CIRCA WAVES // BARROWLAND BALLROOM, GLASGOW
Circa Waves perform a stellar of a show at Glasgow’s legendary Barrowland Ballroom.
CIRCA WAVES
★★★★☆
Now on their third LP, Circa Waves have embraced new sounds on their recently released “What’s It Like Over There?’ whilst maintaining their straight-to-the-point style of melodic songwriting. The development has been interesting to watch from the jangly indie-pop summer album ‘Young Chasers’ to the angsty and forlorn alt-rock of ‘Different Creatures’. Because of this development, it became an intrigue as to how Circa Waves would reflect this in their live show. On Thursday 18th April 2019, the Liverpudlian quartet took to the stage for a sold out show at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom.
Despite being on the circuit for the best part of a decade, Circa Waves attracted a very young audience and an audience that were more than up for partying on a Thursday night. It didn’t take any time at all for the audience to be moving from front to back as the band came on to ‘Wake Up’: with it’s pounding hits and ominous guitar drone, it’s hard to imagine the band ever finding a better suited set opener. The band had spared no expense in being able to an excess of lighting racks and pyrotechnics into the ballroom venue. However, the lights were perhaps overkill at points with brief ecliptic moments of darkness before the stage blinded that audience once again. Hits from their debut album including ‘Fossils’ and ‘Young Chasers’ graced the opening part of the set as well as new track ‘Movies’. The highlight of the set was having an electric piano brought on stage for new single ‘Times Won’t Change Me Now’, which featured a pounding chorus and hook-laden piano riffs. However, the piano was immediately removed from the stage following the song and the traditional 4-piece indie rock band formation was resumed all too soon.
The boisterous crowd lapped up the rest of the set with intoxicated chants and energy fuelled mosh pits. It was hard for any audience member to move still, either because of the flow of the tightly packed crowd or in order to dodge the pints that flew from the sky every 5 minutes or so (it all makes for a great atmosphere though). Much of the set was dominated by tracks from their debut album including ‘Lost It’, ‘Get Away’, ‘Stuck in My Teeth’ and ‘My Love’. Songs such as ‘Fire That Burns’ and ‘Stuck’ let the band show off their heavier side with surprisingly only 3 cuts from their new album being present in their set. Despite their undeniably tight and high energy performance, it was perhaps disappointing not to see the band push the same sonic boundaries on stage. It also seemed out of place to predominantly feature tracks from their debut album considering the band have since developed from this sound. However, none of this detracts from the gleaming quality of their sing-a-long hits, with (almost) no drop in energy in what seemed a short but hard-hitting set of back-to-back bangers. Set closer T-shirt weather united the crowd in chanting, “It’s gonna be okay”, bestowing high hopes for the summer months to come.
SETLIST: | CIRCA WAVES : BARROWLAND BALLROOM, GLASGOW - 18.04.2019
Wake Up
Fossils
Movies
Get Away
Times Won’t Change Me
Stuck
My Love
Stuck in My Teeth
Be Somebody Good
Young Chasers
Lost It
Goodbye
Fire That Burns
ENCORE:
The Way We Say Goodbye
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