Glasvegas…
on a boat! Hmm, this sounds hauntingly familiar…
Eleven
years ago, give or take a couple of weeks, we were at this very same venue with
these selfsame hosts, although under different circumstances… then, we were
gleefully anticipating being up front and personal with a stadium and festival
headliner of the future, at a venue that would quickly become so laughingly
tiny for them. However, for some reason the Glasvegas fire really didn’t catch,
and, far from a career of multiple home runs to capitalise on their stunning 2008
debut, which arrived fully-formed, distilling the insouciant rock’n’roll cool
of The Clash, Buddy Holly, The Jesus and Mary Chain and even the likes of Elvis
and Johnny Cash into a mournful yet thrilling whole, they’ve rather been left
at first base… Maybe that old adage is true; you only play The Thekla twice,
once on your way up, and once on your way down… They have however spent the
intervening years crafting a body of work which, whilst lacking the majesty or even
consistency of that debut, is still worth anyone’s ears, whilst also retaining
the capacity for superb “live” sets, as evidenced with last November’s “Shiiine
On” Sunday mainstage stunner. So, what are we anticipating tonight? I dunno…
how about just a fucking great show from a fucking great “live” band? That’ll
do…
Rachel
and I cleared off down the M4 in mizzly drizzle, picking our way through
Bristol’s underbelly and grabbing the last parking space outside the Thekla
before hitting the venue bar early doors. Openers Plasticene were on at 7.30; a
4-piece led by a tiny blonde vocalist/ guitarist almost wearing an even tinier and
clearly utterly impractical lime dress, which she immediately drew attention to
(“tits are nearly falling out already – that’d be a real show!”) whilst hoiking
up or down whichever end of said dress was misbehaving at the time. A shame, as
this seemed to detract from their dated and often clumsy but listenable Pixies/
Veruca Salt riff-heavy grungy numbers, with the occasional amphetamine punk stomper
such as “STD” (“don’t worry, I’ve never had one… [they’re] quite catchy though…”)
thrown in for good measure, so much so that a number of bloke punters were not
even bothering to hide the fact they were filming her, head downwards… Their
final, tempo-changing, number “Mistake” (as in, that dress is a…) was the best
of a decent set.
A
lot of Elvis on the PA as the place filled up (not an advance sell-out, this,
but I reckon close to it on the night), and we took a spot house left, a couple
of rows back; then “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” heralded the entrance of
Glasvegas at 8.30, the shimmering and mournful guitar and cascading drums of opener
“Dive” setting the dry-ice swathed scene perfectly. Dark, brooding and
gloaming; if ever they need volunteers to write a musical for “Macbeth”, James
Allan co. should have their hands up first…
“Thank
you thank you thank you so much for coming out to see the band,” Allan intoned sincerely,
before a quite stunning and majestic reading of “The World Is Yours”, the
jagged verse opening into an immense, Scott Walker-esque chorus of seething
power and majesty… and this was just the third number! The siren call of “Geraldine”
was the first singalong of the night, really getting the joint jumping, before
Allan toyed with his own mortality (“there’s a puddle of beer next to this
socket [on the stage]… what a way to go, out in a blaze of glory!”) before
leading the band into the impressively militaristic drum-dominated “Shake The
Cage”, new drummer Chris standing upright and pounding the shit out of the snare,
as per his predecessors. The elegiac cathedral organ intro of “Ice Cream Van”, overlaid
with a superb vocal from the heavily accented Allan, led to a huge crescendo,
and “Secret Truth” was windswept and widescreen, a soaring stadium filler in
another, saner world. But the best was saved for the end of the set; the
rollicking terrace chant of “Go Square Go” saw the band cut the music for the
bouncing moshpit to sing back the, “here we fucking go!” hook before a
thunderous finale, then “Daddy’s Gone”, for me the high watermark in their
catalogue, heart-breaking and wondrously joyful in equal measure, and again sung
along with gusto.
“You
never get used to this [people singing along]… it’s always, what the fuck!”
announced an appreciative Allan before a 3-song encore, the circular hook of “Lots
Sometimes” ultimately launching into full-on punk rock wall of noise assault,
then finale “Cheating Heart” swayalong and immense. Superb. A mixing desk
set-list on the way out, then home in the same mizzly drizzle and home well
before 11. Yup, this was, as hoped, a fucking great show from a fucking great “live”
band. And from Glasvegas, that’ll more than do!
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