Up and coming Manchester indie band The Covasettes headed up to Glasgow for the only Scottish date of their tour, this band have everything you could possibly want: great vocals and outstanding guitar riffs. They entertained the fans for well over an hour with an 18-track set at Stereo, a nice tight intimate venue just the right size for tonight’s band, and a sold-out show brought 300 enthusiastic fans here tonight. The tour is now completely sold out as the band proudly proclaim on their socials: “No label, no agent, no fancy team, just us grafting every day”.
There are two support bands tonight, both local to the Glasgow area. We only caught the last two tracks from Alesia and fifteen minutes later The Sketch took to the stage, their sound can be described as alternative rock with a pinch of punk and is a half hour set filled with tracks that would get the crowd moving, they had more than a few fans in tonight judging by the noise they were making. The highlights of the set were the New Order cover and All Along The Watchtower, a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s famous song, the intensity from all five band members during this track tells you that they love playing this song live. 7/10
The Covasettes music reminds us so much of fellow Mancunians Corella with the powerful lyrics and guitar work and the indie playlist blasting from the speakers proves this point. The four band members Chris Buxton (vocals/guitar), Matt Hewlett (guitar), James McIntyre (bass) and Matt Buckley (drums) take to the stage at 8.40pm to loud screams from the enthusiastic Saturday night crowd immediately making an impact with big hitting tracks Duvet Thief, Love In Polaroid, Sunstruck and Twit Twoo. It’s hard to take your eyes off these four guys on the stage, they have the crowd in the palm of their hands already with the incredibly energetic start to the set. New and unreleased song Rebound goes down well but it’s Plastic Gold that does it for us, some of the guitar work from Matt Hewlett during this one is incredibly memorable. Noah Kahan song Stick Season has been played at some of the other dates but tonight it is appropriately a Scottish artist that gets the cover treatment, Paolo Nutini’s song Last Request goes down well with this fevered up crowd, they are singing back every word to the stage with phone torches lit, it’s a special moment during a great night of music.
The big guitar tracks keep coming as She Is, Stung and Watching All The Good Ones Go are played and are appreciated by the knowledgeable crowd. Be Mine is the biggest song from the band to date and it lands well with the Glasgow crowd who are singing every word back to the stage while the penultimate track Top Drawer is … well top drawer. Chris Buxton fires the crowd up for one last singalong as The Memory Chaser ends a perfect set, the crowd have been so good tonight and Glasgow has sent The Covasettes away knowing that they will return to the city as soon as possible. If you like bands with a big indie sound then The Covasettes are definitely for you, they are a band to keep an eye on for 2025 and we will be watching with interest. 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
