We Are Scientists @ O2 Academy Liverpool, Thu 2 Dec 21st

As the shambles/euphoria of the previous night’s football fades, music once again takes centre stage in the city, with the O2 Academy staging two of the biggest alumni from the early 2000s.

Upstairs it’s bizarro-rockers The Darkness, downstairs it’s the wildly under-rated US indie popsters We Are Scientists. They are here tonight in Liverpool in support of their seventh album Huffy, which is their best chart-performing release since 2008’s sophomore record Brain Thrust Mastery. They are probably most well known for their debut record With Love And Squalor, which was home to some extremely popular indie bangers. Unfortunately, they never stayed at the mega-popular band stage, as they, rather unfairly just like other bands such as OK Go and Fountains Of Wayne, were maybe dismissed by the purists as somehow not taking it seriously enough, due to the onstage humorous antics between the two guitar playing vocalist stalwarts Chris Cain and Keith Murray, who have been together since the beginning. In those years since, the recorded output has got more substantial and thoughtful, whilst still keeping a firm grip on the catchy anthem.

Coach Party: Image from band FB

First though tonight, there is the not so small matter of Coach Party, this evening’s opening act, a four-piece from the Isle of Wight, who released their debut 6 track mini album (or is it classed as an EP) After Party back in April. And it’s easy to see why they have been chosen for the tour support, their tunes are full of energy and sporadic noise bursts, the sheer wall of sound of the likes of Everybody Hates Me and Crying Makes Me Tired, with its extended finale pleasing a healthy crowd that have got in early to check them out, enjoying the marvelous vocal interplay between all the vocalists on stage. The highlight of the set is the latest single FLAG (Feels Like A Girl), which crunches in all the right places. There are loads of influences in their tunes, but as there’s such a heady mix of stuff going on, they sound simultaneously like everyone and no one. They also declare the main band to be hilarious, and it’s good to see them later on singing and dancing along to them. It’s a fun, pulsating, unpretentious racket that is sure to gain a massive audience soon, ones to watch in 2022 without a shadow of a doubt.

We Are Scientists_23/10/18_Mike Burns

As 9:00 winds its way around, the venue becomes even busier, and the crowd becomes, even more, up for what’s to come. Then the lights go down and we get a couple of minutes of, of all things, Aerosmith’s truly terrible “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. “Hello Liverpeople” is the greeting and then we are straight into Huffy’s You’ve Lost Your S*** and their debut’s Inaction. Something old and something new. But it’s not just the brand new or very old tracks that we get, there’s a smattering from each of their intervening previous records. And it’s easy to forget how many big tunes they have got, the likes of It’s A Hit, Your Light Has Changed, Chick Lit, etc fill the Academy, with the latter being the first big chance to dance. It’s easy to see why they made their name at festivals, they are full of high quality humour and just plain great songs. What grabs you about the new songs especially is that seven albums in, unlike some of their peers (hello The Killers, howdy Kings Of Leon) they still sound full of the joys of youth. The Great Escape goes off as you hope it would and then they announce they have a day off in Liverpool tomorrow and are looking for suggestions, which they get very lewd ones of almost instantly. Is there anything better than watching a band that looks like it’s a right laugh to be in? It’s not many bands that in-between songs talk about injecting their roadies full of drugs or crushing the skulls of the dead, but it’s all done with good grace and mischief. There’s plenty of hands in the air for Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt and they finish their main set with a roaring After Hours. The four-song encore closes proceedings, including the almost country and western Bought Myself A Grave and the pressures of being able to be a touring band in this day and age are brought to the forefront as they announce, with mock dismay, that they are staying, in all places, in West Derby.

We Are Scientists_23/10/18_Mike Burns

I don’t know how I’ve gone all this time having never seen them live before, but I will be coming back when they do, two splendid bands, a wonderful way to spend a rainy December Thursday (and get over that football result for Everton)