Live Review Yak, The Polar Bear, Hull 10th April 2019

There is no better stage for Yak than the likes of The Polar Bear: a claustrophobic space, where you’re just as likely to be stifled by sweat and swilled pints as you are the trio’s particular brand of scuzzy garage-rock. A little party never killed nobody, as they say, but there came a point where frontman Oli Burslem’s hedonistic lifestyle threatened to drive Yak into a comedown of no return. Thus began the year-long hangover as Oli, in the confines of his van that became his permanent home, curated the album that would be the band’s ultimate salvation, ‘Pursuit of Momentary Happiness’. It was the record that would see them tour venues from the famous to the unlikely.

With a megaphone wrangled to his microphone stand casting a red glow onto his lips, Oli warms the crowd up with a voice that sounds like a guzzling fly, droning over neurotic instrumentals. The pink baseball cap he wears isn’t meant for long, as the band plunge in. The cynical lullaby which shares the same name as their second album sees him tear it off during a bombastic crescendo, waving it with a showman’s instinct, ending in a tender, drawling sentiment: “It would be easier if nobody felt a thing / no love no loss nothing / if nobody felt any pain / but that just isn’t living.”