Glasgow
Kieron Tyler
Blackpool Cool is the third and last album by Glasgow’s Head. Issued in 1977 on the band’s own Head Records label, it was preceded by 1973’s GTF and 1975’s Red Dwarf. Blackpool Cool is rare – and sought after. A first pressing in OK shape will cost at least £70. One in close-to mint condition – if one can be found, that is – can fetch £220. Head issued no singles. The reissue of this Scottish jazz band’s final release is welcome.This particular Head are not to be confused other bands of the same name, from the proto-trip-hoppers formed by former Pop Group member Gareth Sager to the Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Years have passed since the early days of Gorillaz, when the real musicians behind the cartoon band remained hidden from view onstage. Yet some things never change, and while there was plenty of cheering for the arrival of Damon Albarn onstage, it was dwarfed by the roars for the first appearances of 2-D, Murdock, Russel and Noodle on giant video screens overlooking the stage.Those cheers came from a wildly diverse crowd, from kids with their parents to Britpop stalwarts who have presumably followed Albarn ever since. Perhaps some of the younger fans were drawn by the anime style of the band Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Juanita Stein had a simple request for her bandmates. “Don’t fuck this up”, she joked, before the Australian group played a song from their new album for only the second time ever. You could understand the concern, however lightly it was expressed. These are still early days in the band’s reformation, with this year’s “Strange Days” offering the first material in 11 years.Hence the trio, augmented to a foursome here, were back in what Stein called a home away from home – the cramped surroundings of King Tut’s. It is a familiar haunt for the group, while also indicative of the fact that Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s the first date of Manchester rockers Witch Fever’s European tour and things are off to an iffy start. Drummer Annabelle Joyce has food poisoning. It was touch’n’go whether the band would play. But they do. Singer Amy Walpole advices us that Joyce may need to leave and puke at any point. But the crop-haired drummer’s made of sterner stuff. They hold their own. The band shaves two songs off the set but it matters little. Witch Fever rock.But let’s rewind. Support act Cowboy Hunters have a buzz growing. It’s easy to see why. The Glasgow duo are an original. They appear to an initially Read more ...
Simon Thompson
If there was love in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Valentine’s concert, then it was very much of the doomed variety. There was Romeo and Juliet, of course, as imagined in Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture, and Zemlinsky’s marvellously strange take on The Little Mermaid. Zemlinsky’s Mermaid disappeared for decades until it was reconstructed in the 1980s, and that long absence might go some way towards explaining why it’s such a rarity in concert halls today. We audiences are the losers in that, though, because this 45-minute orchestral fantasy is a cascade of colours in which the Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
CMAT knows how to make an entrance. The opening of this show, in common with the rest of her tour, featured her band assembling onstage before a spotlight was suddenly shone on the back of the room – and there was Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, in a vivid green outfit and snazzy spectacles, standing on a raised section usually home to seats.It was a fitting entrance that could have nestled on the silver screen alongside the varied tunes from films played over the PA before the gig started. Thompson is an undoubted star these days, a charismatic and energetic mega watt performer. This gig, part of Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Although the Beaches may hail from Toronto, they evidently have more Scottish connections than many bands that come this way. Drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel announced early on that she got her very first tattoo on a visit to Oban around a decade ago, but this was trumped by guitarist Leandra Earl recalling she lost her virginity in Dundee.The chap in question was not only apparently in the audience for this show, but also the only man Earl ever enjoyed sleeping with. This declaration was made before the group played one of the night’s few slow songs, the keyboard led “Lesbian of the Year”, Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
There are always a few drawbacks to being a support act. For Allie X, the biggest issue was simply finding space to stand onstage, with so much ground already filled with covered up props for the night’s headliners. Still, she made a good effort with what she had, working the crowd well, and the clattering electro-pop of “Super Duper Party People” and a wickedly noisy “Off With Her Tits” carried enough verve by themselves that no stage craft was needed.Magdalena Bay had plenty of those songs too, but accompanied them with a stage décor that appeared to be aiming for the stars, or the moons. Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
A new look and new vibe for Grant-Lee Phillips at this pared-back performance, part of the Celtic Connections festival that takes over Glasgow for a couple of weeks every January and February. The fresh vibe was due to this being Phillips first tour entirely seated, as he put it, sitting down and armed only with an acoustic guitar, while the 62-year-old is now more hirsute, having grown a beard.There was little else beyond simple performance here, for Cottiers' converted church setting does not exactly lend itself to any onstage gimmicks. If the plastic chairs of the auditorium gave it all Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
When Yard Act headlined the O2 Academy in Glasgow back in 2023, they might have thought returning there as a support act would indicate a career that had taken a wrong turn. That’s where they found themselves on this jaunt with the Hives, though the reality was less a reflection of their status as a band and simply that what was announced as an arena tour for the Swedish garage rockers had been downgraded to a more modest setting. Not that the Leeds quartet seemed affected by it. Singer James Smith was typically verbose as ever, praising his band, their music and Glasgow itself before Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
According to legend, Glasgow can be a tough place for a support band a crowd do not warm to. Therefore brotherly duo Faux Real were perhaps taking a risk when they elected to bound into the audience during the first number in their Wet Leg support slot. It was greeted with mostly puzzlement from early attendees, but when they repeated the trick 30 minutes later - finding space and sprinting towards each other before jumping into the air with high kicks - the reaction was much more enthusiastic. The pair had mixed up synth-heavy pop of varying quality with relentless, hard working Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
You wait years for a guitar group with brothers to reunite and then two come along at once. The Maccabees return might have attracted far less attention compared to the Gallaghers hitting the road again as Oasis, but as they strolled onstage on a humid Glasgow night the ecstatic reaction from fans suggested it was a sight many had not expected to see again.There are many obvious differences too, given that the London fivesome never dented the public consciousness in the way of Manchester’s finest. And while the Oasis reunion has served up a glorifying of the Britpop era they provoked, Read more ...