This magazine last covered You Me At Six just over a year ago on the 18th Feb 2024 in Portsmouth, with Deaf Havana and Call Me Amour on support, as part of their penultimate tour. Before that it was June 2018 at the Download Festival.
Sadly this time out is the last opportunity to catch them in action, as they are splitting up after a two-decade career, following this mammoth trek around the UK and Ireland, billed as “The Final Nights Of Six” tour.
Norwich (night 1 of 2 consecutive shows) is the eighth gig of the 37-date tour which kicked off in Brighton 10 days ago, and closes with a brace of gigs at Wembley Ovo Arena on the third and fourth of April.
Most shows sold out, and a few with limited tickets left. Lucrative business a farewell tour, which has already included treks around New Zealand, Australia, South and North America, and Europe as their final lap of honour.
I caught this band live once before tonight; a good few years ago at the now defunct V Festival on the main stage on a sunny daytime set, when at the end of song # 1, singer Josh Franceschi decided to tell the massive crowd to ignore the security announcements and the notices banning crowd surfing and to go for it. Which promoted a mass frenzy of fans following Josh’s lead and doing just that.
Security guys and gals very peed off and having to deal with the safety issues, clearing the pit of VIP guests and press photographers after just the one song, while they pulled people out of the pit one by one when their surfing stint reached the barrier.
I was really, really impressed with them at V Fest, even though I’d not really them on my radar before that. Since then I have enjoyed most of their releases and truly admired their growth and development.
This band have had a marvellous 20 year career since forming in Weybridge in Surrey in 2005, and they have a huge and loyal following and fanbase. They have delivered eight studio albums, one live record, seven EPs and a slew of singles – I make it circa 48 – with four albums going gold.
Their most recent LP is 2023’s “Truth Decay” [# 4 in the UK album chart] and prior to that, the superb “Suckapunch” in 2021, one of two of their LPs which topped the UK album chart.
The Norwich gig is totally rammed and it is a mainly young audience, and they definitely get their money’s worth with a bumper 22-song set trawling most of their entire back catalogue of albums, and many singles from the choice material: That’s 19 songs in the main set plus a three-song encore.
Drummer Daniel Flint is still missing after he apparently injured his back and had to pull out of the first night of the tour, with just four hours notice to stand-in drummer Harry Kennings learning the songs to step in for the indisposed Daniel, who has now so far missed eight of these gigs.
So tonight we get frontman Josh Franceschi, Max Helyer and Chris Miller on guitars, Matt Barnes on bass and backing vocals and super sub drummer Harry.
Support tonight comes from Scottish indie rock band The Excerts, formed in 2001 by then 13-year-olds Murray Macleod and Jordan Smith, after meeting in the headmaster’s room at college in Aberdeen. Now with drummer Tom Heron who replaced Ross McTaggart.
The lads did a decent job for their half hour set. The second night of YMA6 at this Norwich venue will see The Skints getting the support slot. Lots of different bands chosen by the headliners for the support slots for each date on this farewell tour; many of whom they have shared a stage with before and these are bands that YMA6 are admirers of. Nice gesture.
You Me At Six setlist – Norwich 25/02/25
Room To Breathe
Lover Boy
Stay With Me
Save It For The Bedroom
Deep Cuts
Give
Night People
Fresh Start Fever
Straight To my Head
Lived A Lie
Crash
Suckapunch
Jealous Minds
No Future? Yeah Right
Mixed Emotions (I Didn’t Know How To Tell You What I Was Going Through)
No One Does It Better
Liquid Confidence (Acoustic Josh & Max)
Take On The World
Beautiful Way
ENCORE
Bite My Tongue
Reckless
UnderDog
I half expected a sombre vibe from the audience tonight for this farewell to a beloved band that many here have grown up with since they were still at school, but neither the fans nor the band were occupying that particular head space. No sir…
Not so much a funeral or wake and more a cheery and energetic celebration of these boys’ talents and achievements. Perhaps many thinking and hoping this was probably more of au revoir and a hiatus than a final goodbye. Are they done or will they miss it so much that sometime in the future, they’ll be temped back?
Lots of bands and artists milk the last weeks/months or even years of their career after they say they are done, by which time most may well be past their sell-by date so their final shows are about the ££$$ and pass off as a damp squib rather than a glorious goodbye. Not this band….
You Me At Six still sound and look like a band with another 20+ years in them on this stage tonight and from their most recent album release.
They still have the energy and the creative fire, still delivering a powerful live set and still writing strong and credible stuff. Still good mates and it’s nice that they are not splitting up amid internal rows or fights and because they cannot stand each other, as often is the case when bands throw in the towel after a long innings.
So that is most definitely a big positive for the fans who managed to snap up a red hot ticket for a show on this final tour, seeing the band still at the height of their power as a unit and as individual musicians. The lads come across as nice guys who really care about their fans too. They are old hands at the live side of the business with several world tours, more than one billion streams and TV, radio and press exposure globally.
Josh Franceschi is a frontman for all seasons; a superb singer with that star quality the beams out of him. You can tell he bloody loves this job for every second. I doubt we have seen the last of him after this tour, and I spend the night wondering if a solo career beckons for him.
They kick off in Norwich with “Room To Breathe”, “Lover Boy” and “Stay With Me” before the fan-fave and fun “Save It For The Bedroom”, then “Deep Cuts” and “Give”. No one can fault any of these first half a dozen numbers [or in fact any of the entire two hour set.] “Liquid Confidence’ gives the mosh pit a rest some 17 songs into the set, featuring just Josh and guitarist Max Helyer on acoustic guitar.
The other band members return for “Take On The World” and those torch lights twinkle across the venue as the fans sing along. They end the main set with “Beautiful Way”, before the triple encore songs: great versions of “Bite My Tongue”, and “Reckless”, both songs from the band’s wonderful album “Sinners Never Sleep” – and to finish off the set, the fab “UnderDog”, the latter prompting a deafening 1500–strong “choir” singing back every word to the band.
Immediately before the band came on stage tonight at 9pm, the Oasis classic “Don’t Look Back In Anger” was blasted across the PA system, prompting a mass singalong.
Maybe it is more of a case of ‘don’t look back in sadness’ when Josh, Max, Chris, Matt and stand-in hero Harry exit the stage here in Norwich, and after the final show at Wembley Arena in circa five weeks time [ when hopefully Daniel is back in action by then.]
Wind back to a year ago and the band’s Portsmouth gig which we covered, Josh yelled to the crowd, “It’s 2024 and You Me At Six are still your fucking band”, shortly after coming on stage. Well it is now 2025 and the same sentiment was very much alive and well for a couple of hours tonight.
Maybe a few tears from some fans as they left the venue, and perhaps even from some of the band backstage, but all in all they came, they tore the place a new one and they left everyone with a treasured “I was there” memory. Me included. Way to go out, fellas…
Support band The Excerts in action…
Live photos by Liam Battersby
Words by Christopher Weston
