As always seems to be the case when I visit Glasgow, there was a local band of dubious quality up first. I honestly don’t know how Glasgow generates all these bad local bands, but it does. To be fair top This July, it’s not really that they were bad; mediocre is probably a better description. Beyond the vocals, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong. To me it just seemed that they played a number of poorly conceived songs, lacking in any real hooks or personality. Again they had the local Glasgow audience lapping up the Glaswegian band, something I find happening only in Glasgow really. At one point between songs I said to my friends: “Please say this is going to be your last song.” Fortunately, this is exactly what the frontman said not 5 seconds later.

On to the main support act and I had plenty of confidence that we were going to be in for more of a treat. Even before Johnny Foreigner came on stage, I was pleased by their cute riff on the ghosts from Pacman accross most of their equipment. To say that I was impressed is an understatement. Their songs were infectious, with excellent interplay between drums, bass, guitar and ocassionally synth. For a band with only three members their sound was full and pleasing, no doubt helped by the boy girl tennis volley vocals. I was sad when their set finished, despite the fact that meant ¡Forward, Russia! would be on soon. Clearly they were good then.

So to ¡Forward, Russia! who had just released their excellent second album Life Processes (review to come later) the day before. This meant they had to tread the careful line between playing the newer songs, and the older ones. Personally I could’ve done with more of the new songs. Particularly when their technical gizmos went on the fritz taking both A Prospector Can Dream and Nineteen out of the setlist. These were replaced by Seven and Nine, two songs I love, but having seen the live so many times I couldn’t feel a little bit upset that the other two couldn’t be played. Opening with Spring Is A Condition was a masterstroke, for so long I can only remember ¡Forward, Russia! starting with Thirteen, even though the eventually migrated away from it, it was still nice to see it placed in the middle with a new perfect opener in place. For me the highlights were very definitely the new songs, in addition to Spring Is A Condition, Don’t Reinvent What You Don’t Understand, Gravity and Heat, and A Shadow Is A Shadow Is A Shadow were awesome to experience live. Gracity and Heat in particular was anthemic and truly felt like as much of an instant classic as Don’t Be A Doctor was.

¡Forward, Russia! are a band who have very much improved in almost every imaginable way since their debut album. Give Me A Wall was an extremely important album to me, but the band as a whole just seem so much more confident now, particularly playing the newer songs. Older songs are re-invigorated as well, which can only be a good thing. While they may be confident playing, Katie did take time to say that she wasn’t sure anybody would turn up. I guess it’s always a worry, but a band of such quality should never have to worry about that. The set finished with the epic Spanish Triangles, which is an even better set finisher than Eleven was back in the Give Me A Wall days. The way the song builds to the oh so singable refrain of “Turn your ships around, we are all armadas now,” truly astounds live. The band have to get credit for being willing to involve guitar tech Bentley in playing on Spanish Triangles, it helps keep it as brilliantly layered as it is on the album. We were even treated to an encore which is a relative rarity for ¡Forward, Russia!, though they may end up playing them more often now them seem to be more popular. Fifteen Part II was the song chosen, which is an excellent song for an encore, though again personally I’d have loved to see something newer. I understand that’s not how encores work though.

So an excellent gig, which left me angry at myself for not having sorted out a way for going to the Aberdeen gig. I would rate ¡Forward, Russia! as being at their absoloute best since I started going to see them live back in 2005, and Johnny Foreigner were an excellent bonus. Still, I have Dundee to look forward to. Though I can’t imagine the acoustics are very good in Fat Sams…