YOU ME AT SIX / MARMOZETS | LIVE REVIEW
Great Hall, Cardiff University Students Union, Sat 1 Dec
Trends change. We’ve moved from CDs to Spotify and Machine Gun Kelly is somehow a thing now, but pop-punk never ages. It’s the eternal teenager of music – all colourful band tees, Converse sneakers, catchy hooks and California-tinged laid-back cheer. When sadness rears its lyrical head, it’s quickly counteracted by a soaring crescendo and a rhythm guitarist executing a perfect scissor jump from an amp.
Pop punk is safe, welcoming, unchallenging. It feels like home. And You Me At Six are the genre’s undisputed British masters. There’s a bit of a shakeup, then, when one support act abandons the sunny vibes billed on tonight’s lineup. Dreamy indie-popsters The Xcerts are predictably peppy and entirely enjoyable, but when Marmozets barrel their way onstage in bomber jackets and smash their way through new album opener Play, eyes pop.
Their supercharged setlist takes us on an all-too brief joyride through albums one and two and is astutely judged to omit some of their heavier tracks, in keeping with the bands they’re sandwiched between. That’s not to say they wimp out – vocalist Becca Macintyre’s impressive range pisses all over most other singer/screamers of her generation, to the point where some of the softer You Me At Six crowd are visibly rattled.
Fortunately for the roar-averse, their heroes are ready to soothe any grated nerves with more anthemic choruses than a U2 Greatest Hits compilation. You Me At Six have nailed the millennial ‘woah-oh’, and boy do the crowd lap it up. Kicking off with new belter Fast Forward, the quintet swing straight into a rapidfire triple threat of pop-rock singalongs that set the student-heavy crowd bouncing like a pit of puppies.
It’s stirring stuff, but very, very safe. Frontman Josh Franceschi clutches his chest and emotes all over lovelorn odes like Stay With Me, and the crowd grab their hearts along with him. It’s catch-all catharsis of the kind that every suburban teenager can relate to. No boundaries are being pushed tonight, but that’s OK because YMAS know exactly what their audience wants – the comfort of a grin-inducing formula that passes pop-punk’s gold standard and makes you pump your fist with innocent, non-aggressive abandon.
The set ticks on like clockwork, every choreographed posture and “you having a good night, Cardiff?” setting off wave after wave of cheers. They beat on, energy unwavering, showcasing that same optimistic teenage zeal that’s been powering them since they started out in 2004 when pop-punk was at its zenith and things didn’t seem quite as crappy as they do today. Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t matter that You Me At Six are kind of coasting on an unbreaking nostalgia wave. Everyone needs a bit of escapism, after all, and where better to retreat than the safety of the past?
words BETTI HUNTER photos AMY FARRER
