Oscar Wilkie reviews the first of two nights featuring Glasgow’s premier modern-rock band as they make a mostly triumphant return to celebrate the 10th anniversary of breakout album, The Great Divide.
Glasgow’s forefront rock n’ rollers recently made a triumphant return to Barrowlands, playing the first of two nights celebrating the tenth anniversary of their breakout album, The Great Divide. With the second night completely sold out and as someone who had never been to Barrowlands before, I was very excited. Entering the venue, it was fun to see the stars in the ceiling and a varied crowd ready for the concert.
An interesting turn of events saw the band play as their own support act to open the concert, as lead singer Sam McTrusty mentioned: “It’s the first time we’ve ever supported someone in the barras”. They played their first album, Vivarium (2009), in full, which presented an interesting, if flawed idea as only committed fans would know the ins and outs of a debut album. Compounding this was the staging, with Sam all the way on the far left, clad in a cap. At first, you’d struggle to recognise where the lead vocals were coming from. Despite the occasion, the opening set didn’t feel as special as it could have – to that end McTrusty asked at one point: “Are you gonna go for it or are you just standing there?”. However, it’s hard to get excited when the songs are deep cuts and so sadly, their opening set halved the excitement for me in seeing their main set. That said, someone needs to give their drummer, Craig Kneale, a raise as he shot into the first song and I nearly hit the roof. He was giving it his all and that began one of my concert long obsessions.
Any worry I had from the opening set was quickly squashed as they entered to ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ (aka that song from 2001: A Space Odyssey). McTrusty was now all in black with slicked black hair, and the flags that featured on The Great Divide’s album cover unfurled at the side of the stage. The staging was already much more impressive and polished, as was the use of lighting and the sound mix as thankfully, I could hear everything. They launched into ‘Heart and Soul’ and kept that frenetic energy for the next three songs, which showed a huge difference in their performance and the reaction from the crowd than the opening set. Having seen them two years ago supporting Muse at Bellahouston Park and not getting much love from the crowd, it was nice to see just a few songs in, how much love they were getting back from the audience.
They then had us crouch down for ‘I’m An Animal’, which led me to nearly falling over as I’m not the nimblest gig goer. After that, they played ‘Cell Mate’, which at this point felt like some of the energy was fizzling out, despite a woman crowd surfing which was fun to see. They also played ‘Yes, I Was Drunk’, which was a nice slower, singalong song – giving everyone a well-earned rest. However, the setlist choice was confusing as this and the next song, ‘Free’ (which was brilliant to hear again live), aren’t on The Great Divide. It felt a little weird in that they didn’t go through the album in one go, instead inserting songs from different albums throughout, so it was a little tricky to keep track of the tone and energy of the gig because of this. Once they got back on topic though, it settled back into rhythm. At this point I noticed how white the drummers’ teeth were and wondered what kind of toothpaste he’s using. We then got two songs off their latest album, Meltdown, which again saw a dip in energy. Also, oddly they played no songs off their 2021 album, Transparency, which in my opinion is one of the best albums this decade and has easily four or five perfect songs to get people dancing at a gig.
Our next segue back into The Great Divide (2015) started with the night’s slowest song, ‘Rest in Pieces’, which was helped by watching a man light an actual lighter along to the song – very old school. The lead singer then joked that the next song, ‘Make a Beast of Myself’, was the guitarist Barry McKenna’s favourite song and suggested the crowd ought to start up a Barry chant. The song proved to be a crowd pleaser and the Barry chant was indeed fulfilled mid song. McTrusty as a frontman was good in talking to the audience with that Rock singer bravado that sometimes swayed between earnestness and sarcasm. However, he did on a few occasions get the timings wrong and laugh through the words, particularly on the song ‘Oceans’, to which he said afterwards: “I’ll be lying in bed tonight cringing”. Someone shouted back: “We still love you”, so it was obvious that this kind of crowd were not going to care that he made a few mistakes.
We got one last song off The Great Divide, before they announced they had three songs left and this was easily the strongest section of the setlist as it took the roof off in comparison to what came before. They began with ‘Barcelona’, which turned out to be a crowd pleaser, much more than I was expecting. Then came ‘No Sleep’, which started a mosh pit and for me was the highlight of the night. Everyone was up for it and it’s a song reminiscent of growing up in Glasgow in the 2010s that it felt like a rock comfort blanket. Their final song was ‘Heart and Soul’ which seemed like a risk as they had already played it. However, I think after the two crowd pleasing songs before it, the crowd were amped up and acted as if the song hadn’t been played yet. It was a great ending to leave on, apt to finish with the best song off the album they were celebrating.
Ultimately, it was a really good gig, with some great songs, an engaged crowd and ended on a three-song high, however playing their own supporting act didn’t pay off and their placement of songs mixed in with The Great Divide, was tonally a little confusing. However, the crowd didn’t seem to care, and it’s always nice to see a hometown band return.
