Gig review: Idles at O2 Academy, Sheffield

This is credit to the band’s unique genre of vulnerable punk that blends thundering drumbeats and screeching guitars with emotionally raw lyrics and sees frontman Joe Talbot asking the crowd to “look after each other”. From my position on the balcony at Sheffield’s O2 Academy, I observe two sizeable men begin a scuffle that turns out to just be a cuddle.

The band appear on stage by surprise; the intermission playlist is still playing and the lights are yet to go down. Talbot is almost hobbling as he creeps across the stage (it later transpires that he has a bad ankle) and growls the opening lines to Colossus. Idles have a knack of building tension, so that by the time Talbot’s vehement snarl of “I am my father’s son / his shadow weighs a tonne” crescendos into “goes and it goes and it goes”, limbs, discarded t-shirts and beer glasses become indistinguishable as the pit surges around the room.

There is no doubt as to where Idles is playing as in between nearly every song on the 21-song set (that includes big hitters War, I’m Scum and Danny Nedelko in an adrenaline-fuelled run) there are chants of “Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire”. Talbot encourages this, even adding a chorus of “Yorkshires” into Love Song – along with some Arctic Monkeys lyrics from guitarist Mark Bowen. Despite being another night on a lengthy world tour, these personal touches make the evening seem as special for the band as it is for the merch-clad fans exerting themselves in the mosh pit.

This is an evening for fun only. Grumbling about the government is reserved for songs (“the best way to scare a Tory is to really get rich”) and the only time Talbot does overtly comment on politics he discourages booing – “let’s just enjoy ourselves” he protests – and that, we most certainly did.