REVIEW: Boyce Avenue at Manchester Academy

ALL the way from the states, YouTube stars Boyce Avenue took to the stage at Manchester Academy for the European leg of their world tour “Be Somebody”. Phoebe Jobling went along…

With over eight million subscribers on YouTube and currently the most viewed Independent band in the world – Floridian brothers Alejandro, Fabian and Daniel have picked up a large fan base from all around the globe. To set themselves aside from other internet sensations, the pop-rock band began touring soon after their success grew online and their latest tour is travelling from Europe through to the USA and Canada.

Supporting the band was 27-year-old Calum Scott from Hull, who found fame on Britain’s Got Talent in 2015. Simon Cowell sent Calum straight to the live shows by pressing the Golden Buzzer in his first audition as Cowell said: “I’ve never ever in all the years I’ve done this show heard a guy with the talent you’ve got.”

Scott began with a cover of the popular chart topper ‘7 Years’ by Lukas Graham before treating us to a few of his original songs which were very soothing and showed off his impressive vocal range. This selection included a ballad and the first proper original song that Calum had ever wrote named ‘Sore Eyes’.

Calum finished with his unique cover of Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’ which was the song that set off his career on BGT. It was obvious that the crowd had been waiting for this performance and it didn’t disappoint as Scott was pitch perfect and the cover sounded even better live than it did on our TV.

Scott has released this cover on iTunes and recently it reached no.1 in the singer-songwriter charts. It was lovely to see that Calum has stayed modest and humble as he shyly said: “I don’t want to ask people to buy my single as I’m happy just performing for you all but if you could I’d be so grateful.”

Boyce Avenue began their set with an original song which was upbeat and raised the atmosphere from Calum’s emotive songs. This song instantly showed off each of the brother’s guitar skills as they strung along with their electric guitars accompanying the lead singer Alejandro’s vocals.

The first cover that the band played was the all-time crowd favourite ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis which got every member of the audience singing along to the chorus with Alejandro. This cover was played acoustically as Fabian and Daniel swapped their electric guitars for acoustic.

Alejandro asked the audience how many people discovered the band through YouTube which almost everyone in the audience screamed. As they are best known for their acoustic covers, the lead singer then said: “We’re going to strip it back and play some more acoustics,” in which the drummer disappeared. Boyce Avenue then played their original acoustic song ‘Find Me’ which was released on YouTube over four years ago and their official music video now has over nine million views.

‘Pick Yourself Back Up Again’ was the first song where we heard Daniel and Fabian sing parts of the song as it previously seemed as though they were just the band for lead singer Alejandro. This was a brand new song from their album and as the boys returned to their electric guitars accompanied back by the drummer, this showed more of their rock-pop style.

It was evident throughout the set that the brothers are very talented musicians. They each continued to swap instruments to suit the style of song as we saw them play both electric and acoustic guitars, keyboard, drums and tambourine.

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One of the most memorable performances was of their own song “Be Somebody”, the name of their tour, as it had very catchy lyrics, a vibrant energy and the band looked like they enjoyed playing it.

Boyce Avenue were inevitably on tour to promote their new album “Road Less Travelled” as they played various original songs from the album. But as part of the album was only released today before it’s full release on April 15, hardly anyone knew the songs and it seemed as though the audience preferred to hear covers as one man even shouted: “We want more covers.”

However, when the band eventually covered some well-known songs, such as Shaun Mendes “Stitches”, Kings of Leon “Use Somebody”, Tracy Chapman “Fast Car” and The Goo Goo Dolls “Iris” these definitely won back the crowd.

EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER!! What a beautiful group of people, thanks for coming out and singing with us!! pic.twitter.com/pIAhfD5XT0

— Boyce Avenue (@BoyceAvenue) March 14, 2016