Biffy Clyro, Glasgow review: 'thrillingly ferocious'

In revisiting their debut album, Blackened Sky, Biffy Clyro took songs that once sounded raw and DIY and gave them an epic, stadium-sized sound, writes David Pollock
Simon Neil of Biffy ClyroSimon Neil of Biffy Clyro
Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro | AFP via Getty Images

Biffy Clyro, Barrowland, Glasgow ★★★★

“It’s good to see so many friendly and familiar faces here tonight,” said Simon Neil of Kilmarnock-bred rockers Biffy Clyro, on the first night of a special three-gig stand at the Barrowland. “Music means a lot to us, this band means a lot to us and you mean a lot to us.”

These three concerts certainly offer a rare, relatively intimate experience given that Biffy’s natural habitat is currently huge arenas. Subtitled A Celebration of Beginnings – a play on the title of their 2020 album A Celebration of Endings – each of the three nights will see the band revisit one of their first three records in full, more than 20 years on.

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For this first show, the record in the spotlight was the band’s 2002 debut Blackened Sky, with the Barrowland now the closest we’ll get to the kind of sweatily intimate club venue they played back then. As ever, Neil and fellow guitarist James Johnstone were stripped to the waist, which seemed like a smart decision, given their furious energy and the heat in the room.

On record these songs sounded raw and DIY, but here they took on board the rolling, epic qualities the band’s experience of playing huge rooms has brought them.

The set began with the moody, pace-shifting Joy. Discovery. Invention. and also took in the enduringly anthemic fan favourite 57. The electric ballad Scary Mary closed off the retrospective part of the show with a bittersweet, end-of-the-night feel. “It should've been a double album,” Neil said of Blackened Sky.

They returned a few minutes later with a bespoke, 13-song second set drawn from across their career, including the thrillingly ferocious Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies, Neil’s solo, acoustic Break a Butterfly on a Wheel and the mountainous metal closer Stingin’ Belle.

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A look at the setlists from the week’s earlier shows in London reveals that each of these additional sets links into one expansive, multi-part overview of the best of the band’s career. Hopefully anyone also attending on Friday and Saturday has been in training for the moshpits.

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