Gig

You Me At Six – Gig Review & Photo Gallery 27th January @ The Forum, Melb VIC

Kelsey Trevan

Jan 29, 2025

7 min read

You Me At Six
The Forum, Melbourne, VIC
January 27th, 2025
Supports: Holding Absence and Hevenshe

In February of 2024, British rock heavyweights You Me At Six announced that after 20 years they were calling it quits. After interviewing frontman Josh Franceschi back in early 2023, the announcement didn’t really come as a surprise to me as he revealed then that their 2021 release, SUCKAPUNCH was almost the last album for the band. Now, after a whole album, 2023’s Truth Decay, and a massive tour, it’s almost the end of YMAS.

On a sweltering, four-seasons-in-one-day Monday evening, I was lucky enough to attend the last ever You Me At Six show in Melbourne – in one of the most gorgeous venues, The Forum -an exceptional setting to see the band who has meant so much to me over the last 15 years take the stage one last time. It was a night that promised to be massive right from the start, with the sell-out crowd showing up as soon as doors opened and making themselves heard from beginning to end.

Kicking off the celebration was Hevenshe, the solo project of Tonight Alive‘s Jenna McDougall. Jenna has always been the kind of person who commands a stage, regardless of if she’s performing with a band, or on her own. Supported by Ben Ellingworth on drums (you may recognise him as GFlip‘s drummer!), tonight was no exception. This isn’t the first time that Jenna has participated on a tour with YMAS, with Tonight Alive touring a few times in the past with the band both on home soil and overseas. It was great to see not only a local Aussie act supporting the band, but someone who is no stranger to You Me At Six.

The set included tracks like ‘Dear Life‘ and recent release, ‘Essential‘, as well as a currently unreleased track that I unfortunately didn’t catch the name of, but I’m really looking forward to adding to my playlist once it does come out. I’m ashamed to say that as much as I enjoy listening to Tonight Alive whenever a song came up on my Spotify, I haven’t delved into Hevenshe before, but after seeing Jenna absolutely kill it on stage, I’ve definitely added her setlist to my regular rotation. Judging by the reactions of the crowd, I’m not the only one who’s just fallen into a rabbit hole!

The only unfortunate thing about Hevenshe‘s set was that we only got 6 songs, but on the other hand, we only had to wait about 15 minutes before the next band took to the stage. I can’t say I have ever felt sore just from watching a band play (with the exception of the day after because I’m old and my back doesn’t work properly anymore), but within 2 songs of Holding Absence, that’s exactly how I felt. Flexible, from all the high kicks, and energetic are the two words that immediately come to mind when I think of the boys from Wales.

We continue the theme of the support bands having a connection to You Me At Six in some way with the Welshman, who when they played their first ever show as a cover band, opened with ‘Save It For The Bedroom‘ by the Brits. Holding Absence are no strangers to Australian audiences, with the band appearing here several times in the last 4 years. They also have a track featuring the one and only Alpha Wolf, which they performed on Monday night with Lochie Keogh joining them onstage for ‘Aching, Longing‘. A cheeky live collab none of us saw coming.

Holding Absence are truly a sight to behold live, with their whole 8 song set between captivating from start to finish. ‘Gravity‘ and ‘A Crooked Melody‘ were crowd favourites, judging from the amount of gusto in the crowd singing the lyrics back to the band, while personally ‘Birdcage‘ was a highlight. Sometimes, a support act can feel a little bit like a placeholder, but there was nothing about this set that came across like that. Holding Absence did a fabulous job of further warming up the crowd (Hevenshe did this as well), and giving it their all for the entirety of their time on stage.

Finally, after a very quick and efficient changeover, the house lights went down for the final time of the evening and Lionel Richie‘s ‘All Night Long‘ begun to play over the speakers, signalling the beginning of the end. You Me At Six slowing began to filter onto the stage, bassist Matt Barnes, drummer Dan Flint, guitarists Chris Miller and Max Helyer and finally, frontman Josh Franceschi, with all five members being greeted by the same amount of rapturous applause. I knew that going into this, there was definitely going to be tears. You Me At Six mean way too much to me for this show to be an entirely emotionless affair, and looking around at my fellow audience members, I wasn’t the only one sharing this sentiment.

Before launching into ‘Save It For The Bedroom‘, Josh informed us that this was our song to crowdsurf to, and there were a fair few people who listened and did as they were asked, with every person except one (who must have not seen his hand) receiving a hand shake or a high five from Josh as they came over the barrier. It was a super rowdy crowd from start to finish, although Josh did make the point of saying that we were making Sydney look good, and if there is anything that is going to make Melbourne concert-goers go harder, it’s telling us that we were being outdone by Sydney. Spoiler alert – it worked. The 22 song setlist was interwoven with high energy tracks like ‘Loverboy‘, ‘Fresh Start Fever‘ and ‘MAKEMEFEELALIVE‘ as well as ‘Deep Cuts‘ (see what I did there?) like ‘Stay With Me‘, and ‘Give‘ and spanned across all 8 of their albums.

You Me At Six have always had a strong relationship with their fans, always making sure to tell us at live shows how much we mean to them, and we have always done our best to make sure they know we feel the same way. Sometimes you just connect so strongly with a band, that even a sad song can make you cry. For me, ‘Mixed Emotions‘, has always been the song that tugs on the heartstrings, and hearing it live for the final time definitely set off the waterworks. I was incredibly fortunate to be close to the front for the show, and Josh caught me crying and smiled at me with his hand on his heart, and blew me a kiss. It’s a moment that I will truly never forget.

Another deep cut on the setlist was ‘Liquid Confidence‘, a song performed acoustically by Josh and Max, while Josh told the story of how the band was formed. There were very few dry eyes in the house whilst they played, but Matt and Dan definitely helped to lift the mood with some playful moments at the back of stage and Dan ‘helping’ Max to drink what I think was a White Claw whilst playing guitar. ‘Beautiful Way‘ signalled the beginning of the end of the show, being the last song before the encore. No pun intended, but there is something genuinely beautiful about a room full of people screaming ‘fucked up in a beautiful way‘ at the top of their lungs whilst vibing with the band and hugging and holding their friends.

Two of the last 3 songs, ‘Bite My Tongue‘ and ‘Reckless‘ come from Sinners Never Sleep, which is probably YMAS’ most well known album and are wonderful choices to keep the energy going whilst knowing that the show is about to end and a lot of people in the crowd are never going to get the opportunity to see them play again. Its also so spine tingling to hear Josh screaming the guest vocals performed on the album by Oli Sykes during ‘Bite My Tongue‘, and tonight was no exception, and everyone always screams right along with him. It seemed only fitting for the final track of the night to be ‘Underdog‘, taken from Hold Me Down and a track that has always resonated with You Me At Six fans, and one that we have all taken on board and adopted as our own freak anthem.

It was an incredibly emotional night, not just for the fans but obviously for the band as well. Melbourne has always welcomed You Me At Six and never not shown up – Monday was no exception. The sold out crowd gave and gave, and the band returned serve back to us just as much. It’s a show that will probably go down as one of the best from the lads, and was a perfect way to say goodbye to Josh, Max, Matt, Chris and Dan.

Thank you, You Me At Six, for being a part of our lives for the last 20 years and for including Australia on your Final Nights Of Six World Tour.

Review by Kelsey Trevan @kelsey_139

Setlist

Room To Breathe
Loverboy
Stay With Me
Save It for The Bedroom
Deep Cuts
Give
Night People
Fresh Start Fever
Straight To My Head
Lived A Lie
Crash
SUCKAPUNCH
MAKEMEFEELALIVE
No Future? Yeah Right
Mixed Emotions (I Didn’t Know How To Tell You What I Was Going Through)
No One Does It Better
Liquid Confidence
Take On The World
Beautiful Way