I’ve seen Zoey van Goey a fair few times in recent years since catching them supporting Teenage Fanclub in Dundee a few years ago and they never fail to put a smile on my face.Whether it’s a packed venue playing to someone else’s crowd, an acoustic set or playing in front of a sparse crowd (their recent Dundee show to promote the excellent Propellers Versus Wings album – a show so poorly promoted by the venue that I only heard about a few days prior to the gig) they always put their hearts and souls into each performance.
Tonight was the first time I’d seen them in Glasgow in front of a home crowd and the show was billed as being something a bit different complete with live remixing and a free remix mini-album. What more could anyone want?
The first surprise of the night is the sheer number of video cameras dotted around the venue on tripods. Now I’ve been pretty aware that the amount of photographers, amateur and otherwise, seems to have grown exponentially at gigs, what with the growth of blogging and digital photography but this was something else.
It turned out that a film crew were in the house recording tonight’s proceedings. They had asked Zoey Van Goey’s permission and they’d granted it, expecting a single camera. The next surprise was the lovely décor that Zoey Van Goey had dotted around the room and stage, brightening up the subterranean environs of Stereo.
Kid Canaveral opened proceedings tonight. I’ve seen them quite a few times now and always enjoyed them live though they’ve never set the proverbial heather alight for me. Tonight though, they sounded really good, punchy and crisp. Their short set was almost exclusively drawn from their debut album Shouting At The Wildlife.
Kid Canaveral specialise in neat, pop tunes and there’s a few potential classics in their set including ‘Smash Hits’, the lyrics of which are witty and razor sharp, ‘You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night’ and ‘Couldn’t Dance’. The male / female voices interact really well and nearly every song sounds like a potential single. They look like they’re having a ball in front of an enthusiastic crowded room and even debut a brand new song ‘The Wrench’ halfway through the set. It sounds brilliant, an excellent taster hopefully for the next album.
Zoey Van Goey begin pretty gently with ‘Where It Lands’, the final song on the current album. Kim Moore has an astonishing, gorgeous voice that demands your attention. They play a mixture of songs from both albums and the sound is crystal clear. They play my favourite Zoey Van Goey song, the incredible ‘City Is Exploding’ early on. It’s stunning, building from hushed beginnings into a bit of an epic with the voices singing so sweetly together.
Zoey Van Goey make the shift from gentle folk-influenced songs to out-and-out pop songs so effortlessly – the aforementioned ‘City Is Exploding’ and ‘My Aviator’ are delicate, intricate songs, while the likes of ‘We Don’t Have that Kind Of Bread’ and the hilarious ‘You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate’ have a wonderful pop sensibility to them. They always sound like no-one else but themselves throughout.
A good way into the set, sees the cinematic, delicate ‘My Aviator’ accompanied by a trumpet as Gav from Findo Gask wanders out of the dressing room, through the audience and onto the stage without missing a note. As that song ends things change a little. We’ve been wondering how the ‘live remixing’ is going to work for most of the night. Now we’re going to find out. The answer is that it works brilliantly.
The four songs featuring Gav are fantastic, radically re-shaping things without losing or detracting anything from Zoey Van Goey’s performance. My, and I think most of the audiences, favourite is ‘Sackville Sun’ with it’s breakdown in the middle that brings out a burst of choreography from the band onstage and big smiles from the audience. Who knew an eight-track cartridge could sound that cool?
They finish off the set with ‘The Cake And Eating It’ and I pretty much think we’ve just had our cake, ate it and enjoyed it thank you very much when the band return for an encore of Camper Van Beethoven’s ‘Take the Skinheads Bowling’. Michael introduces it as a song by the only other band they know that has Van as its middle name, to which someone asks (Matt I think), “Van Halen?”, but it’s a ruse, everyone has worked it out. It’s a lovely song, one of my all-time favourites and a fantastic climax to a thoroughly wonderful night. Zoey Van Goey are possibly the most underrated band in Scotland at this point in time, both live and on record. If you haven’t fallen for them yet you should and soon.
Thanks to Mike Melville for the use of the photographs. You can see the full set at www.flickr.com/photos/manicpopthrills
You can also read Mike’s own take on the gig at manicpopthrills.wordpress.com