Live Review: Yungblud - The Garage, London 13/09/2018
With a fan’s as committed as a those of a boyband, as much clout as a soundcloud rapper and some of the catchiest punk anthems we’ve heard from the UK in years; Yungblud is here and he’s here to stay!!!
Before jetting off to America for a huge US tour, Yungblud had a short run of shows across the UK, we caught his final show in London’s iconic venue The Garage and boy was it a sweaty one!
Fan’s had been queued up for hours prior to doors opening, buzzing to get a spot on the barrier; so by the time we arrived every inch of the venue was filled. Tonight’s support came from the wonderfully soulful Stereo Honey, a band that has been creating a buzz for themselves for a the past year or so, playing Reading & Leeds and other huge festivals across the UK. For such dreamy and magical sounding music, every chorus seemed to set the crowd into a frenzy; mosh pits opening up and the crowd screaming for more. Not something we were expecting from a Stereo Honey set but we were pleasantly surprised by the level of energy the band and the crowd brought to London tonight. Their huge single ‘What Makes A Man’ was a definite highlight of the set, once again having to mention the levels of craziness that went down in the crowd during the final choruses!!
The next half an hour consisted of constant chants of “YUNGBLUD, YUNGBLUD, YUNGBLUD” from the audience as the crew set up for an extremely hyped up show! The lights dimmed, the rest of the band took their positions on stage; before the man himself stormed onstage as the lights bathed the crowd in his favourite pink shade. Kicking into title track of his debut album ‘21st Century Liability’ Yungblud flung himself around the stage reciting his off the cuff lyrics, ‘Anarchist’ is the first of many of Yungbluds songs that cover some dark topics but present them in a fun energetic way. Depression, suicide and anxiety are a huge part of Yungbluds music and its clear he wants to talk about it as much as he can, because they are still considered taboo subjects especially when it comes to men’s mental health. A fan favourite is the sadder ‘Polygraph Eyes’ which retails the story of a drunken girl being taken advantage of, another taboo but something that needs to be talked about a lot more than it currently is; never the less the whole crowd came to a standstill and sung it back word for word to a smiling Dom. New song ‘Loner’ got a great reaction from the crowd and ourselves, looking forward to hearing an official release of this one cause it’s an absolute banger!!
A quick acoustic version of ‘Kill Somebody’ and the energetic ‘Tin Pan Boy’ before the band said a quick goodbye and exited the stage to everyone’s disappointment; thankfully they were only joking and quickly made their way back onstage for an encore! The song ‘Machine Gun’ turned the crowd from a slight tremor to a full on earthquake of insanity, mosh pits ,dancing and some of the loudest singing we’ve ever heard. After recently doing a Maida Vale session for Radio 1, Yungblud treated the crowd to his mashup of Ariana Grande, Nirvana and JuiceWRLD; lets just say it went down very well hopefully he records it at some point.
Yungblud finished an already epic night off in the best way, with the anthem ‘Die For The Hype’ which had every person grooving and throwing some of the maddest shapes the world has seen. This night was held on a pretty high pedestal but once the dust had settled it was clear how amazing it really was and we are sure that before the end of the year Yungblud is going to be sat on the throne of the music scene.
Words and Photography by Joe Dick