This must be one of the most exciting line-ups in Glasgow at the minute.
Pronto Mama has two EPs under their collective belt now, and with tonight’s performance we can only a hope an album is in the offing.
You’ve seen lots of it before; the skanking, the brass, the unadulterated Glaswegian vocals, but tonight there are also a couple of a’capella songs; poems, really, an expansion of the band’s range rather than a redefinition of their sound.
They thank the obviously devoted audience for their acquiescence, but it isn’t really an option – from the second the group announce they are be doing a couple of quieter songs, through each melesmatic line, the audience are enraptured.
The applause at the end is genuine, but the second-or-so of reserve a gentle appreciation of what had just been heard.
The headliners are Three Blind Wolves, themselves the subject of intrigue as to their next moves.
They alluded to this with a teasing “we’re working on a new album,” much to the crowd’s delight, before a measuring “are we? Yeah, we are – we just said we are, right?”
While another album of the calibre of 2013’s Sing Hallelujah for the Old Machine would be very welcome, their set is a fantastic shot in the arm for fans that might be wondering what comes next.
Truncated slightly by a technical glitch (despite Gibson’s best efforts, the beer-proof electric guitar seems a way off) they rattle through a mix of older and newer songs, each with signature energy; frantic, impassioned, driven.
The new songs seem more a replication of style than an extension of it in the style of, say, Pronto Mama, but that isn’t to say the band is stagnating or anything like it.
Sing Hallelujah bears repeated listens, and whatever their follow up is – if there is one – will be a welcome addition to their output on tonight’s evidence.
Words: Simon Jones
Photos: C E Chamley
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