First of the O2 Academy ‘Golden Ticket’ gigs (thanks again to GetIntoThis) was Everything Everything, a 4 piece band who are receiving quite a bit of attention at the moment (they’re on Jules Holland tonight if you’re stopping in).
The venue pretty much sold out, with both casual patrons & fanbois alike prepared to come out on a fairly dreary evening weather-wise. Shame for everyone then that EE got off to a slow start, with a track interesting for its guitar riffs but light on substance or vocals.
They then stumbled along for about 30 more agonizing minutes of forgettable emo warbling, a cross between Radiohead and any generic 80s mods you’d like to dredge up. The expressions on each of the band members faces (probably faked in order to make it seem like what they do is artistic, rather than, erm, playing guitar) made me wonder if they were all taking the same constipated dump – sometimes pain, sometimes concentration, and finally elation & relief, but always coordinated. The songs themselves were over-long, really quite hard work to listen to, and a little nihilistic, sometimes trailing in and out mid…
That said, something magical happened about 40 minutes in, when we were treated to a final 3 tracks plus an encore of much higher quality than what had gone before. The wishy-washy fragile flower look gave way to something more rocky, with 3 vocals rather than 1, and an injection of fun into the proceedings. By the time they left the stage, the lead singer’s mumbled apology for it being the first date in their tour no longer seemed necessary.
Everything Everything clearly have some ardent fans who seem frankly much more into the songs than the band deserve (always makes me laugh when I see that sort of person, they clearly need to go to some better gigs and get a sense of perspective!). They also have some good tracks, so I’d expect their TV appearance this evening to go down pretty well, but they really need to improve their consistency & self belief if they want the likes of me to take them seriously.
5/10