LIVE REVIEW: High Vis, Narrow Head, Hellbound, The Garage, Glasgow, 16/02/2025
When High Vis announced this tour in July 2024 we bought a ticket immediately as we knew what to expect from one of their live shows: a lively show packed with post-punk punchy songs alongside a crowd that are right up there with the most energetic crowd known. Guided Tour, the bands third album was released in October 2024 and the fans were looking forward to hearing a few of the new songs live tonight.
We made sure to get down nice and early for the first support band in locals Hellbound, the frontman had plenty of energy to show as he worked the crowd well, watching some of the hardcore punk dancing was one of the highlights of the set as the crowd warmed up nicely for what was ahead. We didn’t even know that Hellbound were playing until they took to the stage so didn’t have much chance to check their music out pre-gig but what we did hear suited the hardcore punk style that are High Vis. 6/10
Narrow Head are a relatively established band back home in Houston with vocalist and guitarist Jacob Duarte being the only original member still active since the band formed in 2013, the three album releases to date – Satisfaction (2020), House Rock (also 2020) – and not forgetting latest release Moments Of Clarity that was released in February 2023. The music of Narrow Head can be considered anything from grunge, hardcore punk and shoegaze, we notice that the drummer Carson Wilcox is sporting a Teenage Fanclub t-shirt tonight so a good bit of local knowledge there. The guitarist on our side of the stage is the best of the performance, his work on the six-string is a standout for us. We are hearing lots of 90s Nirvana inspired grunge from Narrow Head but with three guitarists we would say its maybe one too many, sometimes it’s hard to make out the vocals for a few of the songs but still a great performance, Nodding Off and Ashtray are two of the best tracks played. 7/10
The show at The Garage on Sauchiehall Street was not far away from being sold out and we can tell you that it has to go down as one of the best nights we have had in this place, the hardcore punk fans were out in full-force tonight making it an extra special show. Although based in London, High Vis vocalist Graham Sayle is a Liverpool man and is joined on stage by Rob Hammeren (guitar), Martin MacNamara (guitar), Jack Muncaster (bass) and Edward Harper (drums). We saw High Vis play at the TRNSMT Festival in 2023 down at the River Stage where they delivered a great half hour of post-modern punk to the Glasgow audience, we were so impressed by their performance that we just had to see them again. After October’s third album release Guided Tour, we are lucky enough to be among eight hundred or so hardy souls that gave up their Sunday night to be here.
The set gets off to a flyer with Talk For Hours, taken from the Blending album, the hardcore dancing/moshpits/crowd surfing begins at the first note and doesn’t end until the last note of the last song of the night Choose To Lose. Maybe standing down at the moveable barrier where the fans were exiting after crowd surfing wasn’t the best of ideas but it certainly kept it very lively down that side of the stage. It was now time for two tracks from No Sense, No Feeling album with Walking Wires and Altitude the songs in question. Sayle is giving everything he has to the performance as are the crowd with those at the barrier almost hanging over it when the crowd surges forward, we couldn’t have wished for a livelier start to the set. One negative from tonight is that High Vis only played four songs from Guided Tour, we expected way more than that, in fact the crowd would have been delighted to hear the full album! Drop Me Out and Guided Tour are the first two to be played from that particular album and they go down a storm with the very active audience. Mob DLA is one of the best of the set as Graham Sayle tells the crowd of his misgivings in dealing with the benefits system on behalf of his brother who has cerebral palsy and autism, this one is very close to Graham’s heart and he passionately speaks to the crowd over the length of the set on subjects such as mental health and suicide.
Forgot To Grow is a track that doesn’t feature on any of the three albums but is still greatly appreciated by the knowledgeable crowd. As we near the end of the hour long set there is absolute mayhem in the venue that celebrated its 30th anniversary last year as the big hitting tracks come out with Trauma Bonds, The Bastard Inside and Choose To Lose. Ending a pulsating set, during the last mentioned track Graham Sayle passed the mic to the crowd to sing the words ending the night on a high. We can expect High Vis to be playing bigger venues on the nest tour that’s for sure. After the UK tour they head over to the USA to support Militarie Gun. 10/10
Written by: Alan Brown
