Sometimes a gig is in such an unusual location that you just have to go especially when it’s a 20 minute drive from your home.
It’s not the fact it’s in Rosyth – albeit a music-starved location close to the Forth Bridges that possibly hasn’t seen musical action since the Icicle Works played there in the 1980s (thanks to Manic Pop Thrills for that nugget of info).
No, it’s the fact that we’re in a public library in the heart of this Fife coastal town, to witness one of Scotland’s hottest pop sensations. Sacred Paws, winners of the Scottish Album of the Year award in 2017, are back with a new long-player, and while they should be stadium-sized by now, are instead part of the UK-wide Get It Loud in Libraries programme, which, the band later inform us, has also seen Adele grace its (temporary) stages.
Operating as a four-piece tonight, the band kick off with the feedback-strewn ‘The Conversation’, a tune which has been all over 6music and is firmly lodged in the heads of any regular listener to the station. That distorted guitar – rather more Mary Chain than Afrobeat – is supplied by Jack Mellin of Spinning Coin, who alongside bassist Moema Meade, gives the band a punchier live sound, meaning new release ‘Run Around The Sun’ and its many guest appearances sees its full-on sound neatly replicated tonight.
Throughout the 45 minute set the band combine tight rhythmic interplay with sheer unabashed fun, in what frontwoman Rachel Aggs confesses isn’t their first show in a library – but that mysterious earlier gig is long forgotten thanks to the warm, nay almost rapturous reception the busy crowd offers.
Aggs is also in charge of the setlist – well, the band only have one between them, despite the advice offered on ‘Write It Down’, making for some entertaining banter and mock-embarrassed silences during tuning and detuning of guitar. Eildih Rodgers shares vocal duties but, being based at the back of the stage, takes on less MCing duties, although she is very much in charge of the beat. She does introduce ‘How Far’ as one of the “few slow songs we do”. It’s not slow. Slower perhaps, but the band’s purpose is foot-tappingly catchy.
We get a mini-set of older material as Meade and Mellin depart the stage (and thumb through a handy encyclopaedia) leaving the two core members to run through a percussive-heavy pair of earlier tunes, which capture their exuberance further before being rejoined for the closing numbers including a joyous take on the title track from that prize-winning release, ‘Strike A Match’.
Deserved applause rings out calls for another song go unheeded, but rather than a noise curfew being enforced – the staff are as keen as the audience – it appears that the band hadn’t anticipated being in such demand. Encores are something they should be prepared for as their rise continues – and silence from their audience – even in a library – seems unlikely.