You Me At Six, 12th October 2011, Leeds 02 Academy

Going to a gig in Leeds without being struck by the roaring echoes of “Yorkshire! Yorkshire!” is like having a traditional Sunday roast without the Yorkshire pudding. It just doesn’t happen.

“At one of our first gigs in Leeds at the Cockpit we didn’t know about the Yorkshire thing; we just thought they were saying you’re shit.” recalls Josh Franceschi, front man of You Me At Six.

But from the Cockpit to the 02 academy it appears that they’re bewildered as to how they can sell out venues of this magnitude. They’ve clearly become more confident as a band. Franceschi more forthright. “Don’t call my mates. I’ll knock you out; you prick.” retorts Franceschi as the mention of Oli Sykes provokes a booming boo.

 After securing Lower Than Atlantis and Deaf Havana as supports; it would have been an understatement to say that I was excited. With the uncommonly early start of 6.00pm, Lower Than Atlantis were already on stage thundering through a set bursting with tracks from their latest album,  World Record,  ahead of a still lengthy queue outside. Although they didn’t rouse the greatest of reactions, their Foo Fighters medley did drum up a speck of movement.

Deaf Havana were unexpectedly disappointing. Lead singer James Veck-Gilodi’s voice is what I consider to be flawless but by omitting lyrics by over oohing and ahhing, the songs were barely recognisable and at times hardly audible. They did redeem themselves with ‘Friends like these’ and ‘Nicotine and Alcohol’ but collectively they sounded sparse and discordant. I’ve saw them before and have gone as far as to say that they are one of the best live bands, but their support slot was shambolic and tenuous in places. Maybe they were having a bad day; or at least I hope so.

Whenever a band releases a new album they have a tendency to force feed you new songs incessantly without giving you time to digest it all. You Me At Six didn’t do this. Kicking in with ‘The Consequence’, the perfect opener with its opening siren signal encouraged an outburst of movement from the crowd. Likewise, by revisiting old favourites ‘Save It for the bedroom’ and ‘Trophy Eyes’ a furore of enthusiasm amongst the crowd saw them singing along to every word. Undoubtedly, they excel in their faster paced songs that are accompanied by swirling circle pits but don’t quite pull off the slower tracks, regardless everyone else seemed to enjoy it. With Franceschi’s 2 middle fingers punctuating the air during the explosive ‘Bite My Tongue’; it was as if his gesture was directed to any who said that rock music was dead.

Returning for the encore they bounded into latest single ‘Loverboy’ unleashing Chris Miller and his guitar off in to a spiralling riff that left me as lightheaded as when the screaming banshees behind me insisted on screeching whenever Josh Franceschi opened his mouth.

There was a sense that they were trying to escape the Pop Punk image that has so clearly defined them with a set consisting largely of their more mature, rock fuelled songs rather than tracks off their first album – Take off Your Colours.

So that’s a sell out tour and a top 3 album with Sinners Never Sleep  to add to their repertoire; who was it that said rock music was dead again?