Years & Years - O2 ACADEMY, LEEDS - 14.10.15

I have to admit when I first heard Years & Years' cover of Blu Cantrell's TOP BANGER (sorry, not sorry) "Breathe", I wasn't too impressed. But it (& they) grew on me. I heard "Desire" blaring out in H&M on Valentine's day last year and thought "this ain't half bad." Fast forward 8 months to October 2015 and there I was in the O2 Academy Leeds having my ears blessed with the sonic excellence of these young kids. (I say kids when they're roughly my age, lol). Life is funny ain't it?

I'd known that I would be seeing Years & Years since the beginning of June last year aka final year exams aka peak times. Anywho, it's easy to forget about an upcoming gig with 4 months to go, however when the time came I was ready.

Years & Years played all their hits and some of my faves including: Desire, Shine, King, Take Shelter and of course their Breathe cover. 

But, the stand out moment for me was when Olly (lead singer) invited a fan on stage to sing "Memo"  with him. Now, Memo is a touchingly beautiful song much like Control by Kevin Garrett or Touch by Shura. (Top notch songs by the way, y'all should check 'em out). Now, the guy invited on stage could actually sing and with encouragement from the crowd (& Olly sat beside him in front of the piano), he sang his heart out and even hit those high notes. Serious props yo. Check out the song here.

In all, the gig was just a collection of good times. I can tell the crowd were really enjoying themselves - with eruptions of cheers as known songs came on as well as catchy but lesser known ones to be fair.

I had a great time and Olly's vocals were very much on point. Now every band/artist normally finishes off the show with their biggest song and Years & Years were no exception. King blared through the venue to end a pretty good show.