Pent-up energy and emotion unleashed
Twilight Sad & Kathryn Joseph
Barrowland, Glasgow
Emotions ran high at Barrowland at the weekend – a mixture of pent-up post-lockdown energy and grief for passed peers.
Also, in Kathryn Joseph’s case, sheer excitement at making her Barrowland debut, even though this was manifest in the dark whispers and fragile quavers of her piano balladry, and her Tori Amoslike eyeballing of the audience. “You don’t need to listen,” she told the audience. It felt like you did.
The soothing chime of Fender Rhodes added a warmth to older songs, softening the quiet intensity of Tell My Lover, but there was no diluting her tribute to the late Beldina Ondenyo Onassis, aka Heir of the Cursed, whose final public performance at the 2021 Scottish Album of the Year Awards was one of Joseph’s songs.
She returned the gesture by closing her set with A Way From Rage, forged in the same spirit as her own self-comforting laments.
There was extra peril for Twilight Sad, who were down two members for logistical and personal reasons. Grant Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit deputised on drums, a musically and emotionally powerful reminder of his late brother Scott, while Alex Mackay from Mogwai more than covered on distorted gothic guitar.
Frontman James Graham, meanwhile, embodied theshow-must-go-on attitude by singing through throat troubles in a notably ragged tone which only seemed to light a fire under his performance.
There was no detriment to his vocal on the slowburn It Never Was the Same, and Graham made it to the end of the set with voice intact.
But their epic pummelling of Frightened Rabbit’s Keep Yourself Warm tipped him over the edge.
"I’ve missed this so much," he declared, his voice cracking with emotion this time before dedicating And She Would Darken the Memory to Scott Hutchison as his brother drove the song to an almighty crescendo under blinding lights.