Still, you would have to be very stupid to pass up the opportunity of seeing El Presidente, Thirteen Senses, Razorlight and Faithless for free, and after watching numerous Beat 106 ticket winners being let in through the front door we were finally allowed in. Too late to see El Presidente, but early enough to catch the start of Thirteen Sense's set.
An early stutter was quickly rectified when Thirteen Sense's launched into 'Undivided', following on with two out of the three singles 'Do No Wrong' and 'Into the Fire'. Each time I see Thirteen Senses play their performances seem more and more polished; and today their new found experience was showing. The inclusion of 'Picture List', the b-side to Thru the glass was unexpected, but a welcome addition.
The band rounded off the set playing their new single (out tomorrow) The Salt Wound Routine, before moving on to the crowd-pleasing 'Thru the Glass' and ending on 'Automatic'.
Razorlight emerged looking undeniably pissed off. It was apparent that lead singer Johnny Borrel had a problem with something or someone, and that attitude was reflected with his stage presence. Razorlight's oddly short set lasted a mere half an hour. They played their back catalogue of singles, 'Vice' 'Golden Touch' and 'Rip it up' all proving very popular with the crowd. Borrel didn't feel the need to strip the whole way down to his chest this time round, probably because he didn't have time. The Barrowlands had heated up faster than a formula one engine and pints of water were fast replacing pints of beer.
'In the city' sounded superb but Borrel still wasn't happy. He appeared to be increasingly frustrated throughout each song and wandered off stage shortly after without even showcasing the new single.
There was an hour wait before the next band came on and I even had time to dodge the bar queues to use my last few coppers to buy an uncooked cheeseburger. It was well worth the wait though. Faithless appeared on stage accompanied by a blindingly atmospheric light show. The intro to Reverence has to be one of the best entrances I've seen at a gig. The shallow build up had the whole crowd moving together and the band pushed straight into Insomnia.
The sweat was streaming off everyone and I counted at least 5 times that I was hit on the head by a pint of something. But nobody seemed to care and Faithless broke into the memorable Insomnia melody that originally graced dance floors back in 1995.
The set started to sound like a greatest hits CD, but with all the energy, vibe and power that you could never transfer onto a disk. Bring My Family Back and God is a DJ were technically superb. Mass Destruction sounded completely different, mellower than I expected, with the emphasis placed on Maxi Jazz's imposing vocals.
They played 'What about love', 'Love lies on my street' 'I want more' and 'Miss you less, see you more' off of the No Roots album before closing with the epic 'We come one', which lasted for almost fifteen minutes. It's hard to decide whether we come one is a classic, an anthem or a masterpiece and it's not until you see them live that you realise it's just a mixture of all three.
Faithless closed their set at 2 in the morning, after spending more than an hour and a half on stage. I left the venue soaked through with beer, my own sweat and other people's sweat and wandered around in a post-euphoric 'we come one' trawl, just to realise that they don't run trains from Glasgow to Stirling in the early hours of Easter Sunday. Did I care? What do you think?
article by: Scott Johnson
published: 28/03/2005 14:00
FUTURE GIGS
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