February 2024 was always going to be a busy time for gigs, and my intention had been to round everything up at the end of the month. I’ve changed my mind on the basis of the first two shows, given that I’m so compelled to describe how they went.
First up, as you’ll see from the above promo poster, was Steve Mason on 1 February. It was the second time in nine months that I’d seen him on stage, the previous occasion being Manchester last May when, with the aid of a full band and backing singers, he was touring in support of the album, Brothers and Sisters. This time he had just two other colleagues on stage with him – Darren Morris on keyboards and Calie Hough on drums/percussion – which meant that there was some reliance on backing tapes/technological wizardry.
Any fears that the sound or show would somehow be diminished were very quickly removed and a packed audience inside St Luke’s, a converted church close to the famous Barrowlands in the east end of the city, was treated to an outstanding gig with a set-list which largely relied on songs from Brothers and Sisters, a record that I’m increasingly of the belief is up there in terms of quality with anything he’s issued throughout his now 28-year career as a musician, stretching back to the formation of the Beta Band.
Steve Mason doesn’t say much all evening other than variations on ‘thank you’, with the longest chat (until the encore) being to thank everyone for showing up and allowing him the opportunity to play in the live setting. He is, however, a constant force of energy as a performer, always seemingly on the move as he sang, other than the occasions when he strapped-on an acoustic guitar or provided a bit of additional percussion to flesh out some songs. The approach meant that the show never seemed to pause for breath.
With it being a home-gig (of sorts), he was always likely to get a rapturous welcome, but it really seemed that the appreciative roars and applause greeting the end of each song got increasingly louder as the night went on. Actually, that’s a wee bit of a bending of the truth, as the loudest cheers came at the end of the three occasions when he aired Beta Band songs – Dog Got A Bone, Dry The Rain and Squares – all of which sounded every bit as fresh and indeed spiritual (maybe the venue played its part??) as they did back in the late 90s and early 00s.
mp3: The Beta Band – Dry The Rain
The encore was magnificence personified, with the one-two punch of the upbeat and incredibly danceable I Walk The Earth, released in 2000 when Steve Mason was using the King Biscuit Time nom de plume, and closing with a seven-minute rendition of The People Say, in which the audience very willingly played its part with the call-and-response elements.
mp3: Steve Mason – The People Say
I was there with my regular sidekick Aldo, and we both felt it might be a while before we had such an enjoyable time at a gig. Turned out, we had just 48 hours to wait.
Saturday 3 February saw the two of us rock up to Stereo, a basement location in the city centre that was playing host to Hinds as part of the annual event known as Independent Venues’ Week held across a number of UK towns and cities.
I’ve long had a love of the Madrid-based indie-pop charms of Hinds, pulling together an ICA back in June 2021, but unlike Aldo, I’d never had the opportunity to catch them live – last Saturday was the fourth time he’d seen them.
I was particularly pleased to get the chance as it has been four years since Hinds last released any new music, and I had long assumed they had called it a day, perhaps frustrated by the inability to come together to write and perform while the world dealt with the COVID lockdown restrictions. In the middle of last year, a long period of silence was broken, but only with the news that two of the band – bassist Ade Martín and drummer Amber Grimbergen – had some months previously chosen to quit after nine years. Although it was an amicable split, it did leave the guitarists/vocalists and principal songwriters, Carlotta Cosials and Ana García Perrote, with the dilemma of what to do next.
There was no record deal, management or support structure in place, but the decision was taken to keep things going. New songs were written and demoed and in due course replacement musicians were found to enable shows to get back on the road (the new bassist is Paula and the new drummer is Maria, but I don’t know their surnames).
Glasgow was the fifth show in a week-long UK tour of independent venues. I know the city has a reputation among many musicians as having highly knowledgable and enthusiastic audiences whose responses to live music can border on the legendary – it’s a reputation that goes back, certainly in my lifetime, to the former Glasgow Apollo and that has been cemented by venues such as Barrowlands and King Tut’s, which are often name checked as being among the best that you could hope to play.
The Hinds show last Saturday seemed to confirm all of that, judging by what they posted the next day on Instragram:-
“historically the best hinds show ever. tears, blood, buckfast and sweat for and towards music. wow. we will be back”
I’m not going to argue. I can’t judge against previous shows, but Aldo can, and he thought it was astonishingly good. The set-list contained songs from all three studio albums, four new tunes (all of which sounded great) and a couple of covers, including their fabulous take on a Clash number (which was even better in the live setting):-
mp3: Hinds – Spanish Bombs
Carlotta and Ana were both moved to tears by the way the crowd was reacting to the show, loving the old and new material in equal measures. Stereo is a hot and sweaty sort of venue, and the energy on display from the stage, and among the adoring audience, which was probably a 50/50 mix across the male and female genders, made for one of those nights where you just feel there can’t be anything better than live music when a band/performer and those who are there to watch become a single entity. It was frantic from the opening notes all the way through to the encore, with the faster songs being welcomed and celebrated by a mosh-pit down the front, with myself and Aldo standing on its fringe and looking on with big smiles on our faces.
Retreating to a nearby pub afterwards, there was a chance to reflect on the night and to realise we had been really lucky to have been present. Neither of us knew that the band were about to go on record as saying it was their best ever.
Reflecting a bit more as I pull this piece together, it’s easy to forget that the musicians who we admire and love are just like the rest of us and will go through the whole gamut of emotions as they live their lives. Carlotta and Ana were at very severe lows not that long ago. COVID halted the band’s momentum and ultimately led to what had been a closely-knit group of four kindred spirits seemingly coming to an end. They weren’t sure if their audience would still be there for them if they kept going. It was almost as if they had to start all over again from the beginning. The tears came in Glasgow as they reflected on the past four years – they weren’t of sadness, but an outpouring of relief and joy that it really had all been worth it.
The new songs have whetted my appetite for the next album, which hopefully will be sometime in 2024. In the meantime, here’s the one from which the last album, The Prettiest Curse, title took its name:-
mp3: Hinds – Just Like Kids (Miau)
What’s next for myself and Aldo? That’ll be Hifi Sean and David McAlmont this coming Thursday, back at St Luke’s. Regular readers will know just how highly I rate their music….so it too should be a belter of a show.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 