Reverend and The Makers thrilled a sellout crowd at Sheffield’s O2 Academy on 24^th October 2014. Celebrating their 10^th anniversary as a band, they performed the albums ‘The State of Things’ and ‘A French Kiss In The Chaos’ in full on the first of two shows in their hometown this weekend.

Over Friday 24^th and Saturday 25^th October, Reverend and The Makers were performing all four of their studio albums in full in their home city. Both night’s had quickly sold out as adoring fans rushed to get their hands on tickets for these historic shows from one of the city’s best and most popular local bands.

But it was tonight’s show that was the most anticipated as the band would be performing their first and most successful album ‘The State of Things’ in it’s entirety.

They burst on to the stage at around 9:15pm to chants of “Rev Army”. A short video showing photos of them from the past decade preceeded the performance before they kicked off with “Silence Is Talking”, a song which instantly had the room bouncing and cheering along to it’s simple yet effective chorus.

The evening felt like not only a celebration of a great band, who have supporting slots for both Oasis and Arctic Monkeys on their CV, but also a celebration of Sheffield and Yorkshire as a whole. Chants of “Yorkshire” regularly echoed around the venue throughout the evening and this was highly encouraged by frontman Jon “The Rev” McClure, who pointed to his heart at the sound of his home county.

The band, which also included Ed Cosens, Joe Carnall, Ryan Jenkinson and “The Rev’s” 7-month pregnant wife Laura McClure, had wisley decided to save the best until last by performing their second album at the start of the night.

They powered through ‘A French Kiss In The Chaos’ which included tracks such as ‘Hidden Persuaders’, ‘No Soap (In A Dirty War)’ and closed with ‘Hard Time For Dreamers’. McClure chatted to the crowd throughout and described his enjoyment in performing songs that he “hadn’t played for years.”

After a five-minute break, the 5-piece returned to the stage ready to perform their debut album. With the album cover projected on to the screen, they kicked off with the title track before tearing through classic after classic.

“Open Your Window” and later “Miss Brown” received particularly strong receptions from the lively crowd. And an acoustic “Sex With The Ex” saw the lighters fill up the darkened room, although not for the whole of the song as ‘The Rev’ pointed out, jokingly calling the Yorkshire crowd “tight bastards!”

The highlight of the evening came when the third track of the album, “Heavyweight Champion of the World” was performed. Probably their most famous song, it sent the crowd crazy and had the whole room singing along to every word.

After a heartfelt thank you to the audience, they closed with “Armchair Detective”. But ‘The Rev’ wasn’t done with them yet as he took his acoustic guitar outside the academy to play “A Message To You, Rudy” by The Specials for over 2,000 people – one of the largest impromptu performances that Sheffield has ever seen!

Reverend and The Makers will be back tomorrow night to perform albums three and four – ‘@Reverend_Makers’ and ‘ThirtyTwo’ in full. For those not lucky enough to have tickets for that sold out show, McClure announced that the band have been recording their 5^th album recently in Jamaica and that they would be back in Sheffield “very soon.”

Setlist: Silence Is Talking // Hidden  Persuaders // No Wood Just Trees // Professor Pickles // Long Long Time // No Soap (In A Dirty War) // Manifesto/People Shapers // Mermaids // The End // Hard Time For Dreamers // The State Of  Things // The Machine // Heavyweight Champion of the World // Bandits // Open Your Window // Sex With The Ex // 18-30 // He Said He Loved Me // What The Milkman Saw // Sundown on the Empire // Miss Brown // Armchair Detective