Things are not bad at all at the moment for Reverend and the Makers – not bad at all.
Touring the UK to promote their new album Thirty Two, Jon McClure aka The Rev, and his cohorts, have acquired their second top ten album and are venturing out on a hi-jinxed, energy-driven and extroverted crusade, taking on the insincere populist lemming crusade, who are nonchalantly unaware that they are walking off edge of a musical cliff, in terms of taste and, to some extent, individuality.
With relentless tweeting, playing at fan’s houses, performing live gigs at HMV locales before shows, and when possible, busking at the end of the night.
It’s all very much hands on with The Rev cleverly utilising geographic propinquity to penetrate within the depths of the crowd and spread the some musical love, with hands on the detonator.
The Rev bounces up-and-down relentlessly invoking the crowd to follow suit and join in on the party mimicking some Rocky-inspired air punching, and high-knee, on the spot–jogging,
The Rev radiates a wave of energy into the crowd creating an infectiously airborne dopaminergic cloud, succeeding in creating a rein of reciprocity from the army fans conglomerating on the dance-floor.
The work ethic of the Reverend and the Makers is a force to be reckoned with: The Rev with his infectious charisma, wit and extroverted confidence working the crowd, ultimately denying any time for the band to catch a breath.
It is quite a feat considering seventeen of the eighteen songs performed tonight are upbeat dance numbers mixing elements of 90s induced ‘mad-for-it’, attitudinal ‘we-are-the-mods’ indie with a pop-rock, electronic-dance fusion.
As they have so many hits in their repertoire it’s a long set, and even then, there is still an inadequate amount of time provide songs from the new album.
However, the songs that they do play from Thirty Two, including ‘Detonator’, ‘Devil’s Radio’, ‘I Spy’ and ‘Different Trains’, are already crowd pleasers.
The new material is cardinally supported by the vestigial trails of the classics, which is facilitated seamlessly by the fact that Thirty Two highlights/instills all the best qualities from, and is far more synonymous with, the electro-pop-dance sensibilities of The State of Things.
‘The State of Things’, ‘Heavyweight Champion of the World’, ‘He Said He Loved Me’, ‘Shine The Light’ and ‘Bassline’ are just some of the highlights of many tonight.
With The Rev’s invocational invitations throughout the set, he has the miscellaneous Glaswegian crowd chanting myriad songs word-for-word, making for a camaraderie-driven atmospheric ambience.
A well deserved acoustic interlude calms the tone, providing a lovely blanket of backing singers from the crowd; the most tranquil four minutes of the night, with The Rev over-emphasizing the lines – “when my wallets looking thin; or if the Tories got back in” – followed by a mocked ‘spit-and-stamp’, hinting at his roots and what makes him such a lovable frontman.
He’s just one of the lads; a middleclass geezer, however, that just makes the thirty-two year old’s success seem all the more deserving.
Banter, energy and great live music make for the perfect night out in Glasgow: brilliant.
Words: Derek Robertson
Photos: Jayjay Robertson
