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Christmas comes but once a year and you can be sure that there will be a date with Gun at the Barra’s with the same regularity. This annual event has now become part of many a Christmas schedule in the Glasgow area and the hall was rammed once again for an evening with Gizzi boys.
This year was more of a mini festival to be honest with no less than three support bands in tow. Unfortunately, Empyre had been and gone by the time I got in the hall which was a shame. However, Gin Annie made up for any disappointment.
I have been keen to see Gin Annie for a number of years, but our paths hadn’t crossed until tonight and it was worth the wait. The band were in full flight when I entered the hall and two things were quickly apparent, the band were going down well and the sound was LOUD!
Frontman David Foster looked in his element and had a smile plastered over his face. The set was short in order to fit in all the bands within the curfew but Gin Annie made the most of their slot and by the end they got a heartfelt cheer and left the stage with a job well done.
Next up were Birmingham rockers King Herd. The sound was still turned up all the way to eleven and the band’s grungier sound struggled with the muddy mix. Again, their set was brief but it contained a few highlights especially their latest single ‘Halo’, which had a lot of airtime on Planet Rock, and ‘Remedy’.
Bass player Ray Loverock kept on his parka and beanie throughout ready for a quick getaway and it turned out that I had seen drummer Karl Brazil in action a few weeks prior to this in Glasgow playing with Robbie Williams, small world! The guys rounded off the set with ‘I Used To Be Somebody Else’ which was interspersed with anxious people in the crowd glancing at their phones for the final score in England’s World Cup match with France, the Auld Alliance was alive and well in the hall!
Once King Herd had finished their set and the football result was in the hall filled to the max for Gun. Following a video intro the guys took to the stage and opened with ‘Backstreet Brothers’ from the recent Calton Sessions album. I was hoping that the sound might improve for the main act, but it wasn’t to be. It remained overloud and muddy all evening and my ears are still ringing two days later as I type!
The sound issues did detract a bit but didn’t dull the enthusiasm of both band and crowd. A couple of the guys had been under the weather prior to this show which led to a few gig cancellations and tonight you could see they were still suffering. You got the feeling though, that it would have taken wild horses to stop them making the Barrowlands stage.
‘Something To Believe In’ from the band’s first album was next on the set list before things were brought back up to date with ‘Here’s Where I Am’ from the last studio album ‘Secret Pleasure’. Over the last few years Dante has really grown into the frontman role and the banter flowed all night between stage and crowd.
Dante, following the football result, announced happily that it ‘wasn’t coming home’ before playing ‘Coming Home’ and it turned out the Barrowlands was full of French supporters, what were the chances…
‘Don’t Say It’s Over’ and ‘Word Up’ both went down a storm with the sprung Barrowlands floor working overtime with a couple of thousand bouncing Glaswegians putting it through its paces. The band were on top form with Jools guitar work supplemented by the return to the fold of original guitarist Dave Aitken who stepped in to help out at the eleventh hour and did a sterling job. Another returnee was Paul McManus on drums who had sat out the first few shows of the tour for personal reasons but stepped up to the plate once again when required.
‘Money To Burn’ and ‘Watching The World Go By’ both went down well and from there the setlist went into full on party mode with hit after hit to keep everyone dancing and singing along. It’s easy to forget how many crowd pleasers are in the Gun arsenal. The likes of ‘Better Days’, ‘Steal Your Fire’ and ‘Inside Out’ are timeless, top notch rock songs that put a smile firmly on your face and encourage you to sing along.
The afore mentioned ‘Steal Your Fire’ rounded off the main set but no one was ready to leave the party. Jools and Dante then returned to the stage for a heartfelt version of ‘Higher Ground’ which was dedicated to their friend Fiona who had recently passed away. Dante was so overcome with emotion that the crowd were left to carry the vocals which they were more than happy to do.
We then returned to the band’s first album for ‘Taking On The World’, again with the crowd taking on the main vocal duties. ‘Shame On You’, complete with video footage of the band on the Rolling Stones support tour back in the day, raised the tempo and the temperature once more before a blast through of ‘(You Gotta) Fight For The Right (To Party)’ brought the show to a close.
This annual blowout at the Barrowlands has become one of the hottest tickets of the festive period in Glasgow, and rightly so. The band and the crowd loved every minute of the show as the smiling faces at the end clearly showed.
Even the sound issues couldn’t dampen the atmosphere, my ears were ringing for days and it wasn’t with Christmas bells!
Review and pictures by Dave Wilson
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