After stellar support from Le Reno Amps and not so stellar from Tiny Dancers, Brakes returned triumphantly to the Glasgow stage fresh from supporting the Killers at the Carling Academy. The assembled parts of Electric Soft Parade, British Sea Power and Tenderfoot have rapidly acquired a fervent fanbase and tonights sell out crowd shows how far they have come in a relatively short period of time. Their debut album ‘Give Blood’ seems to have been a slow burner but with the support of Radio 1 and Edith Bowman the new album ‘The Beatific Visions’ looks set to propel them from cult to cool. In a selfish way I hope that doesn’t happen but there is no doubt everyone here tonight is clued up as they launch into the ferocious ‘Hi How are you?’ The first song of the night sparks a mass sing-a-long notably at the line ‘Won’t you shut the fuck up/Am a just trying to watch the band” on their ode to people who don’t stop yacking at gigs.
The next couple of songs are the reason why I fell in love with this band, ‘Ring a ding’ is one of the best openers to a debut album you are ever likely to hear and ‘Heard about your band’ is a an absolute stormer of a track with it’s line about a dickhead boasting to Eamon how he knows “the girl from Sleater Kinney” and that he “shared a cab with Karen O”.
One of the things that may hold them back from world domination is their scathing views on politicians such as there 10 second outburst of “Cheney Cheney! Stop bein such a dick” Played not once but twice tonight, and how ironic was it that a giant bumbling American was asked to count them in with a 1-2-3-4,only to offer a vacant stare in return.
A mixture of funny and romantic would be a good way to describe the rest of their set with the heartfelt ‘Isobel’ and ‘If I Should Die Tonight’,played against the ludicrous,yet somehow inspiring, ‘Porcupine or Pineapple’ and ‘Spring Chicken’. There is also absolute carnage when they play dancefloor favourite ‘All Night Disco Party’ cue lots of people,myself included,bouncing around like a loon! The beauty of a Brakes set is that as the songs are all relatively short you do manage to hear pretty much everything you want to including the sublime ‘The Most Fun’ and ‘NY Pie’ sadly this means there is no room for perhaps their longest, and finest, song “I Can’t Stand to Stand Beside You” A fitting end to the night is provided though with their version of Johnny Cash’s ‘Jackson’ sadly there is no Laila Moss on show but it goes down a treat regardless. However it wouldn’t be a Brakes gig without a ‘`Comma Comma Comma Comma Full stop’ to round things off and they do so with some style.