Yungblud @ The Forum 02-01-20
words: Daniel Hanssen // photos: Jay Wennington @jaywennington
Review
“..high energy performances, constantly moving around the stage, unless he’s trashing a mic stand or heading into the crowd.”
Yungblud’s sideshow was always threatening to be a high energy affair, as the UK export has become well known for his full-throttle performances. His Melbourne performance last week was every part of this and more, with Yungblud bounding across the Forum’s vast stage, causing even the spotlight to struggle to catch him. It was a worthwhile performance to see though, bringing along Melbourne artist to kick off the night in style.
Within the torrent of energy, Yungblud struggled to contain his sentimentality towards Australia and Melbourne, giving him his chance to follow his dream, he had a beautiful rapport with the crowd and was often lost for words throughout the show, standing there almost stunned by the vibrant crowds’ reactions.
As “Psychotic Kids”, “Polygraph Eyes” and “I Love You Will You Marry Me” had strong appeal with Yungblud’s fans, it was the more reflective songs that pulled the heartstrings during his set. Yungblud’s own life has inspired some incredible songwriting relating to the struggles of being a modern youth. Yungblug thankfully still has a bit of the rockstar vibe to him, he likes high energy performances, constantly moving around the stage unless he’s trashing a mic stand or heading into the crowd. Yet unlike the Rock and Roll of old that epitomised the adage of drugs sex and rock and roll. Yungblud touts acceptance, self-love and togetherness something much more important in an era determined to tear people apart.
Yungblud has an incredible drive to bring his vision of closing the gap between artist and fan instead, calling them his family. Throughout the set, Yungblud head into the crowd to play through “Kill Someone”, but instead of having an elaborate set up waiting for him, he had security make a ring for him to play in; standing on the same floor as all of his fans.
“Original Me”, and “Casual Sabotage” represented the internal conflicts that have highlighted some of Yungblud’s writing before “Hope For The Underrated Youth” brought the whole crowd together. It was an incredible moment as the packed Forum came together in a single moment to sing with Yungblud; the chant “There’s hope for the underrated youth, and I’m so far from telling you the truth” reverberating around the Forum making the theatre shake from the sound.
“Machine Gun” was seemingly all that Yungblud had left out of the near hour and a half performance at this point. The song which has an inherent amount of rage towards government closed out the performance, Yungblud was able to muster this sentiment with the crowd filling the room. As an intimidating level of angst led to the belting of the chant ‘Fuck ScoMo’, to essentially close off the evening.
It’s this zealous appeal with his fans that have seen Yungblud skyrocket in popularity, but it is hard to see how people can’t get caught up in his honest sentimentality, even if it is shrouded in a guise of understandable anger.
