It’s Sunday night I’m in Glasgow and somehow, beyond all belief, a sold out SWG3 in Glasgow including myself are about to see American Football!
As I look around the room I feel like it’s a meet and great for the Glasgow music scene, essentially any good local band who has played Bloc or the Note in the past five years is in this room and I hope nothing bad happens or the scene would struggle to recover.
TTNG, formerly This Town Needs Guns, kick off the night and, if there is one thing I can say about this band, they sure as hell know how to play their instruments; this is technical perfection from people who must basically live in a practice studio, however I don’t find myself drawn in.
I can appreciate the sheer ability of the band, but I kind of want more from a band than expertise; as a friend suggests “this town needs tunes” I don’t think he’s completely wrong.
It could have been a case of the room not picking up the dynamics as they should, making them seem less than explosive than they might usually, but the crowd know exactly who they are there to see, American Football are on in 15 minutes.
So many people in this room have been waiting up to 15 years to see the band who with one album changed how people would look at songwriting and guitar playing, I’m not sure if the room is ready for this but then suddenly the room lights go down and it’s time.
The band kick off with a selection of instrumentals from the deluxe edition of their album and the crowd is instantly on their side swaying along to the perfect interweaving of subtle emotional guitar and the intricate groove interaction provided by the drums and bass, you just kind of wonder how songs like this didn’t make the album the first time.
When the band quiet down the crowd get loud, Mike Kinsella appears to not be in a talkative mood, but throughout the night the Glasgow crowd will have this covered for him.
At this point the drummer would kick in to his first trumpet solo of the night, creating amazing loops of the reverberated horn, as shall we.
-trumpet solo-
The rest of the band get their guitar changes done and then launch in to a series of album favourites; ‘Honestly’ and ‘For Sure’, for me the thing about the album that I love the most is despite how involved all the parts are it’s still so raw and that’s still how it feels from the crowd.
Kinsella states “you’ll have to give us a break… we’ve not practiced since 1999,” but it’s more than that, it’s like the band have slipped back in to the honeymoon period of that first album, still fresh, wide eyed and simply great.
-trumpet solo-
The one thing about seeing a band who only released one, near perfect, album is that you are going to get to hear most if not every single song that was recorded, the band continue playing hit after a hit getting lost in the progressive nature of ‘You Know I Should Be Leaving Soon’ and the crowd chanting as one to the chorus of ‘I’ll See You When We’re Both Not So Emotional’; this gig will not be forgotten any time soon by anyone who was lucky enough to be here.
I think everyone knew how the set was going to end, and just like the false start on the album, ‘Never Meant’ has a false start on the track due to an out of tune guitar and a joke about their tech being fired, while the change was happening Kinsella takes some questions and jokes that album number two was due in 2030.
A few days on it’s still pretty hard to contemplate what the evening must of meant for so many people in the crowd, waiting half their life or more for something that they never thought would happen.
I guess all we have to do is wait 15 years for the next album.
Words: Wull Swailes
Photos: Neil Jarvie
