Tonight was another “blind” night, seeing three acts I knew nothing about beyond one short video I’d watched of the headliners. Siamese were recommended by another of the crew who came along to the show and knew what to expect. I, for sure, did not!
All the way from Denmark, openers Cold Culture impressed from the off. With half an hour to impress the crowd (more on them in a bit), they didn’t hold back. With a half-full venue, they could have been playing to an arena. Great tunes and energy, the sound in the venue wasn’t quite spot on for them and the drums were a bit tinny, though their charisma and strong songs overcame all that.
The lead singer has a hell of a voice, and great audience engagement. And tonight had a wonderful audience. While the band called for hand waving, bouncing, crouching, and clapping everyone joined in happily. Things stopped short of moshpit or wall of death, but for decent reasons. I actually saw a few people look around themselves considering it, but spotted other people with beers in hand or who obviously wouldn’t be up for it so decided to hold their energy for the headliners. Considerate concert-goers – credit!
As I said, Cold Culture are new to me so I couldn’t name any of their songs, but the music was great and they seem to have been going for a while judging by the amount of merch they had on sale. According to Siamese later on, Cold Culture are students who joined the tour with two weeks notice, and who had to take out a loan to help pay towards the tour bus. With this music and this attitude, expect to see Cold Culture back again sometime. They are well worth seeing and great party starters.
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Germany’s Chaosbay were up next, arguably more upbeat and poppy than the openers and every bit as entertaining. Making the most of the stage, they threw energy into the venue and received it back tenfold. Again, this wasn’t a band content to play tunes, wave goodbye and head off. They were here to party!
With great, bouncy tunes they had the audience smiling by the time the first song was halfway done and didn’t let up for the whole show. A big change from the Cold Culture set was that I recognised an actual song! Their cover of “Message In A Bottle” was superb, even topping the Machine Head version (and everyone knows I’m an enormous MH fan) purely by being different. This was down to the band genuinely making it their own, and I actually ended up singing along.
Another band who would be welcome back here with open arms.
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The venue was visibly fuller for Siamese arriving on stage, and they certainly managed to maintain the energy provided by their supports. The Cathouse was jumping throughout their set, and the sound by now was absolutely on point. This wasn’t their first time visiting Glasgow (they were apparently robbed on that occasion!), this was their first time as headliners and they very much earned this top spot.
Looking around the venue as I was trying to get a half decent photo (damn you, strong single-coloured lighting), there was nothing but joy on the faces of the fans as Siamese pumped out track after track of feel-good metalcore. I didn’t catch the names of many songs, but I very much enjoyed what I heard regardless. Frontman Mirza Radonjica has a great line in patter and knows how to fill those between-song gaps as well.
Crowd engagement and simply being nice guys are certainly part of Siamese’ repertoire, and they took time to play one song in the middle of the dancefloor, spot-lit from above and surrounded by fans. They got that moshpit as well, prior to ploughing through their three-track encore.
As with their opening bands, Siamese were straight over to the merch area as the final notes were dying out, talking to and signing everything – at no charge. As they say, maybe they’ll have to start charging for VIP one of these days, but it’s certainly not something they’d want to do.
Tonight was what small venues are all about. Great, independent bands. Wonderful fans. Awesome music.
