3 of Scotland’s top indie bands for a fiver? There must be a catch?
Well, in a way – with all the bands on tonight’s bill having not released a record for some time, we are in fact privy to a fair old selection of new material. or, if you like, we’re guinea pigs for their unheard tunes – a bit of market research perhaps.
How To Swim deserve some leeway for now. With 11 onstage (someone suggested a record 13, but that’s all we can see) they are well worth our £1.67 recurring, and indeed, we’re happy to indulge their raft of new material, which sounds strong and indeed more full-on than what they’ve recorded to date. More importantly, they do still sound like the bastard offspring of the Bad Seeds and Bearsuit, and that is after all what we’ve paid our money to see.
Popup are closest of the 3 acts to releasing a new album – not only with a date for their debut long-player for Art Goes Pop, but being allowed to sell 2 copies per member at the end of the gig. Doubtless some sort of bidding war for those 8 CD will have ensued as the album isn’t due until August. At which point, the new material – which sounds in places as strong on first listen as anything they’ve done before – will be available for all to hear. ‘Panama’ in particular sticks in the mind, but their jerkily urgent pop tunes all have a compelling tone. The set grinds to an odd end when a heckler interrupts the closing number with a line from Frankie Miller’s ‘Caledonia’ in lieu of the band skipping their usual cover of it for the set. “Telling stories, singing songs” perhaps sums up Popup so the blurted interruption may have been some sort of bizarre tribute – either way, singer Damo recovers his composure to announce that ”they all lived happily ever after” before departing.
Dealing with hecklers is a skill only perfected with the kind of experience that Gordon Macintyre has gained from years of singing songs about the Sash in Glasgow. He passes on this tonight but still decides that attack is the best form of defence, accusing Glasgow audiences of being lacking in ‘hardness’ compared to their Edinburgh counterparts. Of course, it’s all in jest, the punchline being that keyboard player Alexa has earlier been injected with rabies. Leaving that news hanging in the air, the band proceed to rattle through a rousing set combining old favourites like the singalong ‘Avant Garde Music’ and the clapalong ’Donald In The Bushes’. ‘The Ghosts Of New Orleans’ which among a slew of new material has stepped up to the mark as a true ballboy classic. Similarly, newie ‘A Relatively Famous Victory’ has all the hallmarks of one we’ll be talking about for years to come. If we’re to be the guineapigs for their new tunes, then we’re happy to remain their loyal subjects.
