Live review: Biffy Clyro, London O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire

It’s such a clever idea. As if to reward sections of an audience that have dug in deep and hung and around while years turn into decades, for one week only, Biffy Clyro have become curators of their own back catalogue.

Over six concerts halved equally between London and Glasgow, the Ayrshire trio have and will perform their first three albums front-to-back before closing their account with almost an hour’s worth of (mostly) deeper cuts that might otherwise disappear from the radar. There’s more, too. Whereas the band are by now well used to performing in spacious rooms such as the O2 Arena and the OVO Hydro, this time, in England and Scotland’s largest cities, Simon Neil and Ben and James Johnston are playing the kinds of venues in which they appeared before Britain took a tumble for them on a mainstream level. Beat that.

Because of this, it’s no surprise that the house-full crowd at the Empire, a compact theatre in West London, takes but a second to identify songs that, in some cases, haven’t been played live in almost two decades. In the back row of the third balcony, ticketholders are on their feet as the group, fortified by touring musicians Mike Vennart and Richard Ingram, unfurl every song from Infinity Land, their third album, as well as bangers such as Whorses, Woo Woo and Bonanzoid Deathgrip.

The song titles alone confirm that Biffy Clyro, while capable of strutting with the best of them on the stages of vast arenas, will forever have one foot in the underground, and in the weird. (As if to underscore the point, a topless Simon Neil is wearing a kilt and the kind of boots that kick down doors at first light.) It’s not metal, it’s not alt.rock, it’s not punk, it’s not pop – it’s all of these things. Oh, and it’s still a weird fucking name for a band.

Of course, theirs is a catalogue well worthy of excavation. In a parallel universe, the feloniously undervalued Accident Without Emergency, played tonight for the first time in 10 years, is one of the biggest songs of the century (and in that other realm, Simon even manages to remember all the lyrics).

Never mind what might have been, though, look instead at what is. Much more than Ayrshire’s funkiest gingers, the Johnston twins are a rhythm section so in sync with each other they could surely have made their living in a genuine R&B group – Scotland’s Average White Band, say. Conversely, it’s doubtful that anyone in the AWB could easily fathom the masterpiece of structure and invention (and companion piece to the equally astounding Cop Syrup) that is Slurpy Slurpy Sleep Sleep. Reassuringly, the song’s appearance near the end of the set suggests that tonight’s happening is motivated by qualities other than nostalgia; because bands who revel in the past for too long are bands that have given up trying. That the musicians onstage treat their audience to such a berserk number, released only three years ago, proves they remain ravenous with hunger.

Almost 20 years ago, back when the songs from Infinity Land were brand new, an astute and now sadly departed music writer named Dan Martin stood in the glow of the optics at the Phoenix Bar, an after-hours speakeasy on the Charing Cross Road, telling everyone who would listen that he’d just come from having seen Biffy Clyro at the Astoria theatre. “They’re the best band in Britain,” he said with the kind of certainty one doesn’t soon forget. Turns out he was right – then, and now.

Biffy Clyro will play an album a night at Glasgow Barrowlands October 24 – 26

READ THIS: The rise of Biffy Clyro, as told through their most important gigs