As part of War Child’s BRITs week, Scottish rock titans Biffy Clyro blew the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire to bits with an astonishing double set of granite-hard anthems. War Child shows always have a special quality to them, with no exception this year. Paul Weller and Corinne Bailey Rae had turned up to support Richard Hawley, while The 1975 were playing a show the following night in a ridiculously small 500-capacity venue. Biffy Clyro had something special in mind too and, as they were introduced onto the stage by Chris Moyles, he told the crowd that their only requirement was that they wanted to also be the support act. By playing a warm-up set comprising of songs taken solely from their first three albums, they delivered a once in a lifetime experience to a crowd of die-hard fans who had purchased their tickets through a ballot system. 

With queues round the block, rarely will a crowd have been so desperate to get in place well before the support. To the sounds of football-crowd chants from the crowd of ‘Biffy’ and ’Mon The Biff’, the band burst onto the stage bare-chested as usual and ready for action. The synthrock intro to the first track ‘Glitter And Trauma’, taken from 2004’s Infinity Land, sounded so unlike what you would expect from a Biffy Clyro track nowadays until the powerful riff kicked in.

Each of the songs was greeted like an old friend, with lots of excited glances between friends and comments like “I can’t believe they’re playing this!” Frontman Simon Neil was visibly delighted to see such a reaction from the crowd, telling them not to worry as they were “gonna be ‘monning all night” in reference to the ever present chant. He pointed out that the crowd was a lot bigger than when they originally toured these songs, but they were probably playing them worse as they hadn’t rehearsed them in so long. That fear was needless. As with all great bands, while the songwriting may have continued to improve since their initial recordings, they have still got the same fire in their bellies that they always had. The sheer ferocity of this set left you wondering how they could sustain it over an entire night. 

During a swift interval, Chris Moyles returned to the stage with the War Child CEO Rob Williams, and a 15-year-old refugee named Oscar. Reducing the whole crowd to silence and more than a few to tears, Oscar gave his story of rescue from his homeland of the Democratic Republic of Congo in a simple matter-of-fact speech. Hearing the entire venue chant his name after he told of his journey, from being a nameless orphan with no known date of birth to an eloquent and intelligent Deputy Head Boy at a school in England, will last long in the memory of all who were in attendance.

After standing as still as statues in darkness for what seemed like minutes with the anticipation building, Biffy launched into a set so full of hits and planet-sized riffs that it took my breath away. The beauty of performing their own warm-up was that the band were already primed and in the zone, and the first few tracks flew past in what seemed like a moment. With his face now masked by his long hair, Neil prowled the stage like an animal, while bassist James Johnston was also a constant ball of energy, rushing backwards and forwards to his amps to squeeze every last inch of sound out of his guitar. Behind them both, Ben Johnston provided the engine of the band with his relentless pummelling style on drums.

Biffy would ordinarily be playing in vast stadiums and arenas, so to watch them enjoying the chance to be this close to the audience was a real treat. Each gargantuan song was followed by another, in a never-ending run of devastating noise, encapsulated by the likes of ‘Bubbles’ where the final riff threatened to rip through the very bricks of the building itself. Neil’s face burst into a wide grin as he was outsung by the crowd on ‘Black Chandelier’, making it clear that the band were enjoying this just as much as the audience. Swigging water throughout the set, the band wrapped up with ‘Many Of Horror’ in a manner that showed that any worries about maintaining their energy levels were groundless. 

As Neil sang in ‘Wolves Of Winter’: “We have achieved so much more than you possibly thought we could” – words that seemed to sum up the entire evening. For Biffy Clyro, it was a night that celebrated a journey from their very earliest beginnings to becoming one of the biggest rock bands in the world. More importantly, it spoke volumes about the potential in children like Oscar, and charities like War Child and the important work that they do.

Jamie MacMillan

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