Another gig that was put on my radar by the power of social media advertising tonight. My interest was obviously piqued by the term “pop punk” in the blurb – if you know me this comes as no surprise – but also by the total riot of hair on frontwoman Edith Victoria. I’m never one for image or judging books by their covers, but this is a pretty exciting cover. It’s their first time headlining up here and I’m going into the show completely blind. The only notes I’ve heard are those auto played on adverts. There’s something liberating about going to shows of those you’ve never heard before. No expectations, but the usual high standards.
The late door time of 8pm allows for a relaxed pint in the bar and there’s nothing bad about a relaxed pint in Tuts. Especially after you’ve just scaled that monstrous hill to get here. As we get closer to doors, the bar fills with what is a notably young and diverse crowd. Back the day everyone at pop punk shows looked the same… that was secretly the point even though we’d fight to the death to deny it. This is much more refreshing.
The support for tonight is Cody Frost. You may remember her from when we went to see Skindred at The Garage nine days ago. No matter what anyone thinks of her music, you can’t complain that she’s not one of the hardest working artists right now. She must see her own bed less often than I see my bathroom scales…and I am a man deeply in denial.
Tonight Cody has turned up without her guitarist which means she only has a drummer and backing tracks. This takes away from the metal elements of her music but if you read our previous review of this artist, that’s not a really bad thing. My gripe previously was that the mix of genres didn’t flow as much as they should have and everything was a bit disjointed. With the lack of a metal sounding live guitar everything was a lot more uniform. Her sound sticks to the electronic, aggressive dub step sound that really should be her niche. Tonight’s set has proven that less is more and all that’s needed to push this music to the next level is the love drums.
Sure, the stage looks a little bare… but it sounds a million times better than last week. This crowd is a lot more into Cody too and there’s warm banter between the front rows and her. If I hadn’t seen her last week, I’d be heralding Cody Frost as something really exciting from the rooftops tonight.
Meet Me At The Altar bound onto the stage with the energy of an army of Labradors. Every person in the crowd fires that energy right back at the three piece and it makes for an electric chain reaction. Front woman Edith is an explosion of colour that bounces back and forth while delivering vocals that are on point. Guitarist and occasional bass player Téa Campbell has the stage presence of any major guitarist of the genre.
This act is following the all too noticeable trend of being sans bass player and it may be the old school pop punker in me but there’s a lot a dedicated bass player can bring to a band – the music isn’t lacking as a result tonight, though. This is a fantastic poppy, punky, mash up that doesn’t shy away from the pop, but doesn’t lose the punk bite. The lighting on the stage tonight is completely back lit with the spot lights only flashing every once in a while. The result of this is that we’re watching silhouettes play in-between being blinded. This is unfortunate when you have three people emptying their tanks on stage and the lighting is doing all it can to stop you from seeing it.
MM@TA (which is the preferred shorthand, I believe) put absolutely everything they had into this show and it paid off. There was a lot of love in the room tonight from fans and it showed in the performance. The measure of pop vs punk changed like the slowly responding needle on an amplifier where nothing switched completely, but gently swayed from more poppy, to more punky.
Covers of Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne sound as pop as it gets, but MM@TA brought a dirtier, sharper bite to the songs which could surpass the original. For the first time headlining in Glasgow, this show was nothing short of a great success and hopefully an exciting sign of future appearances on Scottish stages. The fans that followed our headliners here would certainly be an asset to any show fortunate enough to have them as a support and it warms the heart to think that there may be enough of them to fill a bigger room for another headline tour one day soon. If you’re into fun, bouncy, music with a good bite to it and a live show bursting with energy, I’d recommend you turn up for those future shows too. I will be.
Photos by Catching Light Photography