Music, Style & Culture

Guillemots, The Classic Grand, Glasgow

Guillemots are a great live band and that is not a secret at all.

A “secret” show to mark the release of their third LP 'Walk The River' sees Guillemots play the relatively intimate surroundings of The Classic Grand. The faint hint of incense in the dry ice, the glow-sticks given out on the door and the bossa nova soundtrack that precede the show seem like an odd combination - rather like the band themselves. Classically trained Fyfe Dangerfield, fresh from the recent chart-bothering success of his solo album and cover of Billy Joel’s 'Always A Woman', is back in the fold with Brazilian guitar manipulator MC Lord Magrao, glamorous Canadian bassist Aristazabal Hawkes and inventive Scottish drummer Greig Stewart.

Fyfe is now hairier, more psychedelic than in his solo incarnation, he’s still got a jacket and tie on, but this time it has a candy coloured lining and lapel piping to match the giant coloured buttons on the front of Arista’s dress. They start quietly with oldie 'Little Bear', building slowly into the spacey noise of new song 'Tigers'. This pattern of mixing in tracks from their debut 'Through The Windowpane' continues throughout the set, but second album 'Red' is ignored.

Finger clicks replace the lost Casio keyboard which Fyfe thinks he left behind in a Caribbean take away shop, the a cappella intro grows into a rousing 'Made-Up Lovesong #43' which, by now, sounds resolutely like a classic. Three songs in and I abandon my earplugs to soak up the great sound in this venue; I remember why I love this band and shimmy my cares away. A drum thump intro heralds 'Walk The River' which, like their best stuff, has something dark lurking beneath its ostensibly sweet pop choruses.

Magrao’s guitar noises are a reminder of the elements that Fyfe’s solo record was missing: the gimmicks of old (typewriters and power drills among them) are gone but he’s still their secret weapon, hovering at the side of the stage, layering noise and producing insistent riffs. Their initial kookiness may have been absorbed into a well drilled musical confidence, but Guillemots still know how to hit you with a chorus; 'Vermillion' with it’s “Play on, Play on” refrain is an insistent and yearning case in point.

'If The World Ends' brings it all down with whale noise and then grows into a powerful ballad; a demonstration of the art of when to use a crescendo. 'I Don’t Feel Amazing Now' is introduced as a “depressing song” and, indeed, it is the flipside of the sunny joy of Fyfe’s solo output, but it rises above its initial conceit to become heartily uplifting.

'The Basket', the new song that stands out as being the one that would benefit most from some unrestrained live action, turns into a riff beast that sounds tons better than the version on the record. Live, Guillemots can be so effective that their records often suffer from the comparison. 'We’re Here' is performed acoustically, taken down to a folky murmur which quietens the audience, before subtly building back up as the volume increases. 'Trains To Brazil' is a fan-pleaser and Fyfe goes into knock-kneed overdrive as his feet reach for pedals under his keyboard.

Each member is integral to the sound of the Guillemots’ universe: Greig hitting a tin lid on the drums to produce a metallic sound, or Magrao whipping up a My Bloody Valentine storm for an ear ringing 'Yesterday Is Dead'. Our glow-stick moment finally arrives with the closing line, “If only we believed in someone”, a gentle terrace chant that is the closest tonight’s show gets to an ‘Elbow Moment’.

A curfew-defying encore and a barrage of requests drag Fyfe back to face friendly hecklers reminding him that their chosen song, 'Annie Let’s Not Wait', is in the key of C. It becomes a surprisingly well rendered singalong as, after all, this is a fan’s gig. He grins and bounds off stage, as pleased with his performance as we are. Guillemots are a great live band and that is not a secret at all.