Tying up a mammoth few weeks of gigs, festivals and shenanigans across the pond, Midland celebrated the final night of their tour at Glasgow’s O2 Academy to a full capacity crowd on Saturday night.
There isn’t a Midland song out there that won’t have you tapping your foot from start to finish and kicking off the show with Mr Lonely – the crowd knew they were in for a good night.
Can you believe next year marks 10 years of Midland? The trio certainly have cemented their place within the country scene, and with three weeks on the road, lead singer Mark revealed they’ve had the time of their lives seeing places across Europe and playing these shows every night.
Out of Sight and Barely Blue had everyone dancing before playing their latest release, I Wish You Would, which features country star McKenzie Carpenter, with their incredible keys’ player chiming in to cover her parts – talk about being multitalented!
“This is our second time in the Academy, we always like to finish our shows here in Glasgow”, which was met with a vicious cheer from the crowd – I love when an artist shows a true admiration for the Scottish crowd – I’m English, and even I’ll say – there is no audience quite like a Scottish audience.
Glass Half Empty, Cheatin’ Songs, Put The Hurt on Me and Sunrise Tells a Story kept the vibes alive, and time began to fly, when we realised, we were halfway through the show already.
There’s something about Midland that, whether you’re in a giant arena or a smaller venue, their sharp stage presence and Western twang just resonates with the entire crowd, and we absolutely loved it.
If there’s one thing you have to hand to Midland is that they have a mega catalogue of tracks, and choosing which ones to go in the setlist must be a mammoth task, but the band decided to include a shower of covers including Garth Brooks, The Georgia Satellites and even an Oasis and Tom Petty cover in the encore later on which I wish had been sooner in the setlist to have their own tracks closing.
But one of the best covers, which cements Midland as the country band to be able to mould a classic to their own flair, is their own version of Brooks & Dunn’s Booy Scootin’ Boogie. Mark revealed that they had originally asked to cover Neon Moon, but Kasey Musgraves managed to nab that before they could, so they took on the iconic track of all time – Boot Scootin’ Boogie and the rest is history.
For the encore, the trio returned with bagpipes and Longneck Way To Go, Drinkin Problems and Fourteen Gears – before their Oasis and Tom Petty covers.
You must hand it to Midland – 3 weeks on the road in multiple different countries, and still delivering pitch-perfect energy-bursting shows like that? Take a bow, boys, my love for Midland goes on. What a treat!
Review by Lauren Page
Photographs by James Edmond Photography
