Monday 18/08/08 You Me At Six, Rolo Tomassi @ Camden Barfly, London

Sometimes you can get a bit ‘been there, seen that’ when you see bands more than once. Maybe it’s that they’ve nothing new to showcase or that they’re bored with doing the same set over and over again, and need to enliven their live performance with a much needed kick up the proverbial.

Last time we saw Rolo Tomassi, the word, amazing didn’t quite cover it. There was a flashing light show, and a Sin City backdrop, which was very dark and very gothic, and very cool (although if you’re epileptic, then you’d probably not have appreciated it!). Thing is, they’ve bought the exact same thing to the Camden Barfly which, for all its indie poseur posturing, is a pretty decent venue, and here, it doesn’t quite work. To start off with, RT are supporting the ‘scene’ band of the moment (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing) and people here, simply do not ‘get’ what they are trying to achieve. Even we’re in that contingent right now because even though Eva and co. are trying, they really do just end up doing that. Which is a sad shame because they’re a great band.

In contrast, this is You Me At Six’s crowd. They might well be friends of the band (we’re pretty sure that at least a quarter of the crowd fall into that classification), but whoever they are, they do ‘get’ it. They get that lead singer, Josh Franceschi’s hair falls over his eyes during all the do-eyed, girlie, lovesick bits; they get that this is the band whose tracks they’ve been dancing to in front of Kerrang TV; they get that the video with the house party, which they were probably at, is how they’d spend their well deserved summer, if it wasn’t pissing down with rain the whole bloody time! They sing their hearts out to ‘Save it for the Bedroom’, whilst cooing over the lead singer, wishing he was singing about them; they scream along at all the right parts of ‘You’ve Made Your Bed’; they even shake their hips for ‘Gossip’.  You get me? They get this. And we think it’s catching; there’s a British pop punk invasion coming your way this year. Come on, who wants to see a Kids in Glass Houses and You Me At Six joint tour? You might just get it.