Revolutions: Live at Wembley - Review

The 4th December was a pretty special day.  Biffy Clyro's biggest gig to date at Wembley Arena and we were there.  The gig was amazing and now Biffy have released a recording of the concert as a an album with a DVD included.

It's been beautifully done, so many live albums don't do the band or the concert justice, but Revolutions gets things right by including as much crowd noise as possible without spoiling the music.  On the quieter songs like Machines or Many of Horror you can hear the crowd bellowing along to every word.  It's that noise that I go to big gigs for.  As much as I love live music there's something about the almost tribal singing of a big group of people that makes every hair stand on end.  I love that noise.  Here it's everywhere.

There's some disappointment that it's not the whole gig: nineteen of the twenty five songs played are included and Just Boy and Joy.Discovery.Invention are missed.  It's a bit of a Greatest Hits, with added backing vocals, and if you don't own any Biffy this is a pretty good introduction.  All of the more familiar stuff is here and once again it's a reminder of how much better the songs from Only Revolutions sound live, Bubbles in particular is just a different song.  More energy, less Snow Patrol leanings, louder guitars, perfect.

It's the DVD that brings things to another level.  Not the imagery to be honest, that's pretty much standard live gig that's been filmed fodder, but it was recorded in 5.1 and fuck me does it sound impressive on a surround sound.  It's a shame it's not available as a BluRay, but from the quality of the pictures it doesn't look like it was filmed in anything but standard def.  Pity.

Highlights are much the same as they were at the gig.  Many of Horror is reclaimed from X-Factor, Folding Stars is incredibly beautiful and Machines is about as perfect as a song can be.  Mountains?  Well Mountains just roars.
★★★★★

And on a personal note....

I adored the Foo's a few weeks back at Isle of Wight but this is a reminder that last December at Wembley I sang/shouted/screamed along to Biffy through all the glitter and the trauma at the end of last year loving every cathartic mother fucking second.   When they played All The Way Down that night it was the perfect moment.  Perfect lyrics to a fucked up situation that seven months later I'm well past and well out of.  It's good to be able to go back to Revolutions with fresh ears and just remember why I fucking fell for Biffy in the first place without all that shit dragging with it.  That before they were your band they were mine.  Wondrous noise.  Glorious quiet.  All the Way Down.  


'And I'll try not to think what the happy things were.'