Between You & Me - The Key Club, Leeds 17.02.2024
On February 17th Aussie Pop Punk heavyweights Between You & Me landed at the Key Club Leeds for the second night on their Shit Yeah Tour, their first ever UK headline run, with support from Broadside and Young Culture.
Kicking things off was Young Culture, a relatively young group from Albany, New York. This was the first time I've come across Young Culture, but from the get go their energy on stage was absolutely electric. In typical pop punk fashion their relationship with the crowd was amazing, with a lot of crowd interaction, and no fear about coming down into the crowd. All throughout their set it seemed like all of the members were having a great time and were grateful to be given such a platform. Each member of the band was phenomenal, however the standout for me had to be vocalist Alex Magnan, who's energy - in my opinion - was very reminiscent of Jayden Seeley (formerly of With Confidence). I can definitely see these guys going far.
Up next was Broadside, hailing from Richmond, Virginia. I've been familiar with Broadside for a couple of years now, with this being my first opportunity to see them live, and they didn't disappoint. It was evident that the crowd was very familiar with their work too, with the majority singing along through their set. With moments of grittier vocals from Ollie Baxxter throughout, there was a bit of a darker edge to their set, with the usual pop punk spirit present in songs like 'Coffee Talk' (which I was very surprised to see them play second). Baxxter also cracked a couple of jokes, some of which didn't exactly land as expected, like his insistence that the UK was anti-ice in our drinks, at which my friend and I turned to each other and looked extremely perplexed, however other moments did have the crowd chuckling along. All in all, a great warm up for the headliner.
Finally to close out, Between You & Me. I've been following these Aussies since their first time in the UK six years ago supporting WSTR on the Identity Crisis tour, so to see them headline after all these years was an absolute dream. Opening with their most well known song 'Dakota' definitely got the crowd in the right mood, with an electric energy all throughout the venue in the sold out crowd. What followed was a tour of their discography, playing songs from 2017 to current day and beyond, with the inclusion of two unreleased songs. Each song had a fervent energy from both the band and the crowd, both parties seeming absolutely ecstatic, however the crowd went particularly crazy for the bands cover of Smash Mouth's infamous song 'All Star'. The performance of each song in this fast paced, no-encore set was absolutely phenomenal, each member of the band brought their absolute best and everyone in the crowd, from front to back could tell. Between You & Me are one of the most fun bands you could want to watch live, you can't help but get involved, as I did, diving into most of the moshpits and crowdsurfing at any opportunity, with each crowdsurfer being given a hand up to the stage by vocalist Jake and Bassist/backing vocalist Bassy every time (due to the lack of a barrier at Key Club), showing how much the band care about their fans. As mentioned before, this wasn't my first time seeing Between You & Me, in fact I think I've only missed out on them while they've been over to the UK once, but they keep getting better every time I see them, and when they come back, you definitely do not want to miss them.
Between You & Me - https://www.facebook.com/BYAMAUS
Broadside - https://www.facebook.com/broadsideva
Young Culture - https://www.facebook.com/youngcultureNY
Review - Gordon Rae
