Photo Credit: Paul Harries
London alternative rock band Esoterica brought their Firefly Tour to Glasgow’s Cathouse earlier this month to showcase new material alongside some older tracks as they treated their fans to an hour of dreamy alternative rock which at times was verging on metal. We arrived just in time for tonight’s support band Skarlett Riot taking to the stage, the Scunthorpe quartet are fronted by the energetic Chloe ‘Skarlett’ Drinkwater who also plays rhythm guitar backed up by Danny Oglesby (guitar), Tim Chambers (bass) and Danny Oglesby (drums), as they entertained the fans that had gathered early with a set full of classy hard rock/metal tunes. Skarlett Riot are an established band with three albums to date – Tear Me Down in 2013, Regenerate in 2017 and 2021’s Invicta – where the ten track setlist would be taken from but there was still space for new song Lullaby, which was released at the end of March. Their collective onstage energy was a definite highlight of the set, with Gravity keeping the energy high as guitarist Oglesby screamed into the microphone. The fans that got down early really appreciated the music during Skarlett Riot’s forty minute set and we would definitely like to see them play a headline show. 8/10
After a quick walk around admiring the guitars on show from some very famous musicians at the venue, it was time for the main act Esoterica, as they took to the stage around 9pm, the set kicked off with two tracks from the 2020 album In Dreams. First up was Breaking The Unknown, a six minute epic full of delicious guitar riffs and synth and great lyrics “Try to forget myself, try to be someone else/Running from mistakes, those are the things of which I’m made” sings vocalist Tobias Keast, followed by Gone, keeping the energy levels up. Keast seems to have a close relationship with some of the fans as he heads out into the crowd for the first time tonight to greet and hugs some of the fans, which creates a nice feeling among the crowd. We would get to hear five tracks in total from the In Dreams album; a very popular release with the fans, with the title track of the album being one of the best songs on the fifteen track setlist.
Crowd pleaser cover version of the Delerium track Silence always goes down well at an Esoterica show and tonight was no different as the fans sang back the words to the stage, followed up by Humanity and EsO cover The Divide. New track Firefly was released on 22nd March and is the penultimate song of the night and afterwards the band left the stage to great applause but were soon back to play The Still which turned out to be the final song of the night. Sadly there was no time for the usual New Order True Faith cover. This was a very connective set from Esoterica tonight with all six band members working their socks off to create a great show for their fanbase. 8/10
Written by: Alan Brown
