Photo Credit: Keerthana-Kunnath
Following the release of their fourth album Ultrasound in April of this year, London indie-rockers Palace began the UK leg of the tour in a freezing cold Glasgow in the west of the city just a stones throw from the famous river Clyde. Forming in 2012 they have had several successful tours already in the UK, Europe and North America and have built a very impressive fanbase during that time.
It may have been cold outside but the SWG3 venue was warm and friendly, there were already around five hundred souls in early for support band Chartreuse, founding members Michael Wagstaff and Harriet Wilson have been making music together since 2013, their sound is ambient dark-pop with some added folk, soul and even jazz and it works perfectly tonight. Michael’s brother Rory Wagstaff joined them on drums in 2014 along with bass/keyboard player Perry Lovering. After releasing debut album Morning Ritual exactly a year ago we would get to hear tracks mostly from that release, they set the mood nicely for what was to follow. The connectivity between all four band members was pleasant to watch especially between vocalist Michael and Harriet. This is actually the band’s second time touring with Palace and there is clearly a mutual respect between them, their biggest track to date is Keep Checking Up On Me with over 1.5 million streams … but this band are not just about one song! No, they take you on an emotional journey and the half hour was over far too quickly tonight, we must look out for them doing a headline tour. 8/10
Palace have built up a sold fanbase over these past few years and with four albums behind them they deserve all the success that they will gain from this UK tour, if the European leg of the tour is anything to go by then it will be very successful! They sold out shows all around the continent and have also played at Glastonbury (2016) and Coachella (2024). For those that don’t now Palace are Leo Wyndham (vocals/guitar), Rupert Turner (guitar), Harry Deacon (bass) and Matt Hodges (drums), the Galvanizers Hall is now packed out as the set begins with Cocoon and When Everything Was Lost, the first two of six tracks from the freshly released Ultrasound album. Wyndham immediately gets the crowd onside with his haunting vocals that are the standout from tonight’s show. This is quickly followed by So Long Forever; the title track from their debut album in 2016, looking around the crowd are listening intensely and gently waving from side to side. This was never going to be a night for mosh pits or crowd surfing but more of a shoegaze moment with a great appreciation all around for what we are hearing tonight, Rupert Turner on the guitar also provided lots of jaw dropping moments for the crowd to connect to.
When the set moves into a section of tracks taken from Ultrasound, we are very impressed with how seamlessly these new songs have managed to fit into their setlist, Bleach is one of the best of the set. While Son tugs on the emotions as Wyndham and Turner take the audience on an emotional rollercoaster with some memorable musicianship locking everyone in the moment, the chorus of this track is another standout as Leo sings the haunting vocals “Heaven will never be empty/Strange the way the silence falls/You never forget your twenties/Oh lord you must be hurting”. It’s not long until we get to hear Live Well, which is by far their biggest song with over one hundred and twenty-seven million streams on Spotify alone, picking the mood up amongst the crowd and prompting a nice sing along moment. Leo makes the stage his own during Holy Smoke which he plays acoustically but it’s Make You Proud and Heaven Up There that steal the show for us, the last mentioned is the best of the eighteen track set, taken from the 2019 album Life After. It is a seven-minute epic song that grabs you from the first second and doesn’t let go until the end, the crowd are right up for this one and just about everyone is singing the lyrics back to the stage “Is it heaven up there? Is it heaven up there? ‘Cause it’s hell down here” sings Wyndham, it is a goose bumps moment and provokes many questions around the stage of our planet right now. Taken from their first EP release Lost In The Night in 2015, Veins is a great track to end the set and sends everyone home satisfied with what they experienced tonight. 9/10
Written by : Alan Brown
