Sometimes, all you need is three words.
For instance, if you dare to utter the phrase ‘fancy a pint?’ within earshot of any Englishman on a warm summer’s day, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll be charging towards the nearest pub with the speed of a World Cup striker.
For the sporting among us, the phrase ‘it’s coming home’ is likely to inspire a mildly visceral reaction; while for the more sentimentally inclined, a simple ‘I love you’ can do the trick nicely.
And if it’s an exhilarating, once-in-a-generation rock and/or roll show that you’re after?
Well, there are just three short words you need to look out for.
Biffy. Fucking. Clyro.
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And in a North London park on a hot summer’s day, Biffy Clyro showed us why they just might be the best live band on the planet.
As the opening riff of The Captain – a track so good, most bands would usually save it for the encore – kicks in, fireworks shoot from the stage and somewhere in the region of 45,000 people begin shouting every word back at Simon Neil. That Golden Rule, Who’s Got A Match? and Justboy follow, before Biblical turns Finsbury Park into the world’s largest and sweatiest rock karaoke night.
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Now, this is the biggest headline show of Biffy Clyro’s career.
There are a lot of people here, the stage is enormous, and the pressure must be fairly considerable.
But you wouldn’t know it from looking at them.
From the opening minutes, the band look entirely at home. Simon is shirtless, bearded and bounding around the stage with the semi-neurotic energy of a man who has just remembered that he left the oven on. Ben Johnston is hammering away behind the drums, and every guitar riff sounds big enough to rattle the windows of several nearby postcodes.
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It helps, of course, that their back catalogue is frankly ridiculous.
Ten albums into their career, they’ve reached the point where they could play for several hours and still leave somebody loudly requesting their favourite song on the way out.
There are the enormous radio songs, with Black Chandelier, Mountains and Biblical prompting suitably enormous reactions. There are newer cuts like A Little Love and Hunting Season, both of which already sound perfectly comfortable surrounded by songs that people have been shouting along to for more than a decade.
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And then there are the songs for the people who have arrived wearing a slightly faded Biffy t-shirt they bought in 2008.
Justboy gets an early airing, while Booooom, Blast & Ruin returns to the set after several years away. Later, an a cappella rendition of There’s No Such Man As Crasp tumbles directly into There’s No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake, causing several sections of the crowd to briefly lose all control of their limbs.
For a show of this size, Biffy could quite easily have played the hits and disappeared into the night. Instead, this feels like a genuine celebration of the whole strange, heavy and occasionally very tender world they’ve built over the last three decades.
Because for all of the riffs, Biffy Clyro have always been rather good at making people feel things.
Space provides one of the night’s first properly emotional moments, with Simon’s voice carrying across a field that suddenly feels a lot quieter than it did a few minutes earlier. Goodbye is similarly gorgeous, while a gorgeously tender rendition of Machines arrives during the encore with a surprise appearance from a Jamie Campbell Bower.
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And naturally, they finish by wheeling out three absolutely enormous songs.
Wolves Of Winter is loud enough to rearrange a few internal organs. Bubbles sends the park into one final frenzy, and Many Of Horror brings the whole thing to a close with fireworks, raised arms and more than a few suspiciously damp eyes.
And then, all of a sudden, it’s over. The band take their bows, the lights come up, and thousands of hoarse and sweaty people begin the long shuffle towards Finsbury Park station.
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So, are Biffy Clyro actually the best live band on the planet?
Well, these things are probably subjective. There isn’t an official table, and we’re fairly sure that nobody hands out a trophy at the end of the festival season.
But after tonight, you’d have to be fairly brave to argue against them.
Biffy. Fucking. Clyro.
