This is the first gig of a very busy week for me, so busy that I actually opted not to go to see Lord of the Lost last night, something part of me is regretting but the part of me that made progress on his dissertation is quite glad of. Now, originally I was going as a “plus one” for a night off, but unfortunately our primary reviewer wasn’t well so you’ve got me doing the write up. Also, I’m not allowed to let her know if the show was any good. So… if your name is Emma and you write for us then the show was shit and stop reading now.
Everyone else, still with us? Good. This evening, which was far from shit, was opened by The Molotovs who has just started before I managed to negotiate the street-long queue to get in. They’re a new-ish band and one we’ve had a few emails about from their PR. They’ve apparently managed two number one singles in the album charts and will find out this week if they’ve managed the hat-trick with their latest. They’ve also been announced as arena support for Yungblud. Definitely a band on the up, and definitely one who deserve the plaudits based on their performance tonight.
A three-piece, they make a great racket and have a pin-sharp image. Two gentlemen dressed in mod-like suits and a lady who in another life could pass as a gangster’s mol. But one who could probably beat you to death with her bass before you could pull out a Tommy gun. This trio have presence, attitude, and tunes to back them up. They grab the crowd by the throat and don’t let go for a moment of their all-too-brief opening salvo, and have the audience cheering for more well before the end.
I’m going to be honest, I can’t name any of the songs off the top of my head (setlist.fm is letting me down this evening), but I will absolutely be looking them up and getting to know them. If you’re heading to those Yungblud shows (or any of those left on this run), please do yourselves a favour and get there early enough to watch them.
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Up next is a band that we’ve featured a couple of times, but who I’ve never had the pleasure of covering. The Hunna have been going for a decade or so now, and you can see every minute of that experience in their set. Dan Dorney stands tall on stage left and rattles out the riffs while Junate Angin remains quite stationary on stage right like a tall mop, twanging out the rhythms. Belting shit out of the drums, Jack Metcalfe keeps the engine running. And stuck in the middle you have Ryan Potter, whose job it is to sing the songs and play a bit of guitar himself.
All well and good for a couple of pretty damn decent songs. And then the band make the mistake of releasing Potter from the shackles of carrying a guitar as they launch into “I Wanna Know” and the place goes mental. Unleashed and showing what he’s truly made of, by the end of this one song I’m convinced I’ve seen one of the best frontmen touring the circuit right now. The energy, passion, sweat and nut-jobbery as he bounds around the stage, encourages the audience, leaps, crouches and doesn’t miss a damn note. By the end of this song, I was sold.
While the rest of the set didn’t quite match this peak (this is no complaint by the way, it was simply so damn good), the quality of the songs didn’t let up and the four of them finished a 40-ish minute support slot looking like they’d played for ninety. They have a new EP out on the 14th, followed by a run of headline dates towards the end of the month. If you don’t catch them supporting PR, then I definitely recommend catching them elsewhere. Absolutely superb.
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The first time I recall hearing Palaye Royale’s name was when their gig at The Garage in Glasgow was cancelled with very late notice (through no fault of their own) and the band decided to just hang outside the venue and party with their fans. Nice gesture, but just another news story and a band I didn’t know. As a site we’ve caught them live a few times: Abigail in London on that 2020 tour, and then Kristal and Jack caught the band in Manchester in both 2022 and 2023. Me, though? Not yet. Until Emma pointed out they were in Glasgow and she really, really wanted to see them and said that I probably would as well. Refer to paragraph 1 for how that went.
So newcomer Mosh ends up in a crowd, roughly 95% of whom are less than half his age, being absolutely blown away by a band who put so much into their live show that he’s wondering how the hell he didn’t see them before. Now the stage show itself is fairly laid back. A nice backdrop, some decent lights, those overgrown sparklers that are nice and safe for indoor venues and some huge balloons (it doesn’t matter how old you are, huge balloons / beach balls at a gig are brilliant). What made the gig so good were the performances from the five band members.
They have a great look, borderline gothic but each with their own take, with singer Remington being down to trousers and a naked tattooed torso by the time we’re onto the second song. Again, I don’t know a single track. Again, I don’t care. They were all good (or better), and they were all performed to a very high standard. In fact Remington’s vocals were so good (if effects-enhanced) from the beginning that I thought he was miming. This lasted about 60 seconds into the first song until he yelled “GLASGOW!” and I thought “No. You can’t mime that. That’s impromptu. He’s actually just that damn good.”
I picked up a few song titles (“Death or Glory”, “Showbiz”, “Dying in a Hot Tub”, “Fucking With My Head”) though it was “Fever Dream” that blew me away more than anything else, especially that opening vocal salvo, and again at the end. Goosebumps, and so much more powerful than the recorded version that I’ve dug out since I got home.
With multiple band members ending up in the audience at some point or another (whether on an inflatable raft or not), and Remington likely giving the venue staff palpitations as he clambered up some of the rigging at the side of the hall, the show was a spectacle. The songs were great, the atmosphere was palpable, the band simply lovely, and the audience… well, I was happy to be a part of it. If this is what I’ve been missing I regret not playing the Editor in Chief card years ago and getting to one of their shows. I think the rest of the tour is sold out (I know tonight was), so start saving for their next run of dates.
Header image by Jack Barker Photography (from 2023! We didn’t get a photo pass for this show)
