Irish outfit NewDad opened the main stage to a very small crowd (probably quite a few sore heads after Day 1). A four-piece fronted by lead singer Julie Dawson, their vibe was somewhere between Cranberries, Slowdive and maybe The Cure.
Playing songs from their debut album plus a few other tracks, they certainly have the sound, vocals and melodies to fill a big stage and are definitely on the up, just slightly the wrong slot for them in terms of TRNSMT maybe…
BM had seen Bottle Rockets before but this River Stage performance was a lot more convincing and spiky than previous encounters. The Glasgow four-piece rattled through a set comprising tracks like ‘Winter Baby’, with hints of Gothic melancholy combined with biting guitar lines – they finished off with a Fontaines DC cover, which shows the breadth of their influences. Getting noticed more in the past year, this lot could potentially break big…
The Mary Wallopers were another band who went down well last year so got promoted to a bigger stage, this time the main stage. They can certainly get a crowd going, despite some of the lyrics being so fast they are hard to understand (broad Irish accents!). With a third date announced later in the year at Barrowlands, they have the raucous energy that inevitably references back to The Pogues – they certainly put on a good show and seemed confident on the big stage.
Soapbox, added late to the River Stage due to another act cancelling, were a revelation and probably the surprise of the weekend for this reviewer. The Scottish four-piece play fast, loud, confrontational tunes and the lead singer has the charisma to stir a crowd into a frenzy – in the crowd, shouting the lyrics of songs like ‘Public Private Transport’ (from the ‘Hawd That’ EP) into people’s faces – this was a committed performance and BM will be back for more, just a soon as they announce more live dates.
Dead Pony put in a reliably noisy and committed shift on the King Tut’s stage, playing a fairly familiar festival set and provoking outbreaks of moshing and a mass jump-up during the set. Anna has become very adept at working a crowd, and the addition of their own inflatable Dead Pony, flung from the stage, got even more applause from the crowd. BM just came across a BM review from 2020 saying they “could be quite big” – well, you heard that there first!
Photos by Catching Light Photography
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