All Hallows Eve in Glasgow and the streets were filled with orange jumpsuited convicts, pirates and zombies… so no change there then from any other night… Who can really tell anyway? The post apocalyptic wasteland that is Sauchiehall Street these days looks like the Zombie apocalypse has already come to pass. Anyway, having fought my way through the hordes of the undead I made it to Scottish Music Collective’s sold out Halloween spooktacular in Nice n Sleazy, a fearsome four band bill headlined by the unstoppable force that is Sister Madds.
Before the headline act we were treated to a smorgasbord of diverse bands in the shape of Naked Actress, Vigilanti and Sean Choon & the Prawn Monsoon. The night opening in style with the smooth soul funk sounds of Sean Choon leading the charge from behind his drum kit. Naked Actress followed with their hard-edged rock sound which included elements of stoner rock and punk attitude and projected the bombast of Muse (but without the irritating ego of their hideous little mysoginistic frontman), the high energy rock continued with Vigilanti who injected some bass heavy funk rock energy while channelling Limp Bizkit and instigating a near riot in the mosh pit. It has to be said they also won the night with their costumes… yes someone did say the B word three times…
It was great to see the bands supported by the sold out crowd which included members of plenty of other bands that are strong the music scene alight… Junk Pups, Pedalo and Martha May and the Mondays to name a few. Talking of bands taking the current music seen by storm, special mention must go to the group dressed as local heroes Soapbox.
The sisterhood joined the fray with all four blokes in the band dressed (in)appropriately in nuns habit’s (though McKenzies didn’t last for the whole set…) with chief Sister, Madds herself also wearing a “nuns” outfit, it should be noted though it was maybe more akin to that of a dominatrix keeping the boys in check and probably causing centuries of priests to turn in their graves…
Their celebratory set was delivered with a riotous and unabashed joie de vivre and with the usual aplomb and musicianship. McKenzie wrangled his guitar like a whirling dervish, while Maddie rampaged into the crowd. Even Fraser with his usual coolness and je ne sais quoi was seemingly taken over by the spirits of Halloween losing his shit like Jarvis at the Brits.
The set itself was short but sweet, with all the crowd pleasers in place, Room 601 made an early appearance, and they injected plenty of celebratory Halloween surprises, a smidgeon of the Monster Mash, their party cover of Girls Aloud’s Sound of the Underground and a new song with an appropriate title for the date of its first public airing, Purgatory. The set finished with a n incendiary double whammy of Can’t Read Your Lips and the raucous finale of Hot & Bothered which left the seething mass of bodies feeling just that and begging for more…
If that has whetted your appetite for more Sister Madds, and you’re lucky enough to be heading to see Walt Disco at the end of the month, make sure you get along early to get the party started…