Another great night at the Glad – original support act Life Model were taken ill (nasty infection, get well soon), then subs Pocket Knife were called into work, so it fell to Glasgow duo Kelora to fill the support slot, and they did a very good job indeed!
Combining live guitar with vocals/keyboards/backing tracks, they gave us 10 tracks (by BM’s reckoning anyway) of odd, quirky synthpop. They played tracks from their several EPs. There was a aura of waltz, and tango to the first couple of tracks, the tricksy backing tracks chattering and driving home the beautiful vocals and thrums of the guitar.
‘Honey’ was great, and by the time we got to ‘All I Want Is You’ (which sounded like some lost Sarah Records oddity) the audience were well won over. BM was also reminded of 90s group Dubstar (in subsequent enquiries it turns out the group have never heard of them!).
One of the last tracks played was ‘UFO’ (“Is it bad to feel happy when I am sad”) which puts them in the same club as Malcolm Middleton and even the JAMC.
This was a great show from Benedict and Kitty – an unexpected treat.
Headliners Tallies are from Toronto, Canada, and play guitar-led pop, with great female vocals, a bit like The Cocteau Twins at 78rpm. They just played one track after another, mainly off their self-titled new album. They certainly rocked this wee place and the soundmix (thanks Richy) was just great.
They blasted through ten or more songs, with shades of classic songwriting showing through, from The Go-Betweens to Throwing Muses, Lush and all points in between… The new release is on Fearofmissingout Records and all tracks sounded really good, a real songwriting sensibility going on there, and the whole set was really enjoyable. BM hopes to see them back in Scotland (this was their first visit) soon and has just remembered what BM was thinking all along – 10,000 Maniacs, aha!