Young Fathers. Barrowlands, Glasgow. March 2018

Young Fathers. Barrowlands, Glasgow. March 2018. Live gig review

I have said it before, but it is worth saying again, Young Fathers are by far the best live act on the go just now. They are growing their following whilst barely changing the formula that they started out with: three Edinburgh men singing, contorting, crooning and shouting over a droning electronic background and vigorous live drumming. Live they give the impression of barely contained rage, and building pressure with little more than a dour Scottish sneer on show, the only visible release onstage is when Kayus Bankole convulses in an intermittent blur of flailing arms and legs. 

Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers

With the release of their latest album, Cocoa Sugar, they continue to produce a string of strong songs, which are uniquely "Young Fathers" when you hear them. Their very presence is a statement, but they don't beat you around the head with it, it's the nusic that assaults you. 

When it was announced that they were playing the Glasgow Barrowlands, tickets sold out within days. The question was whether their intense stage persona, which doesn't usually involve crowd pleasing "HALLO GLASGOOOOOW" shout-outs, would manage to lift the ballroom crowd. 

Support act WWWater were appropriately uplifting, with hints of Grace Jones and analogue synths among the increasingly abstract singing of Belgian Charlotte Adigéry. The crowd were showing signs of being in the mood for tonight's gig with the enthusiastic response she garnered. 

Young Fathers, Glasgow Barrowlands

Young Fathers when they came on stage could not get started until a cheering, stamping, expectant crowd had quietened down sufficiently to let them get going. Any doubts that they would not manage to take this whole room with them blown away in the first few seconds. With Graham 'G' Hastings, Kayus Bankole and Alloysious Massaquoi out front, largely silhouetted for the night against a white screen, they came together and drifted apart through all the songs, their voices merging and splitting from years of playing together. Tracks from the new album dominated the setlist (Tremolo, Toy and In My View stand out tracks tonight) but there were outings for plenty of stuff from their earlier output merged seamlessly into it. 

'G' almost broke into a smile at a couple of points as he tried to give us a few words, but ultimately stuck to the music. Loud, angry, energetic and something worth listening to. 

The crowd were grinning, cheering, singing along and baying for more - a reminder of how good it can feel to be part of a big Glasgow crowd when they are in the mood, whether at a football match or a concert. Best gig I've been to in a long time? Probably. 

Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai and friends. Charity Gig, Glasgow

Child Refugee Crisis Appeal, Save The Children Fundraising Concert, Glasgow. November 2015

With the refugee crisis in Europe making headlines around the world, local band Belle and Sebastian announced that they would perform in Glasgow to raise funds to help. Belle and Sebastian were soon joined in the line up by Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill (of Simple Minds), Franz Ferdinand, Mogwai, Young Fathers and comedian Josie Long. The point of the concert was to raise money for the Child Refugee Crisis Appeal for Save the Children UK. The gig website stated that 

"Belle and Sebastian, humbly, and with a good will, wish to stand behind the displaced peoples of Syria in their brave attempt to find a better life in Europe. If governments won't help them, then the people must. "

If you are able to contribute to the fundraising appeal, there is information on how to do this via the Save The Children website here.

Neil from Save The Children reminding us why we are here

As for the gig itself it seems churlish to review it as a gig, as the whole point of the evening was to raise money and spread goodwill, but it consisted of a lot of great Scottish bands that I've seen already many times over. So for me the whole evening was just a great big treat. Without meaning to, I ended up getting seats in the front row, which was odd. The Armadillo is such a nice, sedate venue with comfy seats, and they let you take glass bottles to your seat. I was overly aware that about the only row of seats that the bands could see from the stage was the one which had me and my brother sitting in it so I was smiling and on best behaviour. It was a line up that required standing up and swaying, but we just sat back and let them entertain us.

Young Fathers

Edinburgh trio Young Fathers opened the evening. They have been outspoken on immigration and refugee issues before. Their current tour is titled "We Are All Migrants" and in 2014 I had seen them perform at a World Refugee Day gig in the Old Fruitmarket. They are a phenomenal live act and this is the fourth or fifth time I have seen them live. As the earliest act, whilst people are still arriving they didn't let that distract them and just battered out their tunes. They got us to make some noise if we agreed that "Glasgow welcomes refugees". We obliged. I really hope that it is true, as I love my city and don't want to view it through rose-tinted spectacles, but I think that we've got a good record on this. I hope the council step up and offer homes to the people desperately needing them just now, who could bring so much to our city.

If you get the chance ever to see Young Fathers live I would encourage you to take it, as they are a phenomenal act.

Josie Long doing a gag about English politics and transport in London

Comedian Josie Long briefly made an appearance as compere. Her 15 minutes was enough to get the stage set for Mogwai. Post-rock behemoths Mogwai have just released an excellent retrospective compilation, "Central Belters", to mark their 20th year and in June played two nights at the Barrowlands to mark the anniversary.

Dominic Aitchison and Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai

 I love the way that they set up on stage, with a big gap at the middle and the music taking centre stage. They played a barn-storming 45 minutes set, finishing with "Remurdered" from their latest album, Rave Tapes.

Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand

Next up were Franz Ferdinand. They have recently been touring as one half of supergroup FFS, with the Mael brothers of Sparks, on the back of their recent collaborative album. I have seen them performing recently as FFS and previously playing the Barrowlands a few years ago as Franz Ferdinand and they are another great live act. Lead singer Alex Kapranos was the first of two ex-members of Glasgow ska stalwarts The Amphetameanies up on stage tonight. They battered through their hits, raised an arch eyebrow and bid us farewell. Entertaining as always.

Belle and Sebastian giving it laldy

Scottish indie band Belle and Sebastian were the organisers of this whole event. Only a few months ago they had played across the car park from tonight's venue at the Hydro, as part of their ongoing world tour. Maybe it was because I was sat in the front row, but tonight's gig seemed a much more comfortable and homely affair for them. As is their want, they got people up to dance, much to the annoyance of the unnecessarily officious stewards at the venue. Really, is a Belle and Sebastian crowd going to start a riot? Lovely to hear some of the best tracks off of their latest album (Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance) plus a couple from If You're Feeling Sinister (Stars of Track and Field and Judy and the Dream of Horses.) They are always best when they've got a bit of brass backing them up and it was great to see Mick Cooke playing with them again (ex-Amphetameanie).

The Simple Minds/ Belle and Sebastian supergroup

The evening finished with the slightly surreal sight of Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill (off of Simple Minds) coming onto the stage to sing, with Belle and Sebastian as their backing band. If, like me, you went to school in the west of Scotland in the 1980s Simple Minds were omnipresent. I was too cool to be into them, but if you were ever on one of those new fangled telephone chatlines at that time, a standard opening gambit would be "What bands are you into, I like U2 and Simple Minds?"

Before Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill performed as Simple Minds, they were seen playing in Glasgow by my mum and dad in about 1977, when they were in punk band Johnny and the Self Abusers. I myself have bizarrely seen them perform twice before. I saw Simple Minds play at Wembley in 1988 when I drove down with my brother to the Nelson Mandela 70th birthday concert and they seemed to play at a fair few things last year at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, one of which I stumbled upon at the BBC building. Although most of the people dancing down in front of the stage wouldn't have been born when they were released, we got a rendition of Promised You a Miracle and Don't You Forget About Me (as featured in The Breakfast Club). Bonkers end to a fantastic night's entertainment.

Jim Kerr hamming it up in front of the
Save The Children logo (what a pro!)

If you are able to contribute to the fundraising appeal, there is information on how to do so on the Save The Children UK website here.

Saint Etienne, Young Fathers and Belle and Sebastian. Glasgow gigs , May 2015

Glasgow Gig Reviews - May 2015 

Saint Etienne, Glasgow Film Theatre. Young Fathers, Glasgow School of Art. Belle and Sebastian, SSE Hydro

Rather spoiled for choice for live music in Glasgow this week. Here are a couple of brief live gig reviews of some of the bands that I took in.

It is a real treat to see Saint Etienne and Belle and Sebastian play within a few days of each other, two standards on any playlist I would put together in my student days. Both bands demonstrate their "indie" credentials by being named respectively after a French football team and a French children's book of the 1960s. Between these two gigs I also this week got the chance to see the excellent Young Fathers again, who seemed like a sharp, refreshing double espresso between two sweet cups of cappuccino.

Saint Etienne

I have always kept an eye out for Saint-Étienne the French Ligue 1 football team ever since they played a European Cup Final in Glasgow in 1976. I was only a wee thing, but my parents put me up to speaking to some of the 25,000 French fans in town, chanting "Allez Les Verts!" to them. Despite my support, Bayern Munich (and Hampden's square goalposts) beat them 1-0 that day. When a band of that name emerged in the 1990s I was drawn to them by the name, and stuck around to listen to their groovy, indie-dance sound. They were in Glasgow to perform live the soundtrack to the film "How We Used To Live", a documentary edited together by one time band member Paul Kelly, largely from BFI archive footage. (If you want to gaze through the archive yourself you can do so along at Bridgeton Olympia Library in Glasgow.)

There is a lot more interest in the nostalgia days before every aspect of our lives was recorded and shared with the world, but I found the film itself a bit sentimental. It recalled London from the 1950s to the early 1980s with Ian McShane's jocular narration. There were interesting wee nuggets, a well dressed woman tottering in high heels through a demolition site, steam trains being dismantled during the Beeching cuts, but the music and pictures were creating an atmosphere, rather than telling a story. It all felt a bit clean and wholesome. I think we've just been spoiled a bit with King Creosote doing a similar thing alongside Virginia Heath with their film From Scotland With Love. That film, made from Scottish film archives, seems to much more successfully capture real people and real places, with no cod narrator, but the music providing a strong element of storytelling.

Saint Etienne at Glasgow Film Theatre

This was followed by the band, fronted by Sarah Cracknell playing a fair few from their back catalogue. Great though their tunes are, it was funny to hear songs that I used to dance along to in Level 8, whilst sitting in a comfy seat in a cinema watching the band play on the carpeted area below us. It was a bit too much for one or two middle aged male groupies who squealed nonsensically at Sarah Cracknell, who didn't have the height a stage would usually give to allow her to be kept away from them. I cringed on her behalf as she politely tolerated it. Their tunes have stood the test of time however and were great to see performed.

Young Fathers

Edinburgh's finest pop/rock/hip hop act, Young Fathers arrived back on these shores again after a recent tour in the USA. Their latest album, White Men Are Black Men Too, is a fantastic listen, but seen live they take it up a notch. The surprise, but deserved winners of the Mercury Music prize last year their music is as hard to categorise as they are. A mish-mash of influences is what you should expect from a band consisting from a boy Drylaw, a Liberian who arrived in Edinburgh via Ghana and a Edinburgh-born son of Nigerian parents. Their "Young Fathers" moniker apparently comes from the fact that they all share their father's first name, a clever play on words that their songs enjoy too. They are angry, sweaty and have got something worth listening to. Driven on by their energetic drummer they barely pause for breath. I think this is the third time that I've seen them live, and in the sold out hall at the Art School in Glasgow they now seem to have a following that knows their music, and wants to singalong. They battered through a slick, well rehearsed set, dropped the mic to the stage, then walked off. No chit chat, no laughs, it's all about the music. 

Young Fathers on stage in Glasgow

Belle and Sebastian

By contrast to Young Fathers, Belle and Sebastian have never been about the energy levels, but more about the feeling of a shy friend talking about his life from his bedroom. The first time that I saw them live was in 1998 when they played in Maryhill Community Central Halls, a kind of warm up gig for a tour I think. It was an easy crowd, with their most adoring fans sat cross legged on the floor near the stage, and their aunties and uncles nearer the back of the hall. At that gig, occasionally they'd stop when one of the band made a mistake, they'd all apologise to each other politely and decide what song to play instead.

Next time I saw them was a few years later when they played the Barrowlands, a venue that suited them down  to the ground, packed out with adoring fans. The intimacy of their music worked well in that space, with local couthiness supplied by Gavin Mitchell coming onstage to do his Boaby the barman routine from Still Game.

Now on the home leg of their current tour they are playing the 10,000 seater SSE Hydro on a Friday night, accompanied by the Scottish Festival Orchestra. Their current album, Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance, takes them in a different direction, as if they have been listening to a lot of Pet Shop Boys music recently, hinting at a grander sound and performance. Like Saint Etienne, we start off with a nostalgic film as the hall is beginning to fill. The film, Glasgow 1980, is worth watching if you've never seen it. It was commissioned by Glasgow Corporation in 1971 like a propaganda film, looking forward to the brave new world ahead once all the slum tenements were cleared and we were all living in clean, airy tower blocks and getting about on motorways. It is directed by renowned photographer Oscar Mazaroli and produced by Bill Forsyth and can be watched on the Scottish Screen Archive website.

Belle and Sebastian at the SSE Hydro, Glasgow

The Hydro is a massive space which the band and their orchestra tried to fill with bombast, flashy video screens and enthusiasm. It was good to see Mick Cooke back with the band, as one thing that I missed on the current album was his brass playing. He seemed to have come back to help with the musical arraignments with the orchestra. They played surprisingly few songs from the new album, sticking to reliable old favourites. Sadly no room on the setlist for my own favourites (Fox in the Snow and The Stars of Track and Field) but The Boy With the Arab Strap was accompanied by audience and orchestra members invited onstage to dance. I really enjoyed the concert, sat with a smile on my face the whole way through, but 100-times over would have preferred to see them back in the Barrowlands. The vast standing area seemed to be filled with many people just standing, so I don't know what the sound or atmosphere down there was like, but it looked a bit flatter than you may have hoped. The best moments tended to be when you got some intimacy with the band, talking about writing Dear Catastrophe Waitress in the old Grosvenor Cafe, or another song on the number 44 bus (which used to take me home to Knightswood from the city centre - a bus route that seemed to attract eccentric passengers such as the woman who would sit her tortoise on her shoulder "as it likes to look out the window").

It was a great concert, they have a fantastic back catalogue of songs, but I am not sure they really should try to be a stadium rock band.

World Refugee Day Concert, Glasgow 2014.

Young Fathers, Skipinnish and Balkanarama.

Live concert review. Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow. June 2014.

Refugee Week in June is a festival across the UK of educational, cultural and arts events to encourage understanding between communities and celebrate the contribution of refugees to life in the UK. In Scotland this is co-ordinated by the Scottish Refugee Council and the British Red Cross, who both had stalls at the event tonight. The Scottish Refugee Council have for 30 years been campaigning for and supporting refugees in our country. Particularly in the year when Glasgow is welcoming visitors from around the world to the Commonwealth Games, the aim of the events was to show the variety and vibrancy of different cultures and people living in Scotland. The full programme for the week is available online here.

For the third year in a row they hosted on UN World Refugee Day a concert in the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow. If they were trying to demonstrate the eclectic musical voices in Scotland, I think that they managed.

First up was Balkanarama, an occasional Glasgow and Edinburgh club night. They played pre-recorded Balkan flavoured tunes before a live performance by a Klezmer band gave us some Eastern European Jewish dancing music, and people were dancing.

Scottish Gaelic and Ceildh music band Skipinnish then tried to keep everyone dancing. With a mixture of "Gay Gordons" and "Strip the Willow" dances filling the hall at the Fruitmarket and Gaelic and Scottish songs they succeeded. The crowd at the concert was as eclectic as the music with people from all corners of the globe giving the dancing a go, reflecting the increasingly diverse make-up of Glasgow's population these days. They also introduced one song with a reference to the Highland Clearances 200 years ago, when Scots fled their country as their homes were burned down behind them.

Young Fathers at The Fruitmarket, Glasgow

Finally, Edinburgh based hip-hop trio Young Fathers were up. This was who I had come to see after not being able to attend their recent album launch in Stereo. Their latest album, Dead, released on the Los Angeles based Anticon label, has been earning rave reviews and they neatly encapsulate the idea behind Refugee Day. Of the three of them, Alloysious Massaquoi was born in Liberia, arriving in Edinburgh aged 4. Born in Edinburgh to Nigerian parents, Kayus Bankole, has also lived in Nigeria and Maryland before returning to Scotland. Alongside them is Graham 'G' Hastings from Drylaw in Edinburgh. This mish-mash of backgrounds comes out in their sound which has echoes of Massive Attack, Shabazz Palaces and Roots Manuva going on. With the three of them out front singing, rapping and flailing about they were a charismatic force, accompanied by an energetic drummer and backing music. Their songs have great stories going on, fractured families and intriguing images eg "Got me feeling Presbyterian but inside I'm still Liberian/ Never find Peace, the war is too pretty". That combined with their dancing, a cross between Ian Curtis and Wile E Coyote-style arms flapping as he falls off a cliff, makes them worth seeing live. Not once did they mention that the night before they had just been awarded the prize for Scotland's Album of The Year. Well deserved, but I'd have been crowing about that. They were happy to say that they were honoured to be at this refugee event instead.

Modest hip hop performers? Now that gives away their Scottish origins.