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Archive for the ‘Biffy Clyro’ Category

Biffy Clyro (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, May 7, 2026)

Posted in Biffy Clyro, Philadelphia, PA, Raue, Theatre of Living Arts on May 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 7, 2026] Biffy Clyro

Four years ago I saw Biffy Clyro at Union Transfer.  They were great.  And I couldn’t get over how back home in Scotland they typically headline festivals of thousands of people.  They recently had a film made about the: Biffy Clyro: Cultural Sons of Scotland in which they played a concert for some 50,000 people.  And yet here they were playing 1,000 person clubs.  But they put on a show as if they were playing for 50,000.  It was awesome.

They had initially announced the tour for December 2025 and there was no Philly date.  But they had visa issues:

“Some [expletive] genius put the wrong start date into our work visa, so when we received our visas in the last couple of days, we realised it doesn’t begin until after our tour is meant to finish,” he said in an Instagram video, adding: “We are so angry about this.”

But their problem is my luck because the newly scheduled dates now included a Philly show.  Whoo hoo!

Last time, they were the trio that they have always been.  But for this tour, bassist James Johnston was seeking treatment for addiction issues and wasn’t able to tour.  In his place was  Naomi Macleod, who has plays bass with Empire State Bastard, Simon Neil’s side project with Dave Lombardo–wish I had gotten to see that!  They also brought out touring guitarist Mike Vennart (who is also in ESB).

As always, the other two guys were shirtless from the get go.  I was in front of singer/guitarist Simon Neil, who puts everything he has into a live show.   His vocal cords must be totally shredded by the end of the night.  Naomi was in  the middle and her bass was excellent.  I couldn’t really see Mike that well, but it was clear when he was adding extra parts to the song (especially when one of them had an acoustic and the other had the electric). (more…)

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Raue (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, May 7, 2026) [BIFFY CLYRO]

Posted in Biffy Clyro, Philadelphia, PA, Raue, Theatre of Living Arts on May 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 7, 2026] Raue 

I had never heard of Raue and assumed they were a young band from Scotland that Biffy Clyro were bringing along with them.  Well, it turns out that Raue (pronounced Roo-aye [German for Rough] is a duo from California.

When they two came out on stage, literally everyone in the room had the same thought: “how old are these two?”  I mean, they couldn’t be more than 16, right?  (Paige Kalenian (guitar vocals is 21, Jax Huckle drums, is 20).  And the thing was that while we were wondering how old they were, they were blowing everybody away.

They are a duo and Paige plays some serious guitar.  The songs are simple, but it never sounds like one guitar.  Somehow she make a full sound even when fingerpicking.  But that’s nothing compared to the wild drumming that Jax does.  I was right in front of him and holy cow he blew me away.  He has incredible speed, he throws in terrific fills and he;s really creative–it’s possible they sound so huge because of all the drums that Jax is playing.

Paige is just full of energy–she jumps all around the stage when she’s not singing.  They set the two of them pretty far apart, and Paige was all over the stage, bouncing from the drums back to the mic.  And their look was amusing too–Paige with dyed purple hair and sleeveless concert T while Jax was wearing an open Oxford shirt over a white Tshirt.

I liked Paige’s voice, but the only negative about the show is that she sang similarly on all of the songs–it’s a good sound for the grungy music they play, but I think it would be better if she had more range.  Having said that, it was kind of hard to hear her in the mix, so maybe she has more diversity than I realized. (more…)

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Biffy Clyro (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, April 25, 2022)

Posted in Biffy Clyro, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on April 26, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 25, 2022] Biffy Clyro

I’m not exactly sure when I got into Biffy Clyro.  Probably just hearing about them all the time in the British music press.

Biffy Clyro is absolutely massive at home in Scotland and they typically headline festivals of thousands of people.  They recently had a film made about the: Biffy Clyro: Cultural Sons of Scotland in which they played a concert for some 50,000 people.

Then they did an American tour and I got to see them at Union Transfer, a venue of 1,200 which did not sell out.

And yet as far as I could tell, they played as if there were 50,000 people there.

The three shirtless lads came out on stage to much applause (those in the States who like them like them a lot) and they proceeded to kick arse playing huge anthems to a small crowd who responded with energy and excitement.

The band last played Philaelphia in 2017 and they had two new albums to showcase.  They played six from 2020’s A Celebration of Endings and four from the newer The Myth of the Happily Ever After.

The good thing is that I knew they’d be featuring these two albums so I listened to them a lot and the live versions were even better–with so much energy comes from singer Simon Neil and remarkable drumming from Ben Johnston.  His twin brother James Johnston plays bass and somehow, the three of them sound like a wall of sound.  It was intense high energy sing along stadium rock up close and personal.

The only real slowdown came when Simon sang a solo acoustic version of “Machines”

Despite featuring the new albums highly, they also dipped into some older records. I actually don’t know what their hits are, so I didn’t really know what they’d play along with the new records.  They didn’t go very deep (ignoring their first three records entirely).

They hit four songs from Only Revolutions (their best selling album), but the crowd greatly appreciated them.

I’m clearly not as big a fan as most of the people there, but I really enjoyed a night of Biffy Fucking Clyro.  I don’t see arena rock all that much, but seeing it in an intimate setting like this was awesome.

  1. DumDum µ
  2. A Hunger in Your Haunt µ
  3. Tiny Indoor Fireworks €
  4. Black Chandelier ⊄
  5. North of No South €
  6. That Golden Rule ©
  7. Instant History €
  8. Mountains ©
  9. Machines (Simon Neil solo acoustic)
  10. Unknown Male 01 µ
  11. End Of €
  12. Wolves of Winter ∴
  13. Space €
  14. Slurpy Slurpy Sleep Sleep µ
  15. Re-Arrange ∴
  16. Living Is a Problem Because Everything Dies
  17. Bubbles ©
    Encore:
  18. Cop Syrup €
  19. Many of Horror ©

µ The Myth of the Happily Ever After (2021)
€ A Celebration of Endings (2020)
∴ Ellipses (2016)
⊄ Opposites (2013)
© Only Revolutions (2009)
¶ Puzzle (2007)

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Dead Poet Society (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, April 25, 2022) [BIFFY CLYRO]

Posted in Biffy Clyro, Dead Poet Society, Jeff Buckley, Philadelphia, PA, Union Transfer on April 25, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 25, 2022] Dead Poet Society

I am usually pretty early for shows.  Not super early, but usually 20 minutes before the opener.  And usually that’s fine to get up close to the stage (unless the headliner has a huge fan base, then forget it).  I thought I had arrived in plenty of time for this show, but I think Dead Poet Society went on a few minutes early because I wound up walking in in the middle of their set.

Dead Poet Society are from Massachusetts and they create epic, bombastic rock.  There is the heaviness of Led Zeppelin in there with some good old indie rock noise thrown in the mix.  But the most notable thing about the is singer Jack Underkofler’s voice which sounds uncannily like Jeff Buckley most of the time.  I suppose there’s a Robert Plant component to it as well, but Buckley all over it.

Which is not a criticism at all.  Buckley’s voice was amazing and to be able to do something similar is very impressive.

Indeed, their songs rocked and they were really engaging.  The one thing that was odd to me was how much Underkofler acted like they were the headlining band.  I’m not entirely sure how much the crowd was with them just yet for him to be demanding the sing and clap along.  But by the end of the show, they had won everyone over I think.

I was near guitarist Jack Collins who made some great noises, bassist Dylan Brenner and drummer Will Goodroad, played heavy and loud and kept everything very tight.  Some have commented on their rather cryptic song title stylings on their debut album -!-, but I think it works pretty well with their overall sound.

Based on the previous night, this was their setlist

  1. Lo Air Ð
  2. .burymewhole. -!-
  3. .georgia. -!-
  4. Bacalar
  5. .SALT. -!-
  6. Touch
  7. .AmericanBlood. -!-
  8. Sound and Silence ∇
  9. .intoodeep. -!-
  10. .CoDA. -!-

-!- (2021)
∇ Axiom (2015)
Ð Depmsy (2016)

 

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