LIVE REVIEW | EVERYTHING EVERYTHING w/ Prima Queen | SOUTHAMPTON THE 1865 | 16/12/2024 by James O’Sullivan

Just before Christmas, as part of a second UK leg supporting new album ‘Mountainhead’, the avant-garde Mancunians Everything Everything descended on The 1865 in Southampton for a sold-out show filled with their distinct brand of intricately crafted tracks that effortlessly straddle the line between philosophical and nonsensical. The intimate venue was buzzing from the get-go, fans queuing around the block — despite the freezing UK December climate — and even with the venue’s minimal stage, Everything Everything comfortably took up the entire room.

Prima Queen

First up were Prima Queen, a band that owned both the stage and the hearts of their audience, despite only having a fraction of the former to work with. The duo’s hypnotic harmonies and commanding stage presence immediately offered up just why they were asked to be the special guest for Everything Everything’s entire tour: they were damn good. From the menacing vibe of ‘Ugly’, with its sickly green spotlights and hypnotically sinister harmonies helping to set the track’s mood, through ‘Eclipse’, mesmerising in its foreboding lunar beauty, to the slightly eerie ‘Dylan’, dedicated to all two Dylans in the room, Prima Queen delivered. Plus, ‘Oats’ brought with it both a cowbell and a tambourine — what’s not to love?

Promising to add a personal touch with doodles on the last few EPs they had left on tour to those lucky enough to grab them at the merch table, final track (and title track of the group’s upcoming debut album) ‘The Prize’ made sure to leave everyone on a high as they waited for the headliners to appear; calls for one more song, though, reflected just what the brimming room thought of them. Catch them on their headline tour in May.

Everything Everything

Then, it was time. Leave your sanity and disbelief at the doors, folks; unless you’ve seen Everything Everything before, you can’t even begin to picture or predict their bizarre brilliance. Even without the shock and awe lights that often accompany the group with some of their bigger shows, the show was still staggeringly unique: from the shifting guitar lines and rhythms of the disparate songs, each one a marked departure from the next, to the constantly revolving trichotomy of frontman Jonathan Higgs’ vocals, gnarled tension, snarling fury and unfettered falsetto all twisted up in one strangely unique package, each and every track from the band’s back catalogue came into its own. Not to mention the evidently demonic pact Higgs must have made to be art rock’s answer to Eminem, laughing in the face of the near-constant stream of tongue twisters that emerged from his lips.

The crowd took a little while to warm up, sure — that’s the danger when you open with newer tracks, the duo of ‘The Mad Stone’ and ‘Wild Guess’ kicking off proceedings — but by the time they reached 2020’s ‘Arch Enemy’, the red and blue strobes giving the track some of the melodramatic flair and pathos it deserved, the crowd was awash with electric, maniacal singing.

But there was no time to rest — the band happily tore through the setlist like men possessed. ‘Can’t Do’, ‘Kemosabe’, ‘Jennifer’, ‘Metroland Is Burning’… the night flew by, album after album getting a look in — even if, in silhouette, the latter track may have left Higgs resembling a certain blonde-haired former prime minister a little too closely!

There was the odd moment where the band’s usual art rock theatrics were slightly hampered by the size of the stage — like when the mirror prop they’d wheeled out before ‘Enter The Mirror’ couldn’t quite live up to its full potential, and likely going unnoticed by anyone further back. Still, when it came to the instrumental, bass-heavy drops of ‘Night of the Long Knives,’ or the raw passion in ‘Canary’ (Higgs’ eyes tightly shut, lost in the moment), it just didn’t matter. Everyone was just happy to bask in the intimacy of the night, the occasional mishap unnoticed in the joy radiating out from everyone present.

And then there was the rapid-fire nature of ‘Cough Cough’, ‘Violent Sun’, the quickly-renamed ‘Christmas Past’, and the ever-wonderful duo of ‘Spring/Sun/Winter/Dread’ and ‘No Reptiles’ in the encore, the room practically shaking from the cries of the crowd; a cacophony of sounds, the gradually more dubious attempts at singing along building into a maelstrom of sheer noise that simply just reflected a fan base living their best lives, and a band more than happy to orchestrate it.

Everything Everything’s set was a masterclass in being unapologetically unique. As the venue revelled in their genre-defying sound, watching them weave their way through prog, rock, indie, pop, electronic, and probably every other musical influence you can care to mention, it was hard to believe that the band aren’t significantly bigger than they are.

“You’re my EVERYTHING Everything Everything” one man shrieked — judging by the faces looking up at the stage, it was a thought shared by many. Everything came together perfectly — the lighting, the sound, and the energy all grew into one big implosion of innovation.

Catch them on tour supporting The Wombats this March, including a date at London’s The O2.