2005-2025
This is the end.

Thank you for being the heartbeat of this band.
Final live shows taking place 2024/2025.

Sign up at https://t.co/TKQnwP6bLchttps://t.co/lhDcsDxBC2

— You Me At Six (@youmeatsix) January 31, 2024

After releasing a suitably emo video statement filmed in a graveyard, You Me At Six announced that the time has come for them to bid farewell to the band. However, after keeping this a secret for some time, Franceschi told BBC “I’m grateful that we’re in a position where we can celebrate, in real time, with our fans.”

Throughout their career, the “Stay With Me” singers have released 8 studio albums, 2 of which (2014’s Cavalier Youth and 2021’s SUCKAPUNCH) reaching number 1 status, toured extensively and received glowing recognition through a variety of awards. These accomplishments have not gone amiss with the band members, as frontman Franceschi told NME “The thing that mattered the most is longevity, getting closer and closer to that 20 year mark. We don’t need this band for self-indulgent reasons. We’re all really satisfied with what we’ve done, let’s just tie a nice little ribbon or bow around it. You don’t want to be the last ones hanging around at the party. We want to be a band that bowed out, not one that was kicked out.”

When asked about plans for their upcoming farewell tour, the 33-year-old stated “We’ve worked out that our final gig is going to be 20 years to the day since our first ever band practice, which is wild. It wasn’t even deliberate.” However, fans will have to be patient for any more information regarding the tour, as dates are set to be announce in “a couple of months”.

Whilst dates for You Me At Six’s final tour are still unknown, you can ensure you receive information regarding the upcoming shows by signing up here. However, the Surrey based five-piece have some upcoming performances this month, as well as their appearance’s at this year’s Slam Dunk Festival to serve as their penultimate shows. For more information and tickets, click here.

Tour dates:

09/02/2024 – KK’s Steel Mill – Wolverhampton
10/02 – UEA – Norwich
11/02 – O2 Academy – Bristol
13/02 – O2 Academy – Oxford
14/02 – Town Hall – Middlesbrough
15/02 – P&J Live – Aberdeen
17/02 – Liverpool University – Liverpool
18/02 – Guildhall – Portsmouth
25/05 – Slam Dunk Festival South – Hatfield
26/05 – Slam Dunk Festival North – Temple Newsam

Our first album Take Off Your Colours was released 15 years ago this Friday.

We wanted to do a proper release to vinyl of this album for years and now that we as a band finally own the rights to do so, we are releasing a limited vinyl pressing with some new merch! pic.twitter.com/nnV19hllHp

— You Me At Six (@youmeatsix) October 4, 2023

The pop-punk masterpiece, as some would refer to it, made the band a household name upon its release and shot the band to stardom, as well as earned You Me At Six critical praise and commercial success. Now, the band have expressed their delight in being able to please their fans after years spent clamouring for a re-release of the album. The band have recently acquired the rights back to their debut record and are excited to give Take Off Your Colours the celebration they feel it deserves.

Frontman Josh Franceschi said of the re-issue, “we’re very excited to celebrate the 15th anniversary of our debut album with this very special limited edition vinyl. We finally own the rights to this album again, which is an amazing feeling for us, and so we’re finally able to answer the calls from fans to re-issue the album on vinyl and release it directly to them. It won’t be available in shops. This is such a special album for us and we know it’s special to so many fans too”.

Franceschi and guitarist Max Helyer, during an interview with Kerrang Magazine nostalgically looked back to the time of writing and recording the album and reminisced that they were attempting to accomplish what very few UK based artists were doing in those days. Franceschi said, “There were no UK bands doing what the US scene had going on. [Labels] like Fueled By Ramen, the Warped Tour, Drive-Thru Records. There wasn’t really a UK band flying that flag at that particular moment in time. All our mates were playing in hardcore bands and we like hardcore music, but we also liked songs with melodies and with a pop sensibility to it. We were like, ‘If we do that, maybe we’ll stand out more.'”

Helyer added, “When you’re 15, up to 18, you’re kind of adapting and learning your craft. There was no pressure. It was like, ‘Let’s make music for fun and stuff we get kicks out of.’ Realistically, we didn’t expect the response to some of the songs that we wrote at that time. Save It For The Bedroom was the song that shot us out into a bigger audience.”

You Me At Six just released their seventh studio album Truth Decay in August . You can purchase it here.

‘Beautiful Way’ follows ‘MAKEMEFEELALIVE’, released earlier this month. For a niche and dated cultural reference, it sounds like ‘Planetary (GO!)’ from My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days. Indeed, what with the lyrical themes and the video storylines that You Me At Six have been releasing recently, we might wonder if SUCKAPUNCH is heading in a similar direction to My Chemical Romance’s fourth album – although it is very clear that You Me At Six’s seventh offering is going to be much heavier than we are used to from them.

NME asked lead singer Josh Franceschi whether ‘Beautiful Way’ was a good indicator of how SUCKAPUNCH will sound sonically. He replied with this: “It takes the traditional You Me At Six sound and gives it a fresh feel which is what we wanted for this album.

“On our last album ‘VI’, it felt like we were sparring with the idea of the next step for the band. With ‘SUCKAPUNCH’ it feels like we’re there. We now understand how to implement our interests in hip-hop and R&B without it feeling forced or contrived. I don’t think anybody has heard our band do what we are doing right now.”

Speaking to both Kerrang! and NME, Franceschi has let the word “masterpiece” slip out. We have to wonder if the term is used partly in recognition of the themes that You Met At Six are choosing to tackle on their seventh album. The standalone single that they released earlier this year, ‘Our House (The Mess We Made)’ betrays overwhelming distress at the state of the climate. It was written during the outbreak of bushfires in Australia at the beginning of year, and it strikes me as one of the most sophisticated, ambitious releases I have ever heard from You Me At Six. Little could they have known just how many crises and injustices we would find ourselves facing by now.

‘MAKEMEFEELALIVE’ is concerned for “the lost generation”. The second verse goes, “let’s start the conversation / how do we alienate them / 2020 invasion of the senses”. ‘Beautiful Way’ turns this inward, a song about wrestling with identity, coping mechanisms, mistakes and “the wear and tear of being a human being”.

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Get over to @youtube, we’re going live ahead of Beautiful Way come join us link in stories.

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Both of their latest videos present these heavy themes with dystopian storylines. ‘Beautiful Way’ could be a trailer for a new Mad Max film, set in the middle of a desert, containing intricate and absorbing dance/martial arts routines, while the band powers through their new single on an outdoor set on a different plain. Their stage is marked out with red sand that looks eerily more like blood as the video progresses.

A further recent offering from the band is the lyric video to ‘MAKEMEFEELALIVE’ which contains footage of drummer Dan Flint skydiving (something that makes him feel alive, you see?) Although the song is heavy, the video is seriously feel-good; Flint’s adrenaline feels contagious. Certainly, these are explosive, energetic releases from a band who know exactly where they want to be in the game.

SUCKAPUNCH tracklist:

1. ‘Nice To Me’1
2. ‘MAKEMEFEEALIVE’
3. ‘Beautiful Way’
4. ‘WYDRN’
5. ‘Suckapunch’
6. ‘Kill The Mood’
7. ‘Glasgow’
8. ‘Adrenaline’
9. ‘Voicenotes’
10. ‘Finish What I Started’
11. ‘What’s It Like’

Franceschi has for some time been leading the charge against the activities of ticket touts and today he continued his campaign. Today’s events follow direct action by Franceschi last month when, as reported in DIY, he appeared at Doc Martens’ sold tickets in person to fans ahead of their Dingwalls, Camden gig in order to thwart touts. Franceschi expressed his views before the Committee, according to AOL, saying, ‘The main losers here are the fans of live music and I don’t want to drive them away from an industry which is already suffering from a lack of money coming into it.’ He also commented specifically on the phenomena of ‘bots’, automated ticket buying software which acquires tickets in large numbers to be sold for a profit on resale websites, commenting that the ‘idea of being ripped off, that doesn’t leave a nice taste in the mouth.’ AOL reports that Franceschi relayed information concerning a petition, signed by acts including Mumford and Sons and One Direction, requesting greater measures to prevent these activities.

Franceschi was not the only high profile member of the music industry to appear before the Committee, with the Arctic Monkeys and Royal Blood manager, Ian McAndrew (Wildlife Entertainment CEO) disclosing, per Music Week, that the band were offered a deal to sell tickets direct to resale sites in return for a share of the profits. According to The BBC, Reg Walker, an expert in the field and head of Iridium Consultany, was also present and claimed that tickets for a recent tout by Michael Buble had been passed to these websites by a member of the Canadian’s entourage, in a deal similar to the one McAndrew describes. Also present was CEO of the Music Managers Forum, Annabella Coldrick.

The reaction from the sites in question was not exactly conciliatory with Chris Edmonds, the chairman of Ticketmaster, remarking (via Music Week/DIY) simply that ‘Wherever demand far exceeds supply it creates frustration and disappointment’ and Paul Peak from StubHub stating that, ‘We’re under no legal obligation to police our site.’ According to Music Week, ‘committee members took particular exception to this.’ Even Andrew Bingham MP, who was among the MPs who called for and initiated the meeting, didn’t fully support Franceschi’s stance, arguing, ‘As legislators we don’t want to send the industry backwards. I’m unsure banning bots will solve it.’ Professor Waterson, who works in economics at the University of Warwick also said an outright ban wouldn’t work.

However, Music Week ultimately reports that at the conclusion of the meeting, ‘the mood among campaigners was buoyant.’ Thus, thanks in part to the impassioned speeches, especially that of Josh Franceschi given on the day, there is hope that the problem of secondary ticketing could be tackled in the near future.

Franceschi, however, will not be moving full time into politics any time soon, with You Me At Six performing the aforementioned gig at Dingwalls in Camden on the 26^th November before embarking on a full tour of Europe and the UK in March and April of 2017. In between these gigs, the band will have released their new album which is slated to drop on January 13^th 2017.