LIVE REVIEW: Greywind, Without Trust, The Jungle Cats, Audio, Glasgow, 06/02/2024
Greywind are back! After a self-imposed career hiatus they came back at the end 2023 with two new releases; Antidote in November followed by January’s release Swing and Sway. Fresh from supporting As December Falls, they headed out on two headline dates with one of these being in Glasgow and the other in London. The Killarney-based brother and sister duo Steph and Paul O’Sullivan brought their alt-emo sound to Glasgow for the first time as headliners and they didn’t let us down.
There were two support bands on the bill tonight, first up The Jungle Cats; a rock band from Dundee entertained the audience with a seven track set which went down well with the half full Audio venue. They saved their best songs until last when they played Found followed by their latest release Suffocate. 6/10
Edinburgh rockers Without Trust have only released three tracks to date, the best of which was Sunflowers; a deeply touching song to sing for the vocalist as he told the story about how the song was written about a relative that suffered the effects of alcoholism and later sadly passed away. We are seeing a lot of bands opening up and having conversations around mental health which can only have a positive knock on effect as it trickles down to their fanbase. The band played two covers, including Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi which prompted a singalong with the crowd. 6/10
Greywind took to the stage with the two guitarists and drummer dressed smartly in dark suits with a red cross while singer Steph was dressed all in red and the minute she threw her arms out and screamed Glasgow! We knew we were in for a good night. It’s hard to believe it has been seven years since the release of the bands debut and only album Afterthoughts. The set opened with Car Spin from the aforementioned album, quickly followed by Forest Ablaze with the powerful lyrics “An angel wakes me/Rids the burden of a hangman’s fate” and a good proportion of the room singing along. Guitarist Paul takes the lead during Safe Haven pulling out some incredible riffs while Steph tries hard to keep the crowd tapping along. Unfortunately it felt like it was a quiet crowd tonight but this didn’t bother Greywind. It wasn’t long until we got to hear the first of three new tracks, You’re My Medicine, which was appreciated all round and was closely followed by Glimmer, which Steph revealed was receiving its live debut tonight.. January release Swing and Sway is a deeply personal track written by Paul about a dark period in sister Steph’s life and it is a very brave and courageous subject to write a song about. The song itself was one of the highlights of the night alongside Afterthoughts, the final track of the night which saw Steph encouraged to come out into the crowd for a jump around.
A few years ago Greywind announced that they wouldn’t be releasing another song until they had bought the rights back to their Afterthoughts album after an issue with their record company, which thankfully has now been resolved. Five recent/new tracks were played tonight which proves that the band are now moving forward with added confidence and building a bigger fanbase in the process. For a band playing their first headline show in Glasgow this was a connective set appreciated all round as seen at the end of the set when they were met with a rapturous applause. As well as new music we hope that Greywind will be announcing an extensive headline tour for 2024, it will go down a treat. 8/10
Written By: Alan Brown
