Biffy Clyro @ The Big Top, Edinburgh, 25 Jun

As prize cattle collect their rosettes and farmers tuck into a few seasonal ciders at the Royal Highland Show next door, there’s something significantly louder taking place in the Edinburgh Big Top tonight: Scotland’s most successful modern rock band are back in business.

After a short set from Glasgow indie-punks Gallus, it’s over to Lucia & The Best Boys in the main support slot. As always they look fantastic, nailing the glam-goth stage attire with such aplomb that you can’t tell if it’s carefully curated or they just rolled out of bed that way. Their most recent single Perfectly Untrue is an impressive calling card and there’s no doubt that singer Lucia Fairfull has star quality. With a host of support slots under her belt, now she needs to prove that she can seize the moment and move from blog buzz singles to a quality full length release if she and the Best Boys are to prove themselves as headliners in their own room.

To chants of “Biffy fucking Clyro”, Simon Neil and co take to the stage. At the time of their pre-pandemic acoustic tour, the frontman joked that he wouldn’t be getting shirtless, but in front of a baying Big Top it takes just two songs for his leather jacket to be gone, his tattooed torso once more on display.

As the band rocket through DumDum and A Hunger In Your Haunt – their best singalong in years – it takes a moment for the sound engineer to get the bass levels right. Overall, the sound in the Big Top is surprisingly good, with the canvas walls of the dome preventing the sound from blowing across the fields as it might in an outdoor show.

Tonight is the most complete and well-thought-out Biffy stage production to date, with visuals, lighting, confetti and flames combining into a seasoned rock show. In particular, the staging of That Golden Rule lends a fresh intensity, as yellow lighting strobes across the tent and bursts of fire force sweaty moshers back from the barrier.

With the pandemic having disrupted touring plans over the past three years it's perhaps to be expected that the setlist draws heavily on their two recent records, 2020’s uneven A Celebration of Endings and its more exciting sibling, 2021’s The Myth of the Happily Ever After. While long-time fans might bemoan the absence of anything from their first three records of frazzled Nirvana-meets-Mars Volta punk-prog, and few would be surprised at a single entry from the relatively unloved Ellipsis, it’s the shortage of tracks from their mainstream breakthrough Puzzle which really stands out. Just the uplifting violins and acoustic guitar of Machines and a shout-along Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies have been kept on the setlist.

Never mind though, because with nine albums under their belts, Biffy Clyro have a host of different ways to grab your attention. While the first half leans a little heavily into midtempo rock songs, the latter half showcases both the certified crowd slayers and a little of the weirdo tendencies that mainstream radio has tried to downplay. As a sweaty crowd work themselves into a frenzy, Bubbles and The Captain are huge bounce-along anthems, while Cop Syrup’s elongated post-rock outro suggests they can still spring a few surprises.

After their last tour took them to the more rarefied stages of concert halls and theatres, it’s great to have Biffy fucking Clyro back doing what they do best.