Concert Review: Glasvegas @ The Troubadour (1.14.08)

By Travis Woods

Photography by Simon Ellison-Burns

Scottish shoegazers Glasvegas brought their heavily buzzed-about hotwiring of Jesus and Mary Chain noise with ’60s girl-pop swing to the Troubadour Wednesday night, along with the massive thundercloud of looming expectation that comes with being one in a seemingly endless series of bands to receive feverish and omnipresent praise from the U.K. music press. And while Glasvegas carries with them the trappings of just about every JAMC-influenced buzz band in recent memory (skintight black clothes swathed in the vintage scruff of ’80s-styled leather jackets, Wall of Squall guitar explosions, and the same stolid drumbeat on nearly every song), what keeps those trappings (and the hype) from simply overwhelming the band is what appeared at the Troubadour in glorious abundance–the songs.

The nicotine-thin band members led the audience on an Spector-soaked aural journey that crisscrossed from Beach Boys pop to JAMC implosions, from the Shangri-La’s swoons to U2 bombast, with a series of songs by turns cathartic, wrenching and howling. The screaming chime of hit single “Geraldine” was the obvious standout, a floor-rattling (though the leg-stomping capacity crowd deserves some credit on that one) anthem of Edge-heavy guitar shimmers and lyrical tributes to dedicated fans; elsewhere, the encore closer, “Daddy’s Gone,” let a muddy and chest-caving bassline snake its way throughout vintage ’50s radio pop, highlighting the refreshing fact that a modern band’s record collection can extend beyond ’80s shoegaze or dance-rock.

While the youthful band still has a few kinks of immaturity to work out–the concert’s back half ground down to a series of down-tempo dirges unwisely grouped together; the clunker “Fuck You, It’s Over”’s chorus, which repeats the title over and over, came off as more sophomoric than wounded or defiant–they can all be forgiven as rookie mistakes in the face of the band’s sheer talent for rousing, empathetic pop scuffed and scraped by Creation Records noise. Whether or not that makes them worth the gargantuan U.K. hype isn’t yet clear; however, as far as a Wednesday night drive to the Troub goes, Glasvegas was more than worth it.

Glasvegas will be performing this evening at Amoeba Records in Hollywood.

January 15, 2009 | Filed Under Concert Reviews, Exclusive Features 

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2 Responses to “Concert Review: Glasvegas @ The Troubadour (1.14.08)”

  1. Glasvegas played the Troubadour in LA 1/14 Review + Videos | The Audio Perv on January 16th, 2009 3:24 pm

    [...] will be up soon). They played the Troubadour the other night in Los Angeles and here’s a review from Web In Front and some videos from the [...]

  2. Concert Review: Glasvegas @ The Troubadour (1.14.08) : web in … - Rock Music News and Videos on January 18th, 2009 11:42 am

    [...] post: Concert Review: Glasvegas @ The Troubadour (1.14.08) : web in … Some Related Stuff… WORLD IN MOTION 20th Century Masters: The Best of Alternative 80’s [2004] [...]




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