Gig review: Biffy Clyro at The Piece Hall, Halifax

“Good evening Halifax, we’ve missed you so much,” Simon Neil half-croons with a grin, flyaway hair whipped by the evening breeze. “We are Biffy f***ing Clyro.”

The roar from the Piece Hall is loud enough to shake the Square Church spire that towers over the Calderdale venue; behind him, brothers James and Ben Johnston exchange adrenalized smiles. The joy at this first show since 2022 is physically palpable.

The Kilmarnock rock heavyweights occupy a strange position in the British musical hierarchy. For a period, they were arguably the nation’s biggest guitar band, rivalled perhaps only by Arctic Monkeys or Muse. But the final step never came their way, in the shape of a bill-topping Pyramid Stage slot at Glastonbury, and the rest of the country’s cultural landscape almost passed them by.

That is not to say their appearance in this Grade I-listed courtyard is anything but a coup – tickets reportedly sold faster for this show than any other in the venue’s history. But amid a festival season where eyebrows have been raised over the paucity of cross-generational appeal and arms-aloft anthems, this lone warmup for a Victorious headline gig across the Bank Holiday weekend suggests the Southsea event have pulled off a superb result.

Certainly, on the merits of live performance, they have; Biffy Clyro remain among the most heady rock acts of the past few decades to emerge from these shores. In a 95-minute set stuffed to the gills, they open with the soaring supremacy of The Captain and barely look back, swinging through a oeuvre that covers alt-metal thrash – That Golden Rule – and ABBA-esque rock-on-steroids – Who’s Got a Match? – with the kind of velocity exclusively reserved for fighter jets.

Two years off has not dulled Neil’s senses; his voice, as adaptable to the lighters-out balladry of Biblical as it is the proggy wobble of Different People, remains a fourth instrument with terrific value for the group, powering the swaggering groove behind Animal Style and fan favourite Saturday Superhouse too. It sounds practically naked on a violin-scored edition of the gorgeous Machines, and the hushed reaction leaves him visibly overawed.

“It’s been such a pleasure playing for you, Halifax,” he murmurs, before he lets the crowd carry the refrain on a climactic Many of Horror, still one of the great skyscraper tunes of their generation. It is a magical climax to a magnificent return.