LIVE REVIEW: Catfish and the Bottlemen, The Big Moon, Sundara Karma, Edinburgh Summer Sessions, Ingleston, 24/08/2024
Catfish are back! Welsh indie rockers Catfish and the Bottlemen reformed during the summer of 2024 after a three-year hiatus. After playing to thousands during sold out shows in Cardiff and Liverpool recently, it was now time for Scotland to experience the delights of the Llandudno band as this gig sold out far ahead of time. Incredibly this is the first Scottish gig Catfish have played since November 2019 when they played the OVO Hydro. After the success of the last weeks performances as part of Edinburgh Summer Sessions, organisers put on another great day of music with The Big Moon and Sundara Karma providing the support this time. DJ Dan South was on the decks playing a mix of dance and indie tunes as the fans slowly trickled into the venue, there would be at least 10,000 fans here today, we were in for a great night of music.
Reading-based band Sundara Karma were first on the stage tonight, forming in 2011 they have been a mainstay on the indie scene since then, vocalist Oscar Pollock led the band through a 35-minute set filled with anthemic indie tracks appreciated by the crowd all around us. She Said was an energetic start to the set, taken from their 2017 debut album Youth Is Only Ever Fun In Retrospect quickly followed by Baby Blue and Friends Of Mine from the 2023 album Better Luck Next Time. Guitarist Ally Baty is almost trying to seduce the audience with his performance on the six string, he is a man of many talents also providing the backing vocals and keyboards. Olympia is the most explosive track so far, we love the connectiveness of the four band members on the stage, next up was Loveblood, another track from the first album, staying with the same album Explore is one of the best of the set, the crowd response isn’t really the best for Sundara Karma, the average age down near the front seems to be under 18 perhaps making tonight’s gig more a ‘coming of age’ event. One Last Night On This Earth sounds like it could be a Cure song with influences of their music running through this one, the last song of the set was Flame, which was a great end to the set. This performance was well worth getting in early to see, Sundara Karma sound as good live as they do on the LPs. 8/10
The Big Moon took to the stage at 7.25pm to play songs from their three albums to date, 2017 release Love In The 4th Dimension, Walking Like We Do (2020) and Here Is Everything (2022). The Big Moon were formed in London ten years ago by Juliette Jackson (vocals & guitar), Soph Nathan (guitar), Cella Archer (bass) and Fern Ford (drums), Wide Eyes is a great start to the set and one of their most popular tracks. Here is a band with a very confident and relaxed presence that shines throughout, Piece Of Me is played to perfection as Soph Nathan shares vocal duties with Jackson while Don’t Think shows the true class of this band. The fans are once again quite subdued but they soon warm up the vocal chords when a cover of Fatboy Slim track Praise gets the crowd involved at last! Last song Your Light is the best of the set and their most popular with over 21 million streams on Spotify alone, this performance is everything you could possibly want from an up and coming indie band, A band oozing confidence playing a 45-minute set with vocalist Juliette Jackson shining throughout the performance back up beautifully by Soph Nathan on guitar, keyboards and backing vocals. Ironically as they played your light the sun was setting for The Big Moon. 9/10
Catfish and the Bottlemen were due on stage at 8.50pm but they are notorious for being late on to the stage. They played Leeds Festival the night and were at Reading Festival the next day so it wass certainly a full-on weekend for the guys who have also just announced two massive stadium shows for next summer at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in London and the Principality stadium in Cardiff. Is there a new album on the horizon then? We hope so. The band haven’t came up with any surprises since they came back this summer, not even playing their two recent releases, Showtime and ASA, the set seems to be unchanged. They took to the stage at 9pm to the sounds of The Beatles Helter Skelter, Van McCann gets the biggest cheer when he arrives on the stage like a long-lost friend, his appearance has changed these days, now sporting long curly hair reminiscent of Dave Grohl on the stage at times tonight. Joining McCann on stage is fellow founding member Benji Blakeway on guitar and touring musicians Kai Smith (guitar) and James Compton (drums) following the departure of Johnny Bond and Bob Hall in 2021. The 17-track set begins with Longshot from The Balance album and is a very energetic start, with a great crowd reaction, this is what everyone has been waiting for! They would play seven songs from The Balcony, kicking off with the superb Kathleen, McCann is a standout on this track, in fact his performance throughout the show is outstanding. He is playing like he has never been away, the guitar work on Soundtrack, Pacifier and Twice is memorable as could be seen from the crowd reaction, mosh pits were the order of the day down the front as just about everyone is singing along, what a blistering start to the set this wss!
The hour and twenty minute set was passing by too quickly with hit after hit from the three album releases keeping the energy high in the crowd, Sidetrack, Homesick and Rango were definite highlights of the set but the best was saved to the very end as extended versions of 7 and Cocoon were played to end a great day of music. You couldn’t have asked for a better crowd response to end the show, everyone left the arena with big smiles on their faces, a surefire sign that the performance was very special. After a gig in Dublin on 31st August the band heads out to Australia for a few dates before moving on to North America in October. We can’t wait to see what 2025 brings for the band! 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
