Gig review: The Script and Becky Hill at First Direct Arena, Leeds

The Script are one-and-a-half songs into their latest visit to West Yorkshire and already they have a crowd, down from giddy kids up to the shrieking sixty-plus set, in the palm of their hand.

Such devotion is far from surprising; since they burst onto the scene, they’ve achieved an alchemic form of copper-bottomed songwriting custom-tooled for big outpourings like these. It’s suitably impressive, the way their craft glides forth with an assured understanding of giving the people what they want.

It’s a resolutely unpolitical performance too, a break from the norm against the turmoil of Brexit. The Script – O’Donoghue, guitarist Mark Sheehan and drummer Glen Power – are here to shut up and play the hits. It’s an effective recipe; a cavalcade of pop-rock power-chords, split between the strident and the soppy.

Cuts from new record Sunsets and Full Moons – Something Unreal, a four-to-the-flour piano-rush enlivened by glitter confetti blasts, is an early standout – are all fine but it’s on the familiar hits they switch things up. For Good Ol’ Days, they interpolate House of Pain’s club standard Jump Around into the medley, while O’Donoghue purloins a fan’s mobile for the keening ballad Nothing to ostensibly call their ex.

There’s an endearing break in the tiered seating for the acoustics of Never Seen Anything (Quite Like You) before they return to the main stage, where afterwards, it’s a veritable home-run of hits – The Man Who Can’t Be Moved, Hall of Fame, Breakeven. They close out with the soft balladry of For the First Time, O’Donoghue drifting off stage and into the crowd as a thousand phone lights illuminate the venue around him like LED fireflies. It’s a skin-prickling trick that rarely fails.

Support comes from Becky Hill, who – wardrobe malfunctions aside – proves a suitably bouncy opener. The former Voice contestant has honed a string of sterling singles since her emergence over half-a-decade ago and, backed up by a taut band, she delivers them here with snazzy panache.

Latest single Better Off Without You is a certifiable club-filler already, while breakout number Gecko (Overdrive) pulls a strong response. Closing out with Wish You Well, last year’s sizeable smash with Sigala, she signs off with a promise to be back – she’s worthy of such venues for sure.