Biffy Clyro - Finsbury Park - Live Review

A full day of bands and a heatwave that was not going anywhere. This was Biffy Clyro's biggest headline show to date, and 45,000 people standing in a park under a clear sky gives that kind of occasion a particular weight.

They opened with The Captain, the whole hill went in immediately. That Golden Rule followed, and then during Who's Got a Match, Simon Neil produced an actual flamethrower from the side of the stage and sent flames up into the air above his head. He told the crowd they were getting old stuff and new stuff, and that he was holding it for the rest of the night. I was next to a Scottish chap who had come down for the show and was already well beyond words. Scotland flags throughout the crowd. You could tell this meant something.

The production was relentless - pyro, fireworks from behind the stage throughout - but the moments that cut through were the quieter ones. During Instant History, Neil came over to my side of the stage. A small thing. The a cappella of There's No Such Man as Crasp was something else - the full band under one light, no instruments, and 45,000 people going quiet for it. Jaggy Snake hit straight after and the place erupted. Black Chandelier and Mountains had the whole hill moving before the band left for the encore.

Jamie Campbell Bower coming out for Machines was not something I had on my bingo card. It worked though, genuinely affecting in a set that had otherwise been relentlessly loud. Wolves of Winter, then Bubbles, then Many of Horror to close. The fireworks went off and the crowd carried the last chorus long after the band had stopped.

Leaving the park with ears still ringing, it was hard to argue with what 30 years of this looks like when it all comes together at once.

Support for the day was well worth getting in early for.

Nothing But Thieves were the sub headliner. Conor Mason's voice was doing things it probably shouldn't in that heat, and he kept stepping back from the mic to let the crowd take the choruses - which they did, at volume. He took a FIFA hydration break between songs and got immediately booed, then told the story of how he first met Biffy in Ireland years back - Simon apparently ran up to him after hearing an early NBT track and told him he loved it. A nice detail. They played Evolution from the new album, due out later in the year, and Stray Dogs got its live debut too, already sounding like it had been in the set for months.

Don Broco were the afternoon's other high point. Rob Damiani had the whole park doing circle pits before most people had finished their first drink, and by Hype Man the crowd surfers were stacking up. He also took a hydration break and got booed for it. He introduced them as "a band from Bedford" and said that Biffy were pretty much the reason they started - and after 20 years together, you believe him. The crowd did too.

Marmozets pushed through some early stubborn technical issues, to win over the early crowd.