The Front Bottoms… pioneers of basement-emo, lo-fi, using answering phone messages from your ex as intros, clever lyrics, and a name that still makes me chuckle.
For a long time, they were an amazingly well-kept secret in emo circles and that might come down to those who knew of them wanting to keep the band for themselves. Knowing their work was like a secret handshake where if you met another fan, you knew you were in an exclusive club.
After supporting Blink 182 last time they played The Hydro (back in the Matt Skiba days) put them under quite the spotlight and now the secret is out. The Academy is a huge venue for a band that’s known for lo-fi basement emo that sounds like it’s recorded on a four-track tape machine… so can they do something to fill this space?
Songkick advertised the support as We Were Promised Jetpacks. That promise was broken as Jetpacks we did not get. To be fair, I’m not sure if that was advertised anywhere else – I really should rely on more than one source. Fake news! (Jetpacks actually announced that they’d pulled out a wee while ago, but clearly no-one thought to update the Songkick listing! – Ed).
The support act we did get – Vunadabar – was particularly enjoyable, though. So, I’m not upset about it. Fresh indie rock that brings some Vampire Weekend, some Pinkerton era Weezer, a bit of The Futureheads and mix it all up in a big pot.
There’s a lot of charisma in this three piece with a singer/guitarist who’s not afraid to flail about a bit, a bassist who really works the whole fretboard, and their secret weapon of a hyperactive drummer with a killer moustache. They did have their first ever fried pizza in Glasgow tonight too… so we tip our hat to them for that.
The Front Bottoms come on to ‘Sandstorm’ by Darude and I absolutely was not prepared for that. It was a good omen for the rest of the set, however, as the usual duo are fleshed out with lead guitar, bass and a very well-equipped keyboardist.
Kicking off with ‘The Beers’ – a fan favourite with the outstanding chorus of “And I will remember that summer/ As the summer I was taking steroids/ Because you like a man with muscles/ And I like you” – it’s obvious the sound can fill this room. The usual meek and somewhat awkward vocals of Brian Sella has overwhelming confidence tonight while the usual janky sound of the instruments is thick and lush.
It’s kind of a running joke that Brian sounds like ex-ex-singer of Blink, Tom DeLonge… but tonight he’s blowing him out the water. Two microphones allow Brian to switch between clean and vocoded vocals at will, adding even more complexity to the usually lofi sound. What we have in front of us tonight is an evolved band… the sound has moved out of the basement and into the size of rooms that they deserve to be in.
Even though our headliners have recently released ‘You Are Who You Hang Out With’, the set is mostly made up of the most loved fan favourites. The encore is one of the best I’ve seen with the three blinders of ‘Flashlight’, ‘Joanie’, and the biggest hit ‘Twin Size Mattress’.
With such a good performance, there are some sad points, however: (1) we may never get to see “basement” Front Bottoms again. You just can’t step back down from such a powerful performance as that. And (2) the secret is out… we are going to have to share The Front Bottoms with a lot more people now.
Photos by Catching Light Photography
