Music
Catfish & the Bottlemen, Barrowland, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
Two stars
Catfish & the Bottlemen are swimming against the tide in modern music. They are not, like many modern acts, an overnight success story, having been slogging away for years before breaking through with last year's The Balcony record. Musically, they write the sort of uncomplicated anthemic rock that's gone out of fashion, and have clearly filled a void for a generation looking for guitar-led thrills.
Already they are talking of stadia, but while the reception they received here was euphoric throughout, it was not a vintage display by any means. It's just as well the crowd was in full voice, because the band's sound was dreadfully quiet. Instead of big, bolshy anthems being powered out, we had something that was akin to listening to a cassette through a malfunctioning ghetto blaster in 1984.
Frontman Van McCann was consistently inaudible, and the music itself never reached a level of being noisy enough to satisfy. It also spotlighted another issue, that some of the group's tunes are extremely formulaic, veering close to those forgettable Britpop bands best left behind in the late 90s. With the sound so quiet, anything under the surface was washed away.
It was unfortunate, because McCann is a bouncy presence who can work a crowd well, and wasn't overawed in the slightest. Asa and Cocoon both had beefy chants and melody in equal supply, and they unquestionably write tunes that prompt mass sing-a-longs, while the set-closing Tyrants drawn-out outro nodded towards an epic arena finale.
It was a tune that finally possessed some power, instead of the subdued showing that had preceded it.
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