Tonight’s line-up is a riddle alright, with Hollywood royalty atop a bill of curiously monikered support. First up, the erratically capitalised SHe’S Hit, who smother rock n roll bravado in dirty feedback and shoegaze layers. Their inspirations sit pretty on the surface, but it’s delivered with thrilling confidence; they’re men of few words, but achieve a lot with their time.
Next Fortean puzzle: just how do the so-good-they-named-it-twice Django Django stay cool despite having a song that sounds a bit like an Egyptian electro-Macarena (Skies Over Cairo). Looking bonny in matching Ts, they set pulses racing via curiously broad influences, and the packed-tight, enthusiastic crowd duly treat them as heroic headliners. Which they maybe, sort of, kind of are – or were, at least, back when the gig was first announced…
But when you’ve got none other than Robert Redford on your schedule – cinema icon and silver fox extraordinaire – you’d be remiss not to make space for ol’ Sundance as main attracti… Ok, so efforts to conceal the headliners’ true identity have been long abandoned, but while the arrival of The Phantom Band on stage surprises precisely no one (for starters, they’ve used the pseudonym before), it fair invigorates everyone who a) secured a ticket for this sold-out show, b) braved the monsoon whipping Glasgow to tatters outside and c) prevailed through a rather lengthy between-band wait (though the latter is no slog, thanks to sharp sounds from hosts The Hot Club).
“You’ve been waiting ages eh?” says Rick, swigging from a hip flask, “what, you got a bus to catch or something? Oh, you’ve missed it…” Thankfully, they make revising transit a no-brainer: a propulsive A Glamour opens strong; Throwing Bones’ krautrock-cruise ups the ante, while Left Hand Wave appears to hypnotise the fan to our left, spotted waving limbs like Drunken Master. Their performance may not showcase the band at their absolute best, but tonight was worth the wait.
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