We Are Scientists live review by Rob Johnson
We Are Scientists are a band happy to embrace their legacy whilst also moving forward. This is demonstrated by the fact that they are currently simultaneously delivering an anniversary tour of their incredible debut album With Love and Squalor, while also still pushing their latest record, Qualifying Miles. The band arrive at Sheffield’s Electric Studios (formerly The Leadmill) just over a year after playing a hugely well-received anniversary show at Crookes Social Club just a few miles down the road. Needless to say, frontman and guitarist Keith Murray, bassist Chris Cain and drummer Keith Carne still mean business…
The New York three-piece kicks things off with a stirring rendition of popular single ‘Rules Don’t Stop’, before dropping a couple of deep cuts in ‘You’ve Lost Your Shit’ and ‘The Big One’. Before launching into With Love and Squalor in all its mastery, Murray and Cain have a long spoken diversion in which Cain announces the playing of the album like a sports announcer, the crowd encourages him to down his drink (he sticks to ‘sips’) and Murray extols the virtues of playing in Yorkshire, before the iconic riff to ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ brings the house down. This signals the start of a run-through of an album that clearly still hits over 20 years later. Every track feels like a single with the crowd, many of them matching Murray’s look of rocking the grey hair, bouncing along and singing their hearts out. While these songs initially broke through because they successfully documented the messy lives of teenagers and twenty-somethings in the indie sleaze era, Murray and Cain play them so well and with so much passion that this never feels like a nostalgia exercise.
The one-two punch of ‘Inaction’ and ‘Can’t Lose’ is a set highlight; the latter is particularly great, before ‘The Great Escape’, perhaps the band’s calling card, elicits the biggest reaction of the night. You know when the crowd is singing along to the opening guitar riff that you’ve got a hit on your hands. This section of the evening closes out with ‘Lousy Reputation’ and ‘What’s the Word’ (the only track missing from this same set last year), before the band delivers a celebratory run through of Helter Seltzer single ‘Buckle’ (on its tenth anniversary).
The band close out with traditional set closer ‘After Hours’ and when Murray passionately intones that ‘…we’re all right where we’re supposed to be’, you won’t find any arguments from the adoring crowd. As the last notes of that song ring out, the band can leave the stage safe in the knowledge that they can still connect with their audience – a sensational night of music.
Comments are closed.