Photo Credit: Ewan Ogden
The day had finally arrived for the opening night of The Lathums’ Matter Does Not Define Tour and what a place to start any tour: two nights under the lights of the iconic Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom, a venue that has developed an incredible reputation for live gigs over the years, the place just oozes energy and history. Matter Does Not Define peaked at number three in the UK album charts and the fans were excited to hear the new songs from the release.
The Lathums always bring decent support bands and tonight is no different as Scottish lads Vida take on that mantle for both Scottish shows, we think it is more important than ever for more established bands to support the up-and-coming artists. Hailing from Alloa, Clackmannanshire Vida are a band we caught live a couple of years ago just around the corner at Saint Luke’s supporting Andrew Cushin so we already knew how good these guys are. The five-piece worked through a half-hour that was appreciated all around, highlights of the set for us would be Take It Easy and Fade Away. 7/10
Glasgow has supported The Lathums right from the start and it was a nice gesture to begin the tour here, the Wigan quartet took to the stage at 9pm to a wall of noise and they surely must have been taken aback by the welcome they received from the passionate crowd. They wasted no time as the set began with No Direction, the first nine tracks from the Matter Does Not Define album followed by Say My Name and Leave No Stone Unturned, another new one being played live for the first time. The famous spring loaded floor is already doing its job, this old venue really never lets you down and we hope that this place stays the same forever, we have bass player Matty Murphy on our side of the stage and we have to say he is looking cool, calm and collected, since replacing Johnny Cunliffe a couple of years ago he has seamlessly blended into the band. We were surprised to hear This Place o’ Yours in the set tonight and it is sounding as good as ever while Heartbreaker from the latest album is one of the best of the twenty one track set, Alex Moore on vocals and rhythm guitar is taking it all in his stride, very little chat with the usual ‘thank you, very, very much’ after each song finishes being the most we hear from him … the band are letting the music do all the talking.
The Great Escape is one of those songs that beg to be sang back to the stage which the fans do in unity, the noise levels are turned up a notch for this one and is a special moment for the fans to take away. Alex Moore wrote Struggle around the death of his Dad and is always a very emotional moment, Alex then becomes the solitary figure on the stage as he plays two acoustic numbers, firstly How Beautiful Life Can Be, a song where he famously did a duet with The Killers vocalist Brandon Flowers during a tour a couple of years ago followed by All My Life, their only number one single to date, the crowd singalong is once again unreal. As the rest of the band reappear on stage we get live debuts for Dynamite and The Jester, even though the album only came out a couple of weeks ago the crowd seem to know all the words already proving how much The Lathums are revered in these parts. Lucky Bean and Foolish Parley are sounding as fresh as ever followed by the excellent I See Your Ghost, with the Ska influences helping to keep the crowd involved, Scott Concepcion on guitar is a standout throughout the performance, there’s not much interaction between the bands members, they seem fully focused on playing the music. Fight On is by far their most streamed song now approaching something like twenty million streams and is the best of the set tonight, this track has become iconic for the band and from the first note the crowd are exploding with joy and just about every person in the venue is screaming back the lyrics to the stage.
The band leave the stage allowing us all to get our breath back for the three song encore, Long Shadows has quickly become a personal favourite from Matter Does Not Define, it is a six-minute epic this is sure help push the band on to a wider audience, with this being the live debut of the song we are so impressed with how it sounds tonight. The same can be said of the next track Stellar Cast, this one is also receiving a lot of attention. We always know what the last song will be during any Lathums show: Sad Face Baby is a track they have been playing live for well over two years now and was unreleased until the second album, the opening bass lines from Matty Murphy are recognised immediately by the fans. It gives us all one last chance to empty our lungs ending what has been a fantastic night of music with Alex Moore stating the rest of the tour has a lot to live up to now, the standard has been set! We wouldn’t be surprised to see The Lathums book the OVO Hydro during the next tour, they totally deserve all the success that is coming their way. 10/10
Written by: Alan Brown
