Yungblud is the Twenty One Pilots/Jamie T mashup this generation don’t know they need. For those who narrowly missed the jarring, self-loathing lyrics of My Chemical Romance and the earlier spitfire suburban poetry of young Arctic Monkeys, he fills a musical void.
Dominic Harrison (a.k.a Yungblud) bounds from one side of the stage to the other, screaming “let’s fucking have it!” to a crowd so worked up they look like the human equivalent of a Berocca. From spitting mouthful upon mouthful of beer over the audience, to locking lips with his guitarist mid song, the singer’s unforgiving energy is transfixing.
His music indulges in everything you would expect from a twenty-year-old self-proclaimed "socially conscious artist, unafraid of delivering genre-bending protest songs." There’s lots of middle fingers being waved in the air, lots of Miley Cyrus-esque tongue movements, and of course a song about evil money grabbing politicians dedicated to national sweetheart “Theresa fucking May”.
Despite the potentially cheesy nature of the music, the passion and genuine excitement behind his performance brings it back down to a personable level. You really believe this guy is invested in every single word, even if it is,“dropped my hairdryer into my bath, shocks like that make me laugh.”
From the constant shouts of “fuck me man! This is crazy” to getting choked up during ‘Kill Somebody’ (I never thought I would see somebody cry whilst singing the words “all I wanna do is kill somebody”, but here I am); Yungblud pours his heart and soul into every aspect of his performance. Playing up to the crowd and his reject kid image, he dedicates ‘Psychotic Kids’ to “anyone who feels misunderstood”, standing proudly on stage in front of all his outcasted kids. Kind of like the Gerard Way of 2018.
As the last few songs approach, the energy in the room drops slightly, maybe due to sheer exhaustion of being commanded to jump constantly for the last 45 minutes. That soon changes however, as the room reignites to a singalong inducing encore of ‘Machine Gun’ and ‘Die for the Hype’, rounded off by their recently recorded mash up for Jack Saunders' Radio 1 show. It’s a bizarre but charming combination of Ariana Grande’s ‘God is a Woman’ and Juice WRLD’s ‘Lucid Dreams’ played to Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’ riff. I’m serious.
Yungblud understands his audience, and they know it. The real magic here is the passion and true emotion he wears on his striped sleeve at all times. Being as young and impassioned as he is, he still has plenty of time to create some real carnage.
