Photo Credit: Misha Warren
Leeds alternative rock band VENUS GRRRLS are in the middle of their first UK headline tour and tonight it was a packed-out Garage Attic crowd that had the pleasure to witness the ‘Goth Girls’ in action, the 150 or so in this intimate venue were enthusiastic throughout making so much noise that you would have thought there were 500 in the room. We saw VENUS GRRRLS at Sound City in Liverpool in May and at the Y Not Festival in August and were very impressed with their performances.
Dundee alternative rock band Dopamine were the support for tonight, a band who have only been making music since 2022 and met before that when they were studying at Perth University, they are not short on ambition and released their album Deficiency in June 2023. We arrived just as they were taking to the stage and would get to hear half an hour of tracks from the album as a decent sized crowd had built up already, with many of them singing the lyrics back to the stage creating a nice energy in the room. The three tracks that stood out for us were She Loves, Sorry and Sick Of You, it was a very lively set and they left a good impression on us considering we had only listened to them for the first time the day before. 7/10
The self-proclaimed ‘Riot Grrrls’ took to the stage at 8.30pm to huge screams from the crowd beginning the set with recent release Divine gaining a good response from the enthusiastic crowd. Singer Grace Kelly showed immediately how talented she is as the set continues with latest track Darla, the hooky guitar riffs played out well alongside the vocals. Bloodsick is a track that deals with the subject of someone going through a hard time in their lives and is a very emotional song for Grace. The energy emanating from the five band members is what was inspiring the crowd to be even louder, Eliza Lee on guitar and Hannah Barraclough on bass are doing everything possible to keep the crowd entertained. We are hoping that the two recent releases are going to be part of a debut album, VENUS GRRRLS have a decent following throughout the UK so why not?
Before playing the track Aries, Grace asks if there are any Aries in the crowd tonight and there is definitely a few including this guy! It’s actually one of our favourite songs and the set continued with Sudocream Queen, one of their best known songs. For us Glisten is the best of the set tonight, the singalong moments are special with Barraclough’s bass being a standout alongside the vocal range of Grace Kelly. Goth Girl is the last track of the night and prompts one last singalong from the young crowd, ok the set was maybe a little short at 50-minutes but we got to hear every song that we came to hear so we weren’t disappointed at all. We think that VENUS GRRRLS really enjoyed playing in Glasgow tonight, the crowd were the best we have seen up in the Garage Attic for some time.
Each night of the tour lead singer and rhythm guitarist Grace Kelly has put some time aside to ask fans to sign up to the Anthony Nolan Stem Cell Register, an organisation that is close to the band’s hearts. There was an Anthony Nolan representative here tonight and we hope that many of the young fans decided to sign up as Grace was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in 2022 but thankfully has made a full recovery, allowing the band to continue making music. 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
