The addition of Phillip Taylor of PAWS to tonight’s show was more than welcomed, we’ve watched PAWS grow from playing support slots in empty venues to touring with some of indie’s biggest names, and the constant touring has turned Taylor into an incredible songwriter and singer.
Tonight, his set consists of acoustic versions of new PAWS songs, classic PAWS (yes, there is now such a thing), and a beautiful cover of Magnetic Fields’ ‘I Don’t Want To Get Over You’, his voice is on impeccable form tonight; a great opener for the show.
Everything about tonight just seems perfect – the weather, the people, the line up, and of course the venue; Cottiers, a converted church nestled in the quiet, leafy, west end of Glasgow is incredible and Scott Hutchison (of Frightened Rabbit playing under his solo handle Owl John) makes a point of letting the crowd of much he adores it, saying what every music lover in the city thinks – it’s a grossly underused venue for music, perhaps, though, this adds to its charm.
Hutchison tells the crowd what the deal is after opening up with one of only two released Owl John songs, ‘Hate Music’, he’ll choose one song and then he is open to suggestions from the crowd, and the set will mainly consist of Frightened Rabbit songs, rather than simply playing Owl John songs nobody has actually heard yet.
Straight from this the crowd starts shouting suggestions at Hutchison, which mainly consists of people just shouting ‘Snake’, Hutchison agrees to this only if the crowd buys him strong alcohol.
At times, the venue is completely silent, Hutchison’s voice and sole electric guitar encapsulates the audience into a sense of awe; the only sound other than the music is the ringing of the cash register from crowd members buying drinks for Hutchison.
This sums up the atmosphere, the sun is shining, everybody is in a good mood, and this turns into a half music gig and half comedy gig, with Hutchison joking with the crowd, and vice versa.
The set is a strong mix between new and old Frightened Rabbit songs after Hutchison ends the Owl John songs with ‘Red Hand’.
As he makes his way through classic Frightened Rabbit songs he finishes tonight’s set with ‘Old Old Fashioned’, and finally giving the crowd what they’ve been asking for all night and coming back to the stage for an encore to play ‘Snake’.
The crowd welcome the new songs, and this settles Hutchison’s qualms about whether or not anybody will actually like the Owl John music, from the introduction tonight’s it’s easy to tell the songs will have a great reception within a bigger audience.
Words: Joshua Campbell
Photos: Vito Andreoni
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