moving into more familiar territory, fan favourite “Pizza Boy” got the crowd dancing and was followed up by “Kemosabe” which has remained a staple of the band’s set for a decade and was definitely one that everyone in the room knew incredibly well. With a setlist so packed with songs, the band barely took a breath before smashing out banger after banger.
As we reach “Violent Sun” from their 2020 album, “Re-animator” which marked the halfway point of the set, the band were still on top form, with the band’s harmonies as tight as ever. Something truly amazing about Everything Everything is how skilled every single person in the band is at their instrument and how intricate their playing is. Moving back into “Mountainhead”, we got the trio of “Dagger’s Edge”, “City Song” and “Enter The Mirror”. This was a true test of where the real fans were in the room as the “Beep Beep” line in “Dagger’s Edge” was shouted back from the barrier. “City Song”, one of the more mellow moments on the album, brought an insane wave of emotion over the crowd.
Bringing us out of the “Mountainhead” section of the night, we
had “Night of the Long Knives”, potentially one of the best moments of the entire show when Jon, while showing off his impressive falsetto and having too much fun, messed up the words, making the rest of the band laugh. Despite how complex Everything Everything songs are both lyrically and sonically, there is always a huge amount of rhythmic clapping and singing along from the crowd, particularly during “Cough Cough” which has become an essential song for the band’s sets and the loudest part of every show – and tonight was no different.
Rounding out the main set, we were offered “Photoshop Handsome” from the band’s debut album which was a proper reminder of how great their work has been from the very beginning of their career. They also played “Distant Past”, which you could definitely feel from the atmosphere in the crowd, is one of the band’s most popular songs.
After an extremely long and loud cheer from the crowd, the
band returned to the stage for an encore, starting with “Cold Reactor”, the first single from “Mountainhead” which had the band all smiling as the crowd sung it back to them; it is clear that it is very much a crowd favourite from the new album.
“Spring/Sun/Winter/Dread”, saw both the band and the crowd potentially having the most fun of the night with pretty much every person whether they were by the barrier or at the very top of the seats, standing up, smiling and screaming the lyrics back at the band. Everything Everything closed the night with “No Reptiles”, a song that has remained their final moment of each show for a number of years now and is an insanely cathartic experience and feels like coming home every time. Even without playing an entire set of their most popular songs, every song was clearly loved by the audience. Despite the band falling into an odd limbo between being an underground artist and being super mainstream, the outpouring of emotions in the room that night was an indescribable feeling that most artists would dream of.
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