With the throng of photographers merrily snapping away stage front you’d be forgiven for imagining that the headliners had already taken to Mono’s makeshift stage. However, the support are a snapper’s dream – tongue-in-cheek poses struck constantly as their game of musical statues offers up plenty of photo-opportunities.
If you know their music then you know that they are ideally suited to what as as much a party as a gig. Jerky stop-start rhythms propel their tunes, a mix of spasmodic punk rock and motorik beats which belie the fact that they are, ostensibly, a guitar-based quartet.
But amongst what’s a battery of head-nodding, off-kilter tunes, WatP are always about pure entertainment. Michael M banters with the audience and then claims mock offence – “he gave me the finger” he moans, before kicking into another tightly-constructed dance anthem (well, for anyone whose body clock marches to an off-beat).
The band promised surprises and delivered one – a Frenchman called Pierre (yes, really) who, it seems, is star of Stuart Murdoch’s ‘God Bless The Girl’ movie and fronts WatP in the film (they’re playing a band, a fact which results in more banter). Our continental friend delivers a tune which may be entitled ‘Kissing In The Red Zone’, and which Michael M is is at great pains to point out isn’t theirs. They do however, in best cover version style, make it their own, though their real strength is in their own stuff – the pick of which are current single ‘Goran Ivanesivich’, and a towering ‘Less Than Three’ which closes what is a rather decent support set.
Bis are however the main attraction, and from opener ‘Action and Drama’ all the way through to ‘Kandy Pop’, it’s like they’ve never been away. ‘Secret Vampires’ is 17 years old – “how can that be when I’m only 18?” ponders Sci-fi Steve. They may be older, and they’re also bigger, having picked two extra members – Stuart Memo, formerly of Multiplies on bass and Graham Christie from Chris Devotions’ Expectations on drums. This leaves the trio free to banter and entertain and they turn the clock back to 1995. ‘Eurodisco’ is a silly swooning singalong, ‘Starbright Boy’ a should-have-been bona fide pop classic, while ‘Kill Yr Boyfriend’ and ‘School Disco’ bite and nag like tunes that now lodged in the audience’s brains, will stick around for quite some time.
It’s not all about nostalgia – even though, as Manda informs us, Wet Wet Wet are across in the 13th Note (we assume rehearsing for their Glasgow Green nostalgia show rather than visiting from another dimension).
Back on earth, bis deliver a new tune, possibly entitled ‘Black and Blue’ which is, as Steve remarks afterwards “just like the old ones – cool!”. Indeed – it slots very comfortably into a set which despite being drawn largely from what is a pretty ‘mature’ back catalogue, sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday. Looks like bis may be around for a while yet.