Glasvegas – The Loft – 8/4/09
Posted September 8th, 2009 · Artists: Glasvegas
Upon being disappointed by their no-show at the final day of SXSW earlier this year, I was pretty excited to see the Scottish rock show of Glasvegas. I like their album, if I’m not blown away by it (despite being a Mercury Prize nominee), but I have always thought it would be a great live show. It turns out that I was right and they ScotRocked the joint to the relative happiness of the smallish crowd. Full writeup after the jump.
The first band was Ida Maria, and through the magic of Twitter, @durkinator informed me that she is from Norway and gave an endorsement of her album. I only caught the final three songs of their set, but I thought she had a great and cool sounding voice. The first song I heard was more soulful, but the final two were just power pop and very catchy. I’d definitely be interested in seeing them live again; good stuff.
Next up was Glasvegas. As a strange aside, upon being given my photography pass, I was instructed that I was not allowed to take flash photography of Glasvegas, but only during the first four songs. I have to say I was exceedingly curious as to why, and as of this moment, I have no idea. They had a fairly decent light show going for such a tiny venue, but nothing changed after 4 songs….it was the same light/smoke setup that they had at the beginning. Why was there this weird four song line of demarcation? None can say.
So, after an extended break whereby the techs tuned the guitar and bass three separate tims, Glasvegas finally took the stage amongst their pretty sweet light show and began to rock it out. I think the general strength of the set rests upon the strength of the songs themselves. Their album really lends itself well to loud, rolling live numbers and Glasvegas has done well in adapting the songs to live venues.
The band did seem a bit blazee about the whole show, and even frontman James Allan had very little to say between songs to try and get the crowd a little more jazzed up. At the outset, he simply opened with “You ready to have a fookin’ guud time?!” and later adding, “Dallas thank you very fookin’ much!” I think he was at a loss a little with the crowd because after the 4th or 5th song, he approached the mic to attempt to rile us up, but upon failing to think of anything to say, he just put his hands up and shrugged.
The music was good, as I briefly touched upon. The mix was pretty good, the lead vocals were strong and very clean. At times, the distortion on the guitar muddied down the crispness of the other songs, but it was nothing to panic about. Overall the sound was pretty good and it definitely was sufficiently loud in there. I really think Glasvegas needs a better drummer. I’ll leave it at that.
The energy level from the band and, conversely, from the audience seemed to be a recripocally low ebb, only reaching rock show heights a couple of times during the set. The superfans were definitely out and had no problems taking the reigns from the band in singing the lead vocals, which James seemed to be genuinely amused by. But overall, the show was a bit subdued, despite the excellent technical nature of the songs and the band’s best efforts to throw a little more energy into the room.
Glasvegas’ headlining has wrapped up, but I think in the right circumstance these guys could really rip the lid off it. Dallas just wasn’t one of those nights.
Glasvegas - It’s My Own Cheating Heart - from Glasvegas
Glasvegas - Geraldine – from Glasvegas
