Mogwai have been a staple in my music collection for a few years now, and they’ve always been close to the top of my ‘must see’ list. They didn’t disappoint.
The Twilight Sad have been a rather recent (but extremely welcome) addition – ever since I heard they were supporting to be honest. They’re rapturous music with stunning, gritty vocals (with accent in tact) make them definitely worth a listen. They’re set was burdened by the fact that the sound system was blatantly not set up for them; a great shame as they gave an energetic, emotional performance. The drummer, Mark Devine, was manning the merch stall afterwards and was getting a lot of praise. I’m glad, because the crowd didn’t seem to get all that in to it – and they were getting heckles from some (rather drunk) people behind me.
Mogwai didn’t have sound system problems – they sounded awesome. All but for the vocals on Mexican Grand Prix, their third encore song. While I can recognise songs, I can never tell you what they’re called, so I can’t give specifics, but they were very tight. Impressively so, given the complexity of their particular brand of music. Two disappointments, no Mogwai Fear Satan or Glasgow Mega-Snake (though I thought they played this, I was mistaken…again with the rubbish with the names thing).
All in all, good times had by all I think – ‘cept £3.50 for a crappy bottle of Fosters…that was a joke! We got pretty close to the front for Mogwai’s set – was easily done as it wasn’t a ‘mosh-pit’ style gig. We were surrounded by pricks for the second half of their set, who tried to get the crowd to ‘dance more’ despite having no rhythm. There’s always one or two…and they tend to always find me.
For those interested the setlist is here.