Wait. The TikTokers don't love you like I love you - Yeah Yeah Yeahs thrill at Manchester Apollo

Yahoo

17-06-2025

Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Manchester Apollo. Monday June 16, 2025.
What do you do when your most famous song has been completely bastardised by a TikTok dance craze?
If you're the Yeah Yeah Yeahs you strip it back entirely and add a string quartet.
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It could easily have been business as usual for the New York trio - now 25 years into their journey as one of the most revered indie darlings of the 21st century.
An electric live band, their pretentious, cerebral art-rock speaks for a generation.
So when they announced a short tour to celebrate their many years together, it sold out in minutes.
More recently, they have found fame with a new audience much younger than the Millennials who grew up hearing Y Control and Zero blasting out of the speakers at 5th Ave and 42s.
That's because their glorious ballad Maps has become part of a viral dance trend that propelled the song to the top of the TikTop Billboard Top 50 chart - 21 years after its release.
But it's the die hard fans rather than the TikTokers who fill the seats of Manchester Apollo tonight.
After a test run in California, Manchester is the first stop on a tour of 'beautiful iconic theatres' and one of only two UK dates.
The Hidden In Pieces tour is intended to display YYY's softer, more mature side with the band working alongside a string quartet to show off a selection of rarities and B-Sides.
And from the opening chords of lovesong Blacktop, it's clear this is going to be something pretty special.
Frontwoman Karen O's pure, delicate vocal rings out above a reverberating synth - setting the tone for a show filled with delicate and heartfelt moments of beauty.
O is usually one of the most energetic performers around. But she spends much of this set gently pottering about the stage in a red jumpsuit, gold boots and a blue diamond encrusted cape. During some of it, she's even sitting down - unheard of at a normal YYY's gig.
The last time they visited Manchester, O spat water into the air, growled, roared, rolled around and hurtled about the stage. That's her shtick.
Tonight she is a different beast. Older, wiser, more relaxed - much like her audience (I can't have been the only one to delight in the prospect of a seated gig on a weeknight).
'Are you ready to get comfy and cosy with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs tonight?' she asks. 'This is new for us. It's just you and us tonight.'
Promising some 'deep cuts' from their back catalogue, O launches into Mystery Girl - a very early song from their first EP.
Then there's an acoustic guitar version of the anthemic Gold Lion which doesn't stray too far from the source, but slows the tempo down and adds a double bass.
Let Me Know - a B-side O admits is only really for true fans, follows with a searing string quartet intro.
A cover of Bjork's Hyperballad doesn't quite work and it takes me a little while to recognise the bonkers lyrics of that masterpiece above a busy arrangement and overly loud synth.
And IsIs - a gloriously chaotic racket in its recorded form - honestly sounds a bit of a mess here.
But overall the orchestral arrangements in this show throw new light and shade on YYY's raw, exposing lyrics.
As O, guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase power into fan favourite Cheated Hearts, the energy ramps up and you can feel they are on safer ground.
Warrior lends itself well to this more acoustic sound and really allows O to show off both the vulnerability and explosive power of her unique voice.
A new arrangement of Runaway sounds lovely and achieves the Lynchian vibe the band may have hoped to display when they cited the late great director in their press for this tour. It sounds huge and dramatic with strings adding an ethereal, Mica Levi-like eeriness.
O has always been an emotionally raw performer - you need only look at the famously heart-wrenching video for Maps to glean that. But this evening's performance is bolder still.
'I'm not really sure why we're doing this,' she admits 'We just really wanted to.
'We just wanted to sing these songs really vulnerable for you. It's really special to be here doing this with you.'
This is a bold, experimental show which at times feels more akin to something you would find at Manchester International Festival rather than the Apollo on a Monday night.
There are also moments of huge charm and emotion. The short pretty Mars - which O dedicates to her son Django - is an ode to childhood wonder and wisdom.
While Maps - an already sorrowful song - is elevated with an utterly beautiful string quartet interlude.
'Those strings man,' gasps a visibly moved O.
An acoustic, almost Country version of Spitting off the Edge of the World leads us into songs it would be impossible not to include - Modern Romance, Y Control.
An encore in which O dons light-up trainers and blasts out Burning and Zero in her more usual energetic style brings the show to a thrilling end, and all before 10pm - something that disappoints the girls in front of me who have just returned to their seats with fresh pints.
As a Millennial of a certain age, I admit that the nostalgia linked to YYYs might not make me the most impartial of reviewers. I love this band. I have a Stan Chow poster of Karen O on my living room wall. I am an early noughties cliché.
But even I am not impervious to their mistakes. At some points tonight, the heady mix of strings, synth and fuzzy guitars sounds a mess. But mostly, it's a spectacular show.
And unlike some of their peers from the New York indie sleaze era, Yeah Yeah Yeahs are always developing.
This might be a gig for true fans, but the TikTokers are missing out on something truly beautiful.