Photo Credit: Tom Mitchell
London-based instrumental quartet Los Bitchos brought the energy to a very unique and suitable venue in Glasgow, playing the old church of Saint Luke’s, a venue with a reputation as having some of the best acoustics in the city. They took off when their first album Let The Festivities Begin! was released in February 2022 under the guidance of Alex Kapranos, he of Franz Ferdinand fame and this led to appearances at major festivals including Glastonbury and Coachella. All corners of the world are represented in a band made up of Australian Serra Petale (guitar), Swede Josefine Jonsson (bass), Uruguayan Agustina Ruiz (keyboards) and England’s very own Nic Crawshaw (drums). This blend of musicians has led them to develop a very unique sound with a mixture of genres from Latino, progressive rock, Cumbria and Turkish music … and it works so well.
French-American brothers Faux Real were tonight’s support bringing their blend of boy band shenanigans alongside some Confidence Man dance routines, the Saint Luke’s crowd seemed pretty impressed by these two guys. Virgile and Elliott Arndt played tracks from their debut album Faux Ever that was released recently on 11th October, the stage choreography was impressive as they moved around in cohesion, the only problem for us was … there was not a musical instrument in sight. Well that’s not 100% true, a flute did make an appearance from time to time but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. It wasn’t long before the duo were jumping the barrier bringing the energy to the middle of the crowd with high kicks the order of the day, the last song Kindred Spirit in particular went down well creating a great buzz in the audience with phone torches turned on all around the hall ending a very high-energy half hour. 7/10
The second Los Bitchos album Talkie Talkie was released on 30th August to great expectations from their fan base, and we would get to hear ten tracks from that release as the Talkie Talkie UK Tour entered the fourth night, they had played at Summerhall in Edinburgh the previous night. As 1980s Belinda Carlisle track Heaven Is A Place On Earth plays on the PA, the band take to the stage kicking off the set with Hi, the leading track from Talkie Talkie immediately setting the energy bar high as the crowd loosen up around us down at the barrier as the set continues with Tripping At A Party and Kiki, You Complete me. It’s hard to keep your eyes off these four talented musicians, on our side of the stage bass player Josefine Jonsson looks like she is having the time of her life while guitarist Serra Petale is nothing short of mesmerising showing off some great work on the six string. The backing guitarist Nic is the only man on the stage and he has guitar issues during Kiki, You Complete me but the ladies brush this aside proclaiming “It’s ok we will just continue without Nick,” which they do to great success.
It’s easy to see the appeal of going to watch a Los Bitchos gig, the set seems to flow from track to track seamlessly with a great blend of genres to keep things moving along, of that the few hundred in Saint Luke’s certainly did. As this was our first time seeing them live their music hasn’t been off the ear buds this week and we felt pretty familiarised with all the songs played tonight including the big fans favourites The Link Is About To Die, Pista (Fresh Start) and La Bomba but the new tracks that have been added to the set are already sounding great. Nic Crawshaw on the drums kept the energy going continuously as did Petale who swapped guitar for the bongo drums to the delight of the crowd. The night ended with a cover of The Champs’ track Tequila, the set lasted just over the hour mark and was well worth the trip up to Glasgow. “hasta pronto!” 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
