The 2,500 capacity Portsmouth Guildhall is the venue for the final night of You Me At Six’s penultimate UK tour, after their recent announcement that after 20 years they are calling it a day in 2025 – with a final tour next year.
Before the headliners, we get two support acts: Call Me Amour and Deaf Havana. A while before Call Me Amour’s set, one of their crew threw out free tee-shirts to the crowd — both a great way to build up some good will and excitement, and maybe more cynically, a great way to spread the band’s merch’ around the crowd for social media.
Call Me Amour were pretty active last year, touring at the tail end of 2023 with Against The Current, as well as The Hara earlier that year, the band have garnered a small but fanatic fan base of their own.
So, when they eventually emerged to the cheers of the hundreds already gathered — many of whom were queuing long before doors — everyone sure knew it. With frontman Harry Radford channeling his best Kiefer-from-The-Lost-Boys look, and the masked-up, faceless Mikey Gatt casting an imposing figure on bass, the visuals alone were worth turning up early for.
The oppressively dark “La La”, with Harry standing aloft on the barrier around the sound desk at the back of the crowd, or the electronically pounding closer of “Girl On The Wall”, were icing on the proverbial cake.
Ending on the announcement that they would be playing their own headline show at The Underworld in London’s Camden in September, Call Me Amour’s set might have felt a little short, but it was one perfectly tuned for the bands to follow. Calls for a mosh pit by an ever-so-slightly disappointed Radford were left unfulfilled by the sleepy Sunday night crowd.
Deaf Havana, a band almost as ubiquitous in the UK rock scene as You Me At Six, having formed only a year or so after, they’ve been present for the You Me At Six saga almost as much as the You Me At Six boys have themselves; and, despite line-up changes, genre switch ups and more, they’re still just as good as ever.
People always say good band mates are like family, but with brothers James and Matt Veck-Gilodi up-front — and Matt pulling double duties, tearing it up on the guitar and adding electronic flourishes on the laptop set up in front of him, as well as providing the odd lead vocal — it’s truer than most.
Rife with passion, laced with shared nostalgia, and sprinkled with a heady dose of post-hedonistic hindsight, Deaf Havana’s music flits between slow alt-pop, full of synths and soul, and an explosive blend of rock; from the surprisingly bass-heavy ballad “Evil”, full of squealing guitars in the instrumental breakdown, or the anthemic earworm of poppy, peppy fan-favourite “Sinner” to the rockier “England” or opener “Trigger”, the set was nothing short of incredible.
The highlight though, came with the songs which let James show his vocals off to the truest extent. It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say that he has one of the most powerful and passionate voices in the UK rock scene, and “Hell” provided the perfect opportunity to showcase it, as he crooned and roared through the track.
The only surprise came with the lack of tracks from 2013’s “Old Souls”, with just the token “Mildred” offered up, though with two shows later this week at Islington Assembly Hall celebrating the album, their fans have a brace of chances to hear it. A band impossible not to enjoy.
Then it was time. The lights dropped, the backdrop glowing an ominous cerulean blue; the screams started, amplified by the sudden onset of anticipatory excitement; and, of course, the phones began to sprout into the air. You Me At Six had arrived.
With this tour being in celebration of the anniversary of “Cavalier Youth”, the set was a fan-appeasing mix of new and old — although the setlist only managed to incorporate five songs from that 12-song album, including the opening duo of “Room To Breathe” and “Fresh Start Fever”.
They gave stripped-back versions of “Be Who You Are” and “Stay With Me”, Josh and co. seated on stage with acoustic guitars in hand. “Kiss and Tell” and “Save It For The Bedroom”, [the latter song dedicated to the venue’s security!] from those halcyon early days of 2008.
Those calmer songs went hand in hand with newcomers “:mydopamine:” [which received its live debut on this tour], and the Rou Reynolds-featuring “No Future? Yeah Right”. Portsmouth was also treated to some deep cuts, such as Thorpe Park’s “The Swarm”, as well as more literally by way of 2023’s rocky number “Deep Cuts”.
However, it was in the moments that the band got to sing to the crowd, rather than at them, that made the night. Whether it was the heart-wrenching “Take On The World”, which saw all lights in the venue turned off before being drenched in the collective torches of 2,500 screaming fans, or the string of six songs affectionately titled “The Mosh Pit”,…
Beginning with, of course, the explosive “Bite My Tongue”, which encouraged ‘terrifying’ the security team by way of mosh pits and crowd surfing. It was the ones that let the crowd offload their emotions onto the stage that felt like a band relishing their vaunted careers, rather than simply rehashing them.
“It’s 2024 and You Me At Six are still your fucking band”, Josh yells to the crowd shortly after coming on stage; and for one glorious night, even with the knowledge that there won’t be many more like it, they were.
Portsmouth setlist [You Me At Six]
All Night Long [tape]
(Lionel Richie song)
Room to Breathe
Fresh Start Fever
Reckless
(The Killers’ ‘When You Were Young’ outro)
Kiss and Tell
Lived a Lie
Cold Night
Mixed Emotions (I Didn’t Know How to Tell You What I Was Going Through)
:mydopamine:
Be Who You Are (Acoustic)
Stay With Me (Acoustic)
Take On The World
Bite My Tongue
No Future? Yeah Right
Loverboy
The Swarm
Fast Forward
Save It for the Bedroom (Dedicated to the venue security)
Encore:
Deep Cuts
Underdog
Beautiful Way
Words: James O’Sullivan
Live photos: Kevin O’Sullivan * [Not ‘red promo’ shot top of page or album cover image]
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