A beautiful spring night in the city after this first warm day of the year. As the crowds gathered outside the o2 Academy Glasgow a great mix of young and old, a vast arrangement of various punk band t-shirts on display in the crowd outside with the majority featuring The Damned. The venue inside was filling up nicely before tonight’s support band The Nightingales take to the stage as the atmosphere builds.
As the lights went down the venue three quarters full watched The Nightingales take up their positions on stage featuring Robert Lloyd who formed the band way back in 1979 opened their set with Ace of Hearts that turned heads in the audience with the heavy drum from the excellent Fliss Kitson that puts so much energy into the drums. On bass Andreas Schmid and guitar James Smith. The band played a short set with impact with highlights in To Posh to Push, Best of British Luck and the excellent Real Gone Daddy. The band looking if they were enjoying playing in front of a very close to full venue finished their set with Dick The Do-gooder before the waved goodbye to the Glasgow audience the came to the venue early to see their set.
As the lights in the venue came on as the stage crew came on to clear the stage before the headline band was ready to delight the Glasgow audience. The atmosphere was electric in the venue with the crowd not knowing what to expect as the band had said they would be playing a host of new songs from their new album Darkadelic before the tour got underway so tonight was going to different with a lot of new songs giving their first live airing in Glasgow.
The lights went down, and the intro music was playing before the Paul Gray and Monty Oxymoron took to the stage followed by will Taylor and Captain Sensible. As the Captain moved into his stage positions wearing his trademark Red and Black, he investigated the audience and smiling to them. As the opening chords of the excellent Street of Dreams delighted the audience as you could hear their voice rising above the powering vocals of Dave Vanian.
The band delighted the crowd with one of the singles from the new album due out later this month with The Invisible Man before delighting the audience from the Black album Wait for the Blackout before playing new songs Bad Weather Girl, You’re Gonna Realise, Western Promise before Beware of the Clown. The new songs going down well with the audience as you could see they were enjoying the performance and the heavier dark sound of the new songs. Tonight, was a special performance and Glasgow was taking the new songs to heart as you could see the delight on the bands faces before the went back and played the hits they had been waiting for and the venue went wild as the opening chords of Love Song before the excellent Machine Gun Etiquette. Dave vocals were on top form, and he was covering the stage aera taking in the Glasgow faithful.
They closed the set-in style with the excellent Neat, Neat, Neat, followed by the classic Eloise that had the audience in full voice before delighting them with the classic Smash It Up before the band left the stage.
The band came back on and opened the encore with new song Girl I’ll Stop at Nothing before leaving the venue with the awesome New Rose that had the venue in full voice, the old songs still hitting the ultimate highs of the night, but the band delighted them with the classics. Tonight, was about old and new as well as the audience there was new fans there with the old punks that had followed the band over the decades. As the closing chords rang out the band paid their respects to the Glasgow faithful as the left the stage.
Tonight, was raw with new songs and all linked together with the old classics, blended with the energy generated from the band. Catch them on this tour and you will be in for a treat, treat, treat!
Review by Karen Edmond
Photographs by James Edmond
