A tiny person walks on stage followed by two others that make up this incarnation of Japanese Breakfast, lo-fi project of Michelle Zauner and the opening tune is a short burst of verse and chorus that is over almost before it begins.
Following this a backing track of strings leads into ‘In Heaven’; the backing track of violins continues to supplement the lean drums, bass and guitar combo.
We are told how great Glasgow is, and following a day off in the city this show will be messy; classic excuse.
‘The Woman That Loves You’ with funk guitar stabs rolls into ‘Everybody Wants To Love You’; the call and response of the chorus is taken to a different dimension with the male question being responded by Zauner’s rapid-fire J-pop delivery of the track title.
Zauner then quizzes the audience about high school proms and if Scotland has such a thing as “when the guys stand on one side and the girls on the other”, which someone quickly shouts “the Gay Gordons?” – sadly not, this strange Stateside custom is called a ‘Snowball dance’ and a new song to convey this is played.
The Roy Orbison type ballad is given a comical value when the glitter ball starts to rotate during the coda, nice touch from the lighting guy…
The set ends with a vocoder pop tune entitled ‘Machinist’, which is about falling in love with a robot.
Porches have a more muscular affair going on; a five-piece full band set up and starts line checking, thanking the sound guy for finding all their sounds again.
Opening with ‘Glow’ frontman Aaron Maine, who looks like bigger brother of Glasgow looper/cyclist Tangles, plays a more defined live band compared the more isolated recorded versions.
The full on 80s dx7 sounds with gated drums and bass really does sounds like a FM radio hit from the period, while the mix of male and female vocals add more to the already rich sounding band.
The Domino released album Pool hits all the. dare I say, Pitchfork/Optimo marks; those touch stones of retro sounds and hint of an era from NYC’s musical past.
By no means a bad thing, just following a performance from Japanese Breakfast the cool emotionless sound of Porches doesn’t really have the impact it could have had.
Words: Neil Edwards
