Tonight, for most, it was all about harking back to the nostalgia of the nineties; dubious hair styles that called for the application of a considerable amount of hair gel, the swagger of the Gallagher brothers and a time when wearing trainers and a zipper was considered your most finest attire.
Judging from tonight’s crowd the memory of the nineties didn’t seem to be too far removed.
Starting the show from The Hydro’s seated area Tim Booth appears like a magician illuminated by a powerful spotlight much to the delight and amusement of his fans seated around the area.
He starts by strumming his acoustic guitar to the opening of ‘Walk Like You’, a move that plants Booth firmly in the adoration and idolisation of his long-term fans.
Once Booth has progressed through the throng of spectators being grabbed at and lurched at from all sides he then ascends the stage to begin ‘Say Something’.
It isn’t until he plays ‘Frozen Britain’, that Booth first attempts to stand on top of the crowd barrier, the first of several attempts during he show.
Introducing ‘Curse Curse’ to the audience as “a song about lying in your hotel room and hearing two people going at it next door,” is the first of many quips in-between tracks that the lead singer makes, safe to say the song gets a seal of approval from the Glasgow crowd.
Considering this was a tour to promote recent album La Petite Mort, the band play a good mixture of fan favourites from their back catalogue.
‘Sound’, which was the first single taken from 1991’s Seven, sees Booth singing aided by a megaphone and is the first sing-along point of the evening with its anathematic chorus.
Other tracks such as ‘Just Like Fred Astaire’ also have the crowd swaying back and forth in a nostalgic haze.
It isn’t until a few tracks after the infamous bounce and sing-a-long chorus of ‘Laid’ that things start to turn a little sour for our bell-bottom clad singer.
First, he stops a song mid track, because “it wasn’t right for The Hydro on a Saturday night,” minutes before he had requested that the audience “showed respect” by “not talking”, a difficult feat to accomplish in a venue that holds 1,000 not 13,000.
The track is hastily changed to ‘Quicker Than Dead’ much to the bemusement (and boo’s) of the crowd.
Next, he starts to bait the audience with “I might come down into the crowd, I might not, we’ll see how the atmosphere is,” any artist worth their salt is more than likely to be aware that dangling a piece of meat in front of a boozed up motley crew of Glaswegians, on a cold Saturday night where they want to party, is not probably the best idea in the world.
The final point that seemed to irk the audience is when Booth finally musters up the courage to head back into the crowd, when he returns to the stage the first thing he does is bemoan the front row for being too aggressively frisky handed.
“Who ever grabbed my cock, can I have it back please? If you grab the microphone from my hand I can’t sing, you seem to be missing the point Glasgow,” not exactly the sentiment you would expect from a seasoned indie-rock veteran.
All is forgiven though during the second half of the show when more older tracks are played, ‘Out to Get You’ works well with its infamous melodica solo, while ‘Come Home’ and ‘Gone Baby Gone’ were high points.
Most notably absent was the inclusion of ‘Sit Down’ from the setlist, which seemed to cause a few raised eyebrows.
‘Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)’ sees Booth dancing manically on stage with more jelly in his bones than Kim Kardashian’s famous derriere.
‘Born of Frustration’ is reserved for the encore, by which point any minor grievances caused during the show have melted away and the crowd is back to having their arms raised high and singing full pelt.
All in all tonight’s performance was entertaining, if at times perforated with some minor diva-like whinging.
Words/Photos: Ang Canavan
